Alumni profile

Trustly to Acquire Ecospend

Trustly to Acquire Ecospend
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Trustly
  • Sweden-based account-to-account payments specialist Trustly will acquire U.K.-based open banking payments platform Ecospend.
  • Trustly anticipates the deal will help accelerate its move into the U.K. market.
  • Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Global payments fintech Trustly announced plans to acquire U.K.-based open banking payments platform Ecospend this week. Trustly anticipates that the deal, which will close for an undisclosed amount, will complement the company’s account-to-account (A2A) payments platform and accelerate its rollout in the U.K.

The U.K. is a key geographical market for Sweden-based Trustly. The company set a goal to be the market leader in the U.K., and today’s acquisition accelerates Trustly’s journey towards that target. “I am delighted to welcome Ecospend to Trustly,” said Trustly CEO Johan Tjärnberg. “This is a perfect strategic fit and I am convinced that it will enable us to deliver a market-leading product in the U.K., allowing us to capture opportunities and accelerate our current U.K. expansion.”

Ecospend was founded in 2017 and is now a regulated A2A payments provider for the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Leveraging this certification, the company seeks to power open banking payments and financial data services. In the past year, Ecospend has processed over $6.3 billion (£5 billion) in A2A payments to over two million consumers. The company connects with 80+ U.K. banks, making it a valuable asset to Trustly’s A2A payments service.

“We will continue to leverage our market-leading technology and bank connectivity in the U.K. and, together with Trustly, broaden our capabilities to stretch across Europe and further markets,” said Ecospend Founder Metin Erkman. “We are really excited to join the Trustly family.”

Trustly was founded in 2008 and offers a simple A2A payments platform that doesn’t require the user to sign up, enter their card or bank numbers, or provide any billing information. From a merchant perspective, Trustly offers a card-not-present payments experience that provides a secure way for consumers to transact using their online banking credentials. The A2A nature of the payments experience is superior to traditional card payments because it offers stronger user authentication, higher approval rates, and guarantees payments with no risk of chargebacks.

A FinovateEurope 2017 alum, Trustly works with more than 8,100 merchants, helping them connect with 525 million consumers and 6,300 banks across 30 countries.

Photo by Christina Morillo

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Marqeta Inks Partnership with Embedded Finance Platform Alviere

Marqeta Inks Partnership with Embedded Finance Platform Alviere
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Marqeta

Modern card issuing platform Marqeta has come a long way since its Finovate debut in 2016. Back then, Marqeta was a six-year-old company, presenting the world’s first fully-documented, open API issuer processor platform, and emphasizing the company’s commitment to producing payments solutions that were “developer-friendly.” In fact, it was at Finovate’s developer conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2016 that Marqeta led a presentation “Democratizing Issuer Payment Processing with Just-In-Time (JIT) Funding.”

In the years since then, the Oakland, California-based fintech has forged partnerships with fellow Finovate alum Token (2017); with CashFlows, Visa, and Mambu (2019), with Mastercard, Afterpay, and Uber (2020) and, last year, with companies including Bill.com, Coinbase, and Square. The company also has raised more than $530 million in funding, and launched as a public company a year ago, trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker MQ.

Most recently, Marqeta returned to the fintech headlines with news of its partnership with Alviere. An embedded finance platform, Alviere is currently in the process of expanding across Europe, where it plans to operate as an Electronic Money Institution and Principal Member Card Issuer in the region. By partnering with Marqeta, Alviere will be able to issue branded cards to customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the U.K.

“Access to financial services is continuing to evolve, and consumers are constantly opening up to new ways of moving, storing, spending and saving money,” Alviere co-founder and CEO Yuval Brisker said. “For brands in Europe, and around the world, providing financial services means uncovering vast untapped opportunities. Embedding financial products under their existing business, products, and to their existing customer base, has quickly emerged as an important strategy for growth and customer retention.”

Marqeta’s platform supports issuance of both physical and virtual payment cards, as well as tokenization, card management, and fulfillment. Processing and settlement are also included, along with authentication and 3DS (3-D secure authentication), just-in-time (JIT) funding, and dynamic spend controls. Marqeta’s reliance on open APIs and webhooks enables institutions to create customizable card experiences, and seamless interaction with other applications, while providing visibility and transparency via notifications and card monitoring.

Alviere hopes to take advantage of what Simon Torrance forecasts to be a $7.2 trillion global opportunity in embedded finance by 2030. To empower non-financial brands with the ability to offer financial products and solutions to their customers, Alviere offers a suite of solutions including branded bank accounts and cards, global payments, payment processing, as well as crypto wallets and exchanges. The New York-based company’s partnership news with Marqeta arrives in the wake of Alviere receiving an investment of $70 million and the appointment of its first Chief Financial Officer.

“Financial services open up a new avenue of consumer engagement for brands and allow them to deepen the consumer experience massively,” Marqeta Chief Operating Officer Vidya Peters said. “We’re excited that Alviere will be able to allow its brand customers to build in new payments experiences using our platform.”

Photo by Maureen

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In a Remote World, Expensify Builds In-Person Perks

In a Remote World, Expensify Builds In-Person Perks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Expensify

Business expense management firm Expensify is in the process of beta testing a unique new feature. Though, it’s more of a perk than a feature. The Expensify Lounge is a chic new space in the entrance to Expensify’s San Francisco office located in the heart of the financial district.

The idea for the Expensify Lounge came about pre-COVID. Much of the company’s workforce was already working remotely, and the Expensify Lounge was slowly becoming a ghost town. To maintain the vibrancy of the office, the team decided to turn the office into “best co-working cafe in the city” by launching the Expensify Lounge, a cafe-like working environment that includes great coffee, great cocktails, and great company. Now that the pandemic is waning in the U.S., the Expensify Lounge is in beta testing this spring.

“We added a ridiculously over-the-top cocktail bar like you’d find tucked away in a Tokyo high rise, and put in an espresso bar even us Portland coffee snobs can respect,” described Expensify CEO David Barrett. “Then we paired it with our integrated chat Concierge to offer to-your-seat delivery, and then turned the overall furnishings of everything else up to 11.”

The newly-renovated space functions like a high-touch version of a co-working space. Expensify customers can work from the space as often as they like, as long as they like, with wifi, complimentary drinks, and snacks. During the beta test period, there’s no membership required. The company is especially encouraging early stage companies and VCs to come in and check it out and kick the tires.

If you’re in the area and interested in visiting the Expensify Lounge during the beta period, go to https://use.expensify.com/lounges and use the password “Finovate” when you arrive. If you’re attending FinovateSpring on May 18 through May 20, you’re in luck. The Expensify Lounge is just a 10 minute walk from the event venue, the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.

The lounge is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5p.m. and is located at:

88 Kearny St., 16th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108

After the beta period, Expensify clients can enjoy lounge access as part of their $9 per month Expensify membership. ” I guarantee it’s better than your office, or any office, and it’s designed to be a better place to work than any cafe in the city, too,” Barrett added.

A public company as of last November, Expensify is part of the fast-growing business financial management segment. The company’s flagship service is expense reporting, but it has since grown to add billpay, a travel concierge, and a corporate payment card.

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Fiserv Taps The Clearing House to Expand Access to Real-Time Payments

Fiserv Taps The Clearing House to Expand Access to Real-Time Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Fiserv
  • Fiserv is leveraging a partnership with The Clearing House to help its bank clients offer real time payments.
  • Banks that integrate into Fiserv’s NOW Gateway will benefit from real time payments in peer-to-peer payments, interbank account transfers, billpay, and more.
  • The partnership comes as the U.S. Federal Reserve announced pilot participants of its own real time payments system, FedNow.

Fintech solutions provider Fiserv is in the fintech headlines today for its move to help its bank clients provide real time payments to their end users. The Wisconsin-based company is partnering with The Clearing House (TCH), which is allowing Fiserv’s bank customers to access its Real Time Payments (RTP) network via Fiserv’s NOW Gateway.

Banks can integrate into the NOW Gateway, which leverages the RTP network, to offer their clients a range of real time payments services, including peer-to-peer payments with Zelle, payouts for gig economy work and insurance claims, interbank account transfers, and real time bill payments. Ultimately, the move will allow financial institutions to send and receive real time payments on behalf of their customers over the RTP network, which connects to over 60% of bank accounts in the U.S.

“To remain competitive, financial institutions must offer real-time payment capabilities. That’s why we are committed to making real-time implementation easier for any financial institution, from regional bank to community bank, to credit union,” said Fiserv’s President of Digital Payments and Data Aggregation Matt Wilcox. “Our work with The Clearing House to integrate the RTP network with our NOW Gateway is the latest advancement towards this goal.”

Founded in 1853, TCH clears and settles more than $2 trillion a day through wire, ACH, check image, and real-time payments. The company’s RTP network facilitates real time payments by immediately clearing and settling payments. In the first quarter of this year, the network cleared almost 37 million transactions totaling almost $16 billion.

Today’s news comes as the U.S. Federal Reserve’s real time payments tool, FedNow, began onboarding pilot participants. Fiserv is among the first 120 pilot organizations, a list which also includes Finastra, Green Dot, Q2, Square, Temenos, and Visa. The purpose of the pilot is to establish connectivity and perform technical and operational tasks that will lay the groundwork for full-scale, end-to-end testing later this year.

Fiserv most recently demoed at FinovateWest 2020 where it showcased its Virtual Banking Assistant, a tool that helps banks deliver intelligent, AI-driven conversational experiences. With nearly 10,000 financial institution clients, the company facilitates 12,000 transactions each second. Frank Bisignano is president and CEO.

Photo by Monstera

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Personetics Teams Up with Ecolytiq to Launch New Sustainability Insights Offering

Personetics Teams Up with Ecolytiq to Launch New Sustainability Insights Offering
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Personetics
  • Personetics launched its Sustainability Insights solution this week, giving consumers visibility into the carbon emissions of their spending and investments.
  • The new offering is made possible thanks to a partnership with sustainability-as-a-service company ecolytiq.
  • The launch of Sustainability Insights comes less than a month after the company introduced new proactive cash flow management functionality on its platform.

Financial data-driven personalization innovator Personetics announced the launch of a new offering, Sustainability Insights, to help financial institutions respond to consumer demand – and increasing expectations from regulators — for sustainable, environmentally-responsible, climate-aware finance. The new solution has been made possible courtesy of Personetics’ partnership with sustainability-as-a-service company ecolytiq, and will enable customers to see their own carbon footprint, as well as suggest ways they can reduce the impact of their transactions on the climate by pursuing greener spending options and financial objectives that are support climate sustainability.

“Personetics Sustainability Insights are the next evolution in sustainable finance,” Personetics CEO David Sosna said. “Beyond just showing back customers their carbon footprint, we offer them specific actions that they can take today to reduce their carbon impact, choose climate-friendly savings goals, and push the industry in a greener direction.”

Sustainability Insights offers consumers a personalized, holistic “financial map” that graphically shows the carbon emissions of customer spending and/or investments. The solution also offers personalized insights and advice, tailored to the customer’s financial profile, to help them reduce those carbon emissions. The recommendations range from the more modest, for example, transacting with a different, more eco-conscious merchant, to the more comprehensive, such as setting up a savings plan to pay for the installation of solar panels on a home. Sustainability Insights also leverages quizzes and feedback insights to enhance the accuracy of its recommendations. In a statement, Personetics noted that the solution is based on the company’s “four pillars of sustainable finance” strategy; namely, that the technology be integrated, relatable, interactive, and actionable.

Sustainability Insights is also designed to have benefits for banks and financial institutions, as well as for their customers. For one, Sosna highlighted the ability of the solution to improve customer engagement, and open up new opportunities for cross-selling. “This will create deeper relationships with banking customers and ultimately support banks’ ESG reporting,” Sosna explained. “Every financial institution can be a leader in green banking with Sustainability Insights.”

A Finovate alum since 2016, Personetics serves more than 80 financial institutions in 30 global markets, and reaches 120 million customers. An innovator in the field of financial data-driven personalization, customer engagement, and advanced money management capabilities for financial services, Personetics is dedicated to what it calls “the future of self-driving finance” in which banks are able to serve their customers’ financial wellness needs proactively.

Speaking of which, earlier this month Personetics introduced new “proactive cash flow management” capabilities on its platform. The offering is geared toward helping mitigate liquidity issues that customers face that often lead to overdrafts. Proactive cash flow management predicts 70% of overdraft situations, reduces the frequency of low balance incidents, provides personalized recommendations to help fix overdrafts, and helps enhance customer relationships with their financial institution, leading to higher customer lifetime value (CLV).

“Progressive banks all over the world are seeking new ways to help customers with their money management,” Jody Bhagat, President of Americas at Personetics, said when the cash flow management capabilities were launched. “By adopting a data-driven, personalized approach, banks can unleash their creativity in delivering tailored solutions and treatments that put customers’ financial wellness at the center of the experience.”

Photo by Lerkrat Tangsri

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Deserve Launches Commercial Credit Card Program

Deserve Launches Commercial Credit Card Program
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Deserve, SelfScore

Payment-card-as-a-service startup Deserve announced it can now empower its banks and B2B clients via a new tool, the Commercial Card Platform, that enables customers to add a commercial payment card offering to their product lineup.

“We are extending our digital, cloud-native, mobile-first platform from consumer cards to commercial,” said Deserve CEO and Cofounder Kalpesh Kapadia. “With this, we will enable any financial institution or platform that serves other businesses to embed and issue commercial credit cards. For non-banks, this can be a significant source of revenue and can enhance brand loyalty. Our platform will enable those who serve small and medium-size businesses and corporations to offer true credit combined with sophisticated expense management.”

Formerly known as SelfScore, Deserve has re-imagined traditional credit cards by transforming the application and onboarding processes, as well as the credit card itself by bringing them into the digital-first era. The company enables businesses to provide a white-labeled or co-branded card program made possible via a set of configurable APIs and SDKs.

The new Commercial Credit Card product helps companies, banks, and online lenders offer a white-labeled or co-branded credit card product for their business customers. The full-service card product offering will include underwriting, instant virtual card issuance, digital wallet provisioning, and enterprise controls that will enable management to track, manage, and understand business expenses.

Customers Bank, which is headquartered in Pennsylvania and counts $19.6 billion in assets, will be the first bank on Deserve’s Commercial Card Platform. “Together with Deserve, we are looking forward to offering an exciting and valuable product to our small business customers, combining credit with powerful expense management,” said Customers Bank President and CEO Sam Sidhu.

Founded in 2013, Deserve raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Visa last fall, adding to the company’s $287 million in total funding. Among Deserves investors are Mastercard, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Sallie Mae, Ally Ventures, Visa, Accel, Pelion Venture Partners, Aspect Ventures, and Mission Holdings.

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

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iProov Snags New CIO from Santander

iProov Snags New CIO from Santander
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, iProov
  • Biometric cybersecurity company iProov appointed Miguel Traquina as Chief Information Officer.
  • Traquina comes to iProov from Santander U.K., where he served as Chief Information Officer for Operations and Economic Crime.
  • The appointment was made possible by the $70 million investment iProov received earlier this year, which the company set aside to “rapidly build on its leadership in the United States.”

When it comes to C-level hires, there may be plenty of fish in the sea, but only a select few make the best catch. Biometric cybersecurity company iProov announced today it snagged a good one, landing Miguel Traquina as Chief Information Officer.

“I am delighted to welcome Miguel to iProov, as we further grow our business,” said iProov CEO Andrew Bud. “The scale and scope of our technology activities are expanding rapidly. Miguel’s extensive experience with financial technology for a major bank complements and extends our team’s outstanding capabilities, enabling us to innovate and operate on more fronts globally.”

Traquina comes to iProov from Santander U.K., where he served as Chief Information Officer for Operations and Economic Crime. He has also spent time working at Accenture, where he was responsible for financial services projects in Europe and Latin America.

Launched in 2013, iProov helps governments, banks, and businesses securely verify the identity of their customers. The company’s differentiating technologies include Liveness Assurance and Genuine Presence Assurance, which help organizations protect against spoof attacks, digital injection attacks, and deepfakes by ensuring that the online customer is the right person, a real person, and is authenticating right now. Among iProov’s clients are the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.K. Home Office, the U.K. National Health Service, GovTech Singapore, Rabobank, and ING.

Bringing Traquina on board is made possible by the $70 million private equity investment iProov closed in January. The company allocated the funds to “rapidly build on its leadership in the United States” as well as expand its international customer base, and grow its global partner network.

Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash

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FintechOS Unveils Accelerators to Enhance SME Mobile Onboarding and Lending

FintechOS Unveils Accelerators to Enhance SME Mobile Onboarding and Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, FintechOS
  • FintechOS has launched a pair of accelerators – for mobile lending and mobile onboarding – to enable institutions to support small businesses.
  • The new offerings are built for speed, enabling companies to lower account opening times to less than 15 minutes.
  • Headquartered in London and founded in 2017, FintechOS made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall in New York.

Digital banking and insurance solution provider FintechOS unveiled a pair of new accelerators to help financial institutions better serve their SME clients. The offerings, announced this week, support SME mobile lending and onboarding, and enable institutions to reduce the amount of time required to open a current/checking account to less than 15 minutes.

Calling SMEs “the backbone of the global economy”, FintechOS CEO and co-founder Teo Blidarus decried the “lending gap” that has kept many small businesses from being able to secure the critical funding they need in order to grow. “Our high productivity fintech infrastructure, digital and core financial technology blocks combine here with a low-code approach to help institutions close the gap by rolling out tailored financial services experiences at speed.”

FintechOS’ accelerator for mobile onboarding gives financial institutions the ability to implement a modern UX. This will enable them to readily configure both design and content, as well as journey sequence and product logic. The accelerator for mobile lending allows SMEs to access the financing solutions they need in minutes with an out-of-the-box loan origination journey that can be easily configured and requires no technical expertise. Both accelerators embrace a mobile-centric approach that allows small businesses to use their device of choice for both onboarding and financing, which will help lower abandonment risk during the account opening and lending process.

The launch of FintechOS’ account onboarding and mobile lending accelerators comes just days after the company announced a collaboration with digital transformation consultancy Tesselate Group. Together, the two companies will work to bring innovative lending solutions and strategic planning to financial institutions. The partnership will focus on product verticals including digital journey accelerators, ecosystem connectors, and lean core components.

“We’re on a mission to enable companies to build innovative financial services and products at the speed the market requires,” FintechOS VP of Ecosystem Todi Pruteanu said. “Our ecosystem is fundamental to achieving this objective, and FintechOS is investing significantly to build an industry-leading partner infrastructure.”

In February, FintechOS forged a global partnership agreement with fellow Finovate alum Onfido. The pact integrates Onfido’s identity verification solution into FintechOS’ customer onboarding, lending, and claims management journeys. Two of FintechOS’ customer-centric platforms for banks and insurers – Lighthouse and Northstar – feature Onfido’s identity verification and liveness technology.

Among Finovate’s newer alums, FintechOS demoed its technology on the Finovate stage for the first time in September at FinovateFall. At the conference, FintechOS’ Paula Costea and Steve Rooney demonstrated Sunglow, the company’s “super app for banking.” Sunglow enables consumers to finance and book vacations in a seamless, end-to-end customer experience that factors in every component of the lending and booking processes.

Photo by Pixabay

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Glia Joins Fintech Unicorn Club After $45 Million Funding Round

Glia Joins Fintech Unicorn Club After $45 Million Funding Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Funding, Glia
  • Glia recently raised a $45 million Series D investment round.
  • The round values the company at over $1 billion, making it a fintech unicorn.
  • Glia said the funds “will be heavily allocated toward research and development.”

Digital customer service tools provider Glia is now valued at over $1 billion, making it fintech’s newest unicorn. The company announced earlier this week it closed a $45 million Series D investment, bringing its total funding to $152 million.

Insight Partners led the round, which saw contributions from existing investor Wildcat Capital Management and new investor RingCentral Ventures. Glia will “heavily allocate” the funds into research and development, investing in advanced AI, analytics, messaging, voice, and video capabilities. The company, which has offices in New York and Estonia, also plans to boost international expansion.

“The future of customer service is digital, and those that have yet to take steps to modernize their support and engagement strategies are already behind,” said Glia Co-Founder and CEO Dan Michaeli. “We’re thrilled by our investors’ confidence reflected in the round’s valuation, recognizing that we’ve only scratched the surface of what Glia can accomplish. Our rapid growth and successful relationships with financial services companies of all types demonstrates the urgent need for Digital Customer Service. As we build upon a decade of innovation, this capital will further extend our reach and help even more businesses across the globe reimagine how they connect with customers digitally.”

Glia was founded in 2012 as SaleMove. The company seeks to reinvent how businesses support their customers in a digital world– an imperative tool in today’s digital-first economy. Specifically, Glia offers digital communication choices, on-screen collaboration, and AI-enabled assistance tools. The company has 250 clients across the globe, including banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and other financial institutions.

Glia has won 10 Best of Show Awards– an impressive feat. Check out the company’s latest award-winning demo from spring of last year.

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Onfido Brings its Identity Verification and Authentication Technology to Tesco Bank

Onfido Brings its Identity Verification and Authentication Technology to Tesco Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Onfido
  • Identity verification specialist Onfido has teamed up with U.K.-based retail bank Tesco Bank to enhance security of Tesco’s Clubcard Pay+ new account opening process.
  • Tesco made its Clubcard Pay+ offering available to all of its 20 million Clubcard members, following a phased launch that began in March of last year.
  • Onfido made its Finovate debut in 2018.

A new partnership between global identity verification and authentication provider Onfido and Tesco Bank will help secure the application process for Tesco’s Clubcard Pay+ customers. The security upgrade comes as the bank makes the new offering available to all 20 million Clubcard members, following a successful phased launch of Clubcard Pay+ that began a year ago with a limited number of customers and Tesco colleagues.

With Clubcard Pay+, Clubcard members will be able to pay with their Clubcard and earn extra Tesco Clubcard points wherever they shop. Using the Tesco Bank mobile app, users can add funds to their Clubcard Pay+ account from any U.K. bank account as well as ringfence their grocery spend. Additional features of Clubcard Pay+ include the ability to round up purchases to the nearest pound and transfer the difference to their Round Up savings account.

Courtesy of its partnership with Onfido, Tesco will enable customers to apply for the new offering directly from the Tesco Bank mobile app. All that is required is that applicants take a photo of their government-issued ID and a selfie. Onfido’s technology ensures first that the identity document is genuine, and then matches the image on the document with the image on the selfie. This establishes both that the person presenting the ID is the actual owner of the document and that the individual is physically present. The technology helps customers establish their identity anywhere and at any time, easing and accelerating the account opening process.

“By combining decades of banking experience with advanced biometrics and AI technology, Tesco Bank is now able to accelerate the account opening process for new Clubcard Pay+ customers,” Onfido CEO Mike Tuchen explained. “The innovative technology provided by Onfido underpins a seamless and secure application experience that protects customers and provides them with a streamlined access to Clubcard Pay+.”

Founded in 1997, Tesco Bank is the product of a joint venture between the Royal Bank of Scotland and U.K.-based supermarket giant Tesco. With more than five million customer accounts and £5.7 billion in customer deposits, Tesco Bank offers a wide range of banking and insurance solutions for the retail market. In addition to its new Clubcard Pay+ offering, the institution began 2022 with major changes to its C-suite, appointing new interim Chief Risk Officer Debbie Walker and new interim Chief Insurance Officer, Tesco Bank and interim CEO, Tesco Underwriting Gary Duggan.

London-based Onfido entered 2022 in the wake of what the company referred to as a “breakthrough” 2021. The company grew revenues by 90% year-over-year to more than $100 million and reached year-over-year growth of 134% in the U.S. Further, the company expanded its workforce by 50% to 600 employees to better accommodate increased demand for its services, this includes reaching 150 million in digital identity checks.

“Our strong year reflects the continued shift towards the critical adoption of digital environments where businesses are adapting to meet their users online,” Tuchen said earlier this year. He pointed to the $56 billion in identity theft losses consumers endured in 2020, adding “a fast, simple, and secure online journey is imperative when it comes to building customer trust, which is why we are continuing to invest in our workforce, technology, research, and development.”

Onfido has raised more than $188 million in funding from investors including TPG Growth, Augmentum Fintech, and Salesforce Ventures.

Photo by Antonio Janeski from Pexels

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Irish Postal Services Provider Taps Tink to Offer Money Management Tools

Irish Postal Services Provider Taps Tink to Offer Money Management Tools
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Tink
  • Open banking platform Tink partnered with Irish postal services provider An Post.
  • Tink will provide data and analytics that fuel An Post’s Money Manager app.
  • The new partnership serves as an inroad for Tink into the Irish market.

Visa-owned open banking platform Tink formed a new partnership this week that will bring its open banking capabilities to users of Irish postal services provider An Post.

An Post, which offers not only parcel and mail logistics but also financial services, operates a network of 920 post offices for its 1.5 million weekly customers. An Post offers many of the major services typical of high street banks, including current accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, loans, and a currency card that allows users to purchase and top up 16 currencies.

Leveraging Tink for data and analytics, An Post now delivers a Money Manager app that helps users track their income and spending, set budgets, and receive insights about how they can better manage their funds.

“The partnership with Tink is the next step in our transformation journey, to firmly position ourselves as a challenger to the banks in Ireland, and to give customers access to simple money management tools that will enable them to build their financial confidence,” said An Post Financial Services Director John Rice. “As the leading open banking platform in Europe, Tink was a clear choice of partner for us to provide the data and analytics that sit at the core of our Money Manager app.”

For Sweden-based Tink, the partnership with An Post serves as an important inroad into the Irish market. “An Post is in the perfect position to help simplify money management for its customers through the power of open banking technology,” said Tink UK & IE Banking Lead Tasha Chouhan.

More than 10,000 developers use Tink’s tools to help financial services firms leverage the power of open banking via a suite of open banking tools including income verification, payment tools, risk insights, and more. Tink currently serves 18 markets from its 13 offices and integrates with more than 3,400 banks and financial institutions reaching over 250 million end customers across Europe.

Founded in 2012, Tink is a two-time Finovate Best of Show Award winner, and most recently demoed at FinovateEurope 2019. The company acquired FinTecSystems earlier this year, a move that expanded Tink’s reach into the DACH region with a range of new customers including N26, DKB, Santander, Solarisbank, and Check24.

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Virgin Money Partners with HooYu to Boost Success of Customer Onboarding Process

Virgin Money Partners with HooYu to Boost Success of Customer Onboarding Process
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, HooYu

If making a great first impression is important, then Virgin Money’s decision to partner with customer onboarding and KYC technology specialist HooYu should make a pretty good impression of its own.

“Our smart digital tools put our customers in control and the HooYu journey helps our customers to successfully pass KYC where traditional name and address checks fail,” Virgin Money Head of Digital Customer Experience Linda Robertson said. “We chose to work with a regtech partner like HooYu because their platform enables us to easily build a range of digital onboarding journeys that are simple for our new customers to complete.”

A two-time FinovateEurope alum, HooYu combines a variety of KYC tools and technologies to ensure the success of the customer onboarding journey. This includes giving companies confidence that their customers are who they say they are. HooYu’s identity verification service leverages selfie capture, liveness detection, ID document capture and validation, facial biometrics, address proofing, and geolocation in a seamless process that reduces abandonment and increases conversions. Features such as dynamic customer prompts, white label customization, and flexible customer journeys help reduce friction and streamline the account opening experience.

Calling the emphasis on the digital customer experience an “obsession” with banks like Virgin Money,” HooYu Marketing Director David Pope said it was HooYu’s role to help these institutions “refine their new account journeys and achieve the origination goals.”

Virgin Money serves 6.5 million customers in the U.K. A full-service digital bank, the institution offers current, savings, and business accounts; credit cards and insurance; mortgages and personal loans; as well as pensions and investments. Originally launched as Virgin Direct in 1995, the company secured its banking license 2010 and rebranded as Virgin Money two years later.

“It’s our job to help banks like Virgin Money to orchestrate KYC services and easily configure and deploy with a great customer journey,” Pope said.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in London, U.K., HooYu began the year by leveraging open banking to support identity and affordability checks. The new offering, Bank Connect, enables users to establish their identity or affordability by logging into their bank account during the KYC process. With the user’s consent, Bank Connect provides identity, account overview, transaction, and card data. This information is analyzed, scored, and presented in a HooYu report. HooYu deletes all the user’s Bank Connect data once the client has reviewed the results of the report.

The technology is currently being rolled out to gaming operators, who benefit from the insights into customer affordability and use the information to make more accurate customer risk assessments. In fact, one month after announcing Bank Connect, HooYu introduced new partner MrQ, one of the U.K.’s growing number of online casinos.

Want to meet companies like FinovateEurope alum HooYu? Check out our FinovateEurope 2022 Sneak Peek series and learn more about the companies demoing their latest technologies next month at FinovateEurope in London, March 22 and 23.

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