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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Banking technology innovator Backbase and customer service solutions provider Zafinannounced a partnership today.
The two Finovate alums teamed up to offer Backbase clients access to Zafin’s technology. Specifically, Backbase clients can use Zafin to send their end customers highly personalized products and offers with pricing models that are tailored to each recipient.
The personalization element is a key differentiator. In today’s digital-first banking economy, personalization is a crucial element to customer retention and loyalty.
“This new partnership with Zafin offers our clients yet another way to build hyper-personalized experiences for customers while helping to break away from the legacy systems that have historically slowed the pace of innovation, and we’re excited to see our customers benefit,” said Backbase CEO Jouk Pleiter.
Backbase was founded in 2003 and offers solutions for banks to better engage with their customers. Today’s move is a win-win; it not only enhances Backbase’s offerings, but also provides Zafin access to a host of new bank clients.
The Zafin partnership comes after a heavy month of news from Amsterdam-based Backbase. The company began February with an announcement that it was selected by TechCU to overhaul its members’ banking experience, followed by partnership announcements from Banesco Panamá, Basis Bank, an National Bank of Bahrain.
It’s hard out here for a bank. Your clients are, to put in bluntly, getting older, while the world around you just seems to get younger and younger every year.
“You have to understand who your clientele really is,” Vincent Bezemer, SVP of Americas for Backbase, explained in a recent conversation for Finovate TV. “Let’s face it: most institutions have an aging clientele. And that is really not indicative of what the future of banking should look like. There is this digital divide.”
Financial institutions – from Tier 1 banks to the credit union around the corner – are all working to figure out how to bring a 21st century digital experience to their customers. We caught up with Mr, Bezemer, a technology veteran with more than a decade of experience innovating in the CX space, to hear his thoughts on what institutions need to do in order to not just keep the customers they have, but to attract, engage, and retain new customers, as well.
On the importance of self-directness and becoming the kind of bank that people love
“…(T)here is this need for self-directedness. There is a large part of the population – inclusive of all the demographics – that simply does not want to engage with a person and, if they engage, they want to engage on their own terms.
Supporting that self-directedness – and giving our customers, the banks, and the credit unions the tools to compete in an omni-channel fashion when it comes to digital – is key. The experience on mobile, web, should all be the same. But also the processes should be the same. Whether I’m in collection cycle, whether I’m in a self-service cycle, or maybe when I’m originating products, I want those experiences to be the same. And if I need help, the bank’s team member actually sees that same view that I do as a customer has seen and they can help me with as little friction as possible.
On balancing the unique innovation needs of Tier 1 institutions compared to those of community banks and credit unions
We approach both sizes of our customer base with the same principle that is that we are a platform. As much as Amazon is an e-commerce platform and Netflix is a content platform and Uber is a mobility platform, we really approach it from a banking platform perspective.
With our proposition, you can take the platform as is and build on top of that, which is what a lot of Tier 1s want to do. They have built everything themselves. They basically had unlimited innovation power. But they saw that 80% of their IT budget was there to basically keep their legacy systems afloat. They are now seeing that all of these non-functionals – whether its from an auditing or security or entitlements perspective. They say, “why don’t we just outsource that? Why don’t we just get a product with a roadmap that is supported by hundreds of thousands of people in the Backbase ecosystem, so we don’t have to worry about that any more. Then we can apply our resources to actually create the experiences and the innovations that actually matter in our competitive landscape.”
On the nature of personalization in banking
I think in financial services specifically, personalization falls into two categories: one, do you understand your customer? Do you understand the moments of truth that matter to that customer when they start engaging with you for a certain product? And this is where market data, behavioral data, any type of database you can procure can really help you have that understanding.
But then the second kind of personalization is really a “mass personalization.” Can you give your prospective customer – and also existing customers – the feeling that they can tweak the product ever so slightly? Because if you can, you are relating more with the needs of that person.
So you want personalization in the top of the funnel, driving them to the moment of truth where you want to be there for them. And then, subsequently, you want to understand how you are going to create that process so that the customer feels that you truly listened and that they can make those small customizations.
How’s $7 billion for good karma? One of Finovate’s earliest alumsCredit Karma is reportedly the target of what would be Intuit’s biggest acquisition to date. According to The Wall Street Journal, the cash and stock deal could be announced as early as Monday.
Credit Karma will continue to function as an independent company with founder and CEO Kenneth Lin at the helm. The acquisition gives Intuit, maker of online tax filing service TurboTax, another contact point with the online personal finance world. Credit Karma provides its members with access to their credit scores and borrowing histories, helps them monitor their accounts for security breaches and, perhaps most relevantly, has offered a free online tax preparation service since 2017.
If the deal holds up, Intuit will be paying a significant premium for Credit Karma. The personal financial wellness company was last valued at $4 billion, based on a 2018 private market transaction.
With another Finovate conference in the books, our Finovate Best of Show ranks has a new set of members. Congratulations to Dorsum, Glia, Horizn, iProov, Sonect, and W.UP for taking home top honors earlier this month at FinovateEurope!
The victory may have been especially sweet for Sonect, whose Best of Show award-winning demo was also the company’s Finovate debut. The Switzerland-based start-up offers what it calls “the world’s first social cash network” that enables consumers to access cash without having to visit a bank branch or ATM. Sonect offers merchants the ability to grow their business via increased traffic and gives financial institutions a way to extend their ATM networks without the cost of additional hardware.
The Best of Show win was also a first for Horizn. The company, which made its Finovate debut three years ago at FinovateEurope, offers a platform that helps employees and customers maximize the opportunities of digitized financial services. Horizn uses simulator microlearning, as well as gamification and advanced analytics, to promote digital adoption across channels.
And last but not least, a special tip of the hat to Dorsum, Glia, iProov, and W.UP, all of whom won Best of Show honors at FinovateEurope for a second year in a row.
Here’s a round up of recent news from our Finovate alumni.
Larkyenters reseller agreement with Access Softek.
Bison Bank in Lisbon, Portugal selects PSD2-ready software from ndigit.
OurCrowdexpands focus on growing early stage tech companies.
Finovate Alum Features and Profiles
eToro’s Evolution – Social trading and investment platform eToro has never been one to stand still for very long. The company’s development cycle is fast enough to make even the most sprightly fintech jealous.
Lending Club Snaps Up Radius Bank for $185 Million – When Lending Club was founded in 2007, the startup aimed to serve as a place to help borrowers avoid dealing with banks. In a somewhat ironic move today, that same startup is becoming a bank itself.
Backbase announced today the availability of its new managed cloud platform, Backbase-as-a-Service. The solution makes the company’s broad portfolio of digital banking offerings available to FIs looking to accelerate their ability to develop and offer new technologies to customers.
In their statement, the company depicted banks as challenged by not one, but two types of technologically-driven competitors: digitally-native neobanks and big tech-first companies that are beginning to develop financial products (“TechFin”). The problem of legacy, non-digital infrastructure, according to Backbase, is a key hurdle for most banks when it comes to “keeping pace” with the new digital services these rivals are able to offer. Backbase-as-a-Service enables FIs to develop their digital solutions faster, and to bring them to market without having to overcome their outdated infrastructure – or bear the high cost of replacing it with another on-premise system.
Backbase CEO Jouk Pleiter called the cloud “an exceptional tool” to help financial institutions transition to becoming digital first. “We believe the move to cloud is an unstoppable one, and one which every financial institution needs to embrace,” he said. “Our clients want the freedom to innovate and maintain their competitive edge, so launching Backbase-as-a-Service is the logical step or us.”
The technology will enable banks to take advantage of innovations in account aggregation, security and identity verification, personalization, and smart banking. Developers benefit from the option to use shared or dedicated Backbase environments, as well as multiple sandbox environments to support the development and testing of new integrations and products. BaaS provides 99.9% uptime, database backups and multi-zone redundancy, as well as end-to-end encryption for all communications. The solution meets regulatory requirements, including the ability to audit across environments.
A multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Backbase most recently demonstrated its digital banking platform at FinovateEurope 2018. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and founded in 2003, the company inked a deal with Payveris late last year to provide FIs with an integrated digital payments and money movement solution. With more than 100 FIs using its technology, Backbase includes Barclays, Citi, KeyBank, Navy Federal Credit Union, and Societe Generale among its customers.
Digital banking firms Backbase and Payveris have signed a partnership deal which will see the creation of an integrated digital payments solution, reports Alex Hamilton of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.
According to the two firms, their combined offering will enable financial institutions “of all sizes” to deliver “next generation” payment and money movement services.
“The banking industry’s legacy payment infrastructures are increasingly fragmented, inflexible, costly, and difficult to integrate with,” the companies write in a press release.
“Backbase’s raison d’être is clear: to develop and deliver efficient, effective tools that help financial institutions accelerate their digital transformation and provide superior digital experiences for customers,” said Jouk Pleiter, Backbase CEO. “By integrating the Payveris solution into our own, we are solving yet another pain point for the industry. Banks and credit unions have been crying out for a way to modernize and simplify their payments operating environments.”
Marcell King, chief innovation officer at Payveris, added, “By combining the power of Backbase’s progressive digital banking platform with the flexibility of Payveris’ open API MoveMoney Platform, you end up with a real wow-factor for a user interface, with functionality that delivers low friction digital money movement and management.”
At FinovateEurope 2018, Backbase unveiled the Customer OS in a demo that won the Amsterdam-based company Best of Show honors for the fourth time. Last July, the company teamed up with Jumio to deliver online ID verification services and in December the company partnered with Polish bank BGŻ BNP Paribas Bank.
JumiolaunchesJumio Go, a real-time, automated identity verification solution powered by AI.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
NIIT Technologies’ revenue grew 16+% YoY, and its after-tax profit increased 2% YoY.
Scalable Capitalpartners with Futurae to add multi-factor authentication technology into its investment platform.
LoanScorecardgoes live with its Bank Statement Analyzer tool.
Bettermentadds savings and checking accounts to its offerings.
U.K. neobank revverbank to deploy cloud banking technology from Finastra.
CardFlightpartners with PAX Technology to make SwipeSimple terminal available to clients on the PAX A920 and PAX A80.
Australia’s Volt Bank teams up with FIS to power its mobile and card payment services.
Alterna Bank unveils its new advanced digital platform, Forge, powered by Backbase.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Backbase is named a leader in the Forrester Wave for Digital Banking Engagement Platforms for the third year in a row.
InCommbecomes exclusive distributor of Amex prepaid cards in Canada.
TradeshiftlaunchesTradeshift Go 2.0, a payments product offering that increases visibility into employee spending.
Gustopartners with Accelo to sync time-off requests from Gusto to Accelo’s real-time scheduling and resource management module.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Capital Bank of Jordan has signed for Backbase’s digital channels platform, reports Martin Whybrow of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
The Dutch supplier’s solution will cover both customer and employee digital channels across institutional and retail banking.
A key stated aim is faster time-to-market for new products. Capital Bank has signed for the full product stack based around Backbase CXS 6, which is the latest version, launched at the end of 2017, and comes with identity and access management capabilities. The deal includes the Backbase Entitlements component and DBS digital banking back-end services.
Implementation will be carried out by Backbase and one of its partners, Lisbon-based Bring Global. The system will be deployed on the cloud and will integrate with the bank’s core system and other applications. The bank is a long-standing user of Temenos’ T24, which has its own digital channel offering.
Capital Bank’s CEO, Ala Qumsieh, describes Backbase as “an ideal long-term strategic partner” for the bank’s digital transformation.
Backbase has a reasonable number of Middle East users. An addition last year, Lebanon-based Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL), included plans for a roll-out in Jordan.
At FinovateEurope 2018, Backbase unveiled the Customer OS in a demo that won the Amsterdam-based company Best of Show honors for the fourth time. Last July, the company teamed up with Jumio to deliver online ID verification services and in December the company partnered with Polish bank BGŻ BNP Paribas Bank.
Validis’ DataShare to integrate with Baker HillNextGen.
Insuritaspartners with Nymeo FCU to launch digital insurance agency.
SGX orders Ayondo to shelve planned disposal of unit.
TechCrunch reports: Coinbase launches in 11 countries with crypto-to-crypto conversions.
Jack Henry & Associatesrecognized on Forbes’ America’s Best Employers List for third consecutive year.
Flywireintegrates with TRUE North to connect the application, enrollment and cross-border payment and receivables processes to bring transparency to education payments.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
