Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • NuData Security Brings Behavioral Biometrics to Arvato Financial Services”

On FinDEVr.com

Around the web

  • Token signs memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Fidor Bank for digital payments.
  • PYMNTS.com interviews Nick Thomas, cofounder of Finicity, in the wake of his company’s latest funding round.
  • Aerospike announces 100% year-over-year bookings growth.
  • Touch Bank to deploy FraudNet, online fraud prevention technology from Experian.
  • More than 100,000 customers of Avanza Bank have used Trustly’s real-time deposit service since the two companies forged a partnership last year.
  • Dashlane joins two-factor authentication awareness campaign, #TurnOn2FA.
  • Cortera Decisions‘ credit scorecard capability is now available through Boost, its self-service tool that gives businesses insights on their customers and prospects.
  • TickSmith’s TickVault Big Data management platform is compatible with Thomson Reuters Tick History.
  • NIIT Technologies partners with a top-ranked retirement plan provider to manage their legacy systems.
  • Arxan Technologies wins six industry IoT security awards.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

FinDEVr Preview: Blend

FinDEVr Preview: Blend

FinDEVr PreviewsFinDEVrSV16-withdate highlight companies presenting new developer tools, platforms, and integrations at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, October 18 & 19. Tickets are on sale now. Visit our registration page and save your spot today.

Eugene and Nivi will demonstrate Blend’s thoughtfully designed platform used today by lenders and borrowers alike to originate efficient, data-driven mortgages. They will highlight exactly how the technology streamlines the data-collection process, and show how Blend accelerates what has historically been a long, painful path in the mortgage process.

screen-shot-2016-10-12-at-10-00-48-am
Why it’s a must-see

Modernizing a $10+ trillion industry that runs on paper and fax machines is no simple task. In this presentation, attendees will get a peek beneath the hood of Blend’s platform, learning how the company’s engineers employ everything from containers to computer vision to overhaul the mortgage process.


Check out more of today’s FinDEVr Previews:

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • IBS Journal Interviews David Mitchell, NYMBUS president.
  • Startland interviews EyeVerify CEO Toby Rush on hiring plans, global expansion.
  • PayPal and Vodafone partner to facilitate contactless payments in the U.K.
  • GreenKey Technologies begins rollout of new mobile app that will offer hard turrets through existing hardware and infrastructure.
  • nanoPay using Liberty Village as a working lab for its MintChip digital currency.

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.

Finovate Debuts: How Blend is Reinventing the Mortgage Application Process

Finovate Debuts: How Blend is Reinventing the Mortgage Application Process

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 12.15.12 PM

Blend, whose name stands for better lending, uses a two-pronged approach that benefits both lenders and borrowers. The San Francisco-based company offers mortgage lenders white-labeled technology to help efficiently originate loans while giving applicants the smoother user experience they’ve come to expect.

In the company’s FinovateSpring 2016 demo, Blend’s Head of Product Pranay Kapadia, speaking about the mortgage-application process, asked, “How do we make this financial, stressful transaction as humanistic as possible, so it’s as though you’re working with a financial adviser?” Kapadia went on to explain that Blend’s mobile-first design walks users through the mortgage-purchase experience by asking questions, offering contextual help, and learning about each applicant’s unique needs.

Company facts:

  • Founded in 2012
  • 80+ employees
  • Helped originate $6 billion in mortgage loans in Q4 2015
  • One third of Blend mortgage applications take place on mobile devices
  • Almost half of Blend’s applicants fill out mortgage applications outside of customer-support hours
Blend’s Alec Roth, sales, and Pranay Kapadia, head of product, demonstrated at FinovateSpring 2016.

After the company’s FinovateSpring demo, we interviewed Nima Ghamsari, CEO of Blend.

Finovate: What problem does Blend solve?

Ghamsari: There are approximately $1.5 trillion in new mortgages created in the U.S. every year. Getting a mortgage has historically been a slow, document-mired process; however, Blend’s data-driven technology—combined with its elegant design—is working to address pain felt by lenders and borrowers. Here are some key challenges the industry faces today:

  • Buying a home is one of the biggest purchases any of us will ever make, yet the process remains difficult and opaque, particularly in light of all of the other things we are now able to do online, and on our mobile devices, such as hailing a ride on Uber, ordering groceries on Instacart, etc.
  • While there’s been a boom of data powering other industries, the mortgage industry hasn’t fully adopted the rich-data sources that can drive financial decisions. This means manual paper review and an overall analog process.
  • The traditional mortgage process is flooded with paper documents, wet signatures, and fax machines, a process that leaves customers in the dark and makes it impossible for lenders to provide an experience that matches the significance of the transaction.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Ghamsari: Blend is partnering with some of the larger, more innovative banks and lenders in the country. We generally focus on having fewer, but higher-quality, relationships to drive success with our customers.

Finovate: How does Blend solve the problem better?

Ghamsari: Blend enables a best-in-class experience to consumers and data-driven efficiency to lenders:

  • A frictionless, end-to-end digital consumer experience, allowing for borrowers to interact with their lender in a modern, mobile- or web-enabled fashion.
  • Blend solves for the entire spectrum of consumers by being omnichannel: for a transaction as complicated as a mortgage, consumers can start the process online, take photos on their mobile device, then walk into a branch and have an employee handle some of the complicated questions in Blend, and head back to home to consult with their spouse before signing electronically.
  • By allowing the borrower to connect their financial accounts and income information digitally, they no longer have to search for documents to send to submit. Instead, they provide machine-readable information directly from the source, and the lender receives high-fidelity data that they can trust in [making] their credit decision.
  • Instead of keying core information into their system, information flows automatically through Blend. When new information is needed from the consumer to finalize the mortgage process, the borrower is immediately notified, giving both the lender and consumer full transparency [as to] where they are in the process.
Automated Follow-Up RequestsBlend’s co-piloting feature allows lenders and borrowers to fill out the mortgage application together in real-time.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.

Ghamsari: We recently began working with a large mortgage lender on the East Coast. We got their team up-and-running in a matter of a few weeks, and they were taking loans from consumers of all types. One of the things I love about that particular deployment is that a 76-year-old borrower completed the entire mortgage process using Blend, with all of his documentation and information, in just over an hour. Can you imagine that? Prior to using our technology, document collection could have taken a week or longer and would have been almost entirely analog.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Ghamsari: At my previous company, we were working with a few of the largest financial services institutions directly after the financial meltdown. The mortgage problem was pitched to us as one of the largest problems in the country, with $10+ trillion at stake. When we arrived, however, what we saw took us by surprise. There were 50-year-old technologies powering largely paper-based processes. People were often spending time on tasks such as manually typing information from a document into a system or scanning and uploading a faxed document. And despite the fact that the data revolution already had happened in a few other industries, there were so many problems with mortgages that data was practically an afterthought.

The ‘eureka’ moment came when we realized the inefficiencies were partially a result of Silicon Valley and the tech industry largely ignoring this major part of the financial sector. I couldn’t name a deep technology company that was focused on solving the infrastructure for home lending, despite it representing a large part of national debt. I also got a sense of [how] the magnitude of the problem—[not only] the delta between where technology could be and where it currently was, [but also] the sheer dollar volume—was lost on many folks in Silicon Valley, and so if we didn’t set out to solve the problem, it likely wouldn’t be addressed at all.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Blend that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Ghamsari: In addition to expanding connectivity to high-fidelity data sources for borrowers to prefill mortgage applications in minutes, we are looking forward to rolling out features to further enable airtight digital compliance for our lenders. Moreover, Blend is looking at ways in which intelligence can be used to dramatically compress the time it takes to underwrite a mortgage application, another huge efficiency sink in the mortgage process.

Finovate: Where do you see Blend a year or two from now?

Ghamsari: In the near future, the team at Blend is working to:

  • Create the most frictionless, end-to-end digital lending experience for consumers and lenders
  • Partner and allow third-party data providers to build connections and further remove friction from the lending process

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Mastercard to Buy VocaLink for Up to $1.14 Billion After Masterpass Expansion to Retail
  • Finovate Debuts: How Blend is Reinventing the Mortgage Application Process
  • SBDA Group Wins Gold, Sedicii Takes Silver at UniCredit Hackathon

On FinDEVr.com

  • Mexico’s Grupo Bursátil Deploys Messaging Tech from Solace Systems

Around the web

  • GMC Software Technology announces integration with DocuSign to streamline business workflows.
  • Cloud Lending Solutions adds new online modules to its Learning program.
  • Google Cloud Platform opens its first West Coast region.
  • Rapid Financial Solutions Partners with Cachet Financial Solutions to Deliver Mobile Money Solutions to More Than 2 Million Cardholders
  • The Tennessean lists ProfitStars in Nashville’s top workplaces for 2016.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Ripple’s New Partnership Lets Banks Test Blockchain and Ripple Integration”
  • Quantopian Adds Chief Investment, Compliance Officers Ahead of Opening Fund to Public”

On FinDEVr.com

  • UpGuard Brings Better Vulnerability Detection to ServiceNow”

Around the web

  • Kasasa partners with AudioEye to offer accessibility for community banks.
  • Zopa customers have borrowed $72 million+ this year for home improvement, a 54% increase in home improvement loans compared to the same period last year.
  • Ripple launches blockchain pilot program in partnership with Expertus.
  • Banking Technology reports that Temenos is nearing a core banking software deal with Iran’s Ayandeh Bank (Future Bank).
  • Fiserv earns a spot in Newsweek’s 2016 Green Ranking, which evaluates corporate environmental performance.
  • Google’s Economic Impact report profiles Onovative.
  • HousingWire reports: Mason-McDuffie Mortgage announces partnership with tech company Blend.
  • B2B Nation HR interviews PayActiv CEO Safwan Shah.
  • Infoworld feature on AI shares insights from OutsideIQ CEO Dan Adamson.
  • DigSouth highlights DoubleNet Pay and WealthForge in its look at fintech startups from the American South.

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.

The Art of Mobile Banking Engagement

The Art of Mobile Banking Engagement

Customer engagement word cloudIt’s been fascinating to watch mobile banking take hold. The path has been much the same as online (desktop) banking a decade earlier, but at about double the pace (at least in the parts of the world that are highly banked).

Modern online banking started 21 years ago this month, when Wells Fargo began web banking in May 1995. It took 12 years before Mint came along and made it all look good and introduced the masses to more advanced concepts such as account aggregation, goal-oriented online budgeting, and expense tracking.

Mobile banking, which got its start in the post-iPhone App Store era (2008), took only about five years before it was “Minted” by Simple and then others. And in fewer than eight years mobile banking is already far better than desktop by almost every measure. From touchID access, to location awareness, to that very useful camera for depositing checks, there is just no way desktop online banking can compete.

But we have just barely scratched the surface of its biggest advantage: the always-on, always-with-you benefits. Account and transaction security is one of the first features having huge impact both on consumers (peace of mind, less hassle) and financial institutions (fewer false negatives, lower fraud costs, less customer-service expense).

Another area where huge benefits exist? Proactive communications about finances. Simple, Moven and Capital One’s Level Money are on the forefront with tools that help mobile customers know where they stand BEFORE they drop another $12 for a fancy cocktail or $35 on Uber.

And while monitoring spending in real-time has big theoretical benefits, it’s universally loathed by most consumers as the ultimate buzz-kill, kind of like having your parents hovering over you at point of sale. A more exciting always-on benefit is guidance to achieve bigger aspirations, like replacing your aging vehicle, trading up from your dinky apartment, or buying a house.

Take home buying. Many of our readers have been through this multiple times. But do you remember how little you knew about it back in the day? It’s a daunting task today even forHip_Pocket_Art0 the financially savvy.

That’s why I love tools that help people understand all aspects of the home-buying process: the mortgage, the purchase, and dealing with all of the ancillary expenses. We’ve seen a number of companies working on various aspects of the mortgage process. And next week at FinovateSpring, you’ll be treated to demos by two of the new breed of mortgage startups: Blend Labs which powers mortgage processing on the back-end and Roostify which helps consumers through the process.

And as luck would have it, last week Mark Zmarzly from Hip Pocket visited Seattle to present at a CU event, and was able to spare a few minutes to meet me for coffee. Mark wowed the crowd when he demo’d at FinovateSpring last year. Hip Pocket’s first product is a mobile app that allows anyone to input mortgage rate and monthly payment to see how their company stacks up against its peers (see inset).

The Hip Pocket mortgage app is a compelling value-prop for users, and potentially a great lead-gen tool for banks and credit unions. While Hip Pocket has had some great traction since then, it is still looking for additional seed funding to build more tools and fine-tune its customer-acquisition model. Hip Pocket is in a sweet part of the market—mobile mortgage (MoMo)—and is at a point in their company arc where relatively small dollars can make a big impact. They are a great candidate for “bank strategic seed funding.”

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: Blend

FinovateSpring Sneak Peek: Blend

blend_homepage_April2016

FS2016-wdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on May 10 & 11. Register today.

Blend is a Silicon Valley technology company empowering lenders to originate efficient, data-driven mortgages while offering their borrowers a compelling user experience.

Features:

  • Drive down the costs of originations
  • Maintain airtight digital compliance
  • Originate borrower-friendly mortgages from any device in just weeks

Why it’s great
Blend is empowering lenders across the country to originate efficient, data-driven mortgages.

Presenters

PranayKapadia_BlendPranay Kapadia, Head of Product Development
Kapadia is the VP of Product at Blend where he owns the vision and roadmap of the Blend product. Before Blend, he was head of product management for Intuit.
LinkedIn

 

 

AlecRoth_BlendAlec Roth, Sales
Roth is a member of the Blend sales team bringing efficient, data-driven mortgages to lenders across the country. Prior to Blend, Roth held sales positions at Atlassian and Marketron.
LinkedIn

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Where are they now? A look at FinovateSpring 2015 Best of Show Winner Successes.
  • “PayPal Marks U.K. Rollout of PayPal Credit with Interest-Free Financing”

On FinDEVr.com

  • “FICO Launches Score Simulator, Adds New CIO Claus Moldt”

Around the web

  • ebankIT shares top honors with Kerv at Temenos Innovation Jam.
  • Top Image Systems inks $115,000 accounts-payable deal with unnamed U.S. technology company.
  • Xceed FCU transitions to Fiserv-hosted DNA account-processing platform.
  • INETCO powers BECU’s omnichannel monitoring and analytics solutions that won the Celent Model Bank Award in the omnichannel category.
  • Red Herring Europe names Featurespace a Top 100 company.
  • Backbase powers Altyn-i, a new digital bank in Kazakhstan.
  • “Signifyd Launches Fraud Protection App for Magento Marketplace”

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.