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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
The Finovate team is back from another successful FinovateEurope fintech conference. We will share our event reviews, including key moments and top takeaways, on the Finovate blog in the days to come.
In the meanwhile, the Fintech Rundown is here to help us all catch up on the latest fintech news and announcements.
Payments
Bluefinforges collaboration with Fiscal Systems to leverage PCI-validated point-to-point encryption to boost payment security and data protection in the fuel industry.
Bay Federal Credit Union joinsMetallicus’ Metal Blockchain Banking Innovation Program.
London-based Netmind.AIunveils its decentralized AI agent society, NetMind XYZ.
Risk management
Risk and business intelligence solutions provider SRA Watchtowerraises $4 million in funding in a round led by FINTOP Capital, JAM FINTOP, and EJF Capital.
We’re starting off the week with a major acquisition in the U.K. lending space, as well as fintech funding news in payments, wealth management, and financial education.
Digital banking
Missouri-based Central Bank leveragesPersonetics’ AI-driven engagement platform to enhance financial wellness.
SaaS core modernization and transformation solution provider for banks Zafinunveils new tools – Dynamic Cohorts and Signals – to enhance customer personalization and engagement.
Digital banking experience platform Plumeryannounces availability on Google Cloud Marketplace.
Emporia State Federal Credit Union launches new app courtesy of a partnership with digital banking solution provider Bankjoy.
Bank integration provider AccessPaysecures $24 million in equity and debt financing.
Integrated payments company Bluefinadds 23 new devices, 6 new applications, and three new key injection facilities (KIFs) to its Encryption Management Services P2PE Component listing.
Germany payment management platform NX Technologiesraises $23.8 million (EUR 22 million) in Series B funding.
Stripeteams up with Amazon to power payments for Just Walk Out technology in Australia and Canada.
Desjardins partners with cloud banking firm nCino to leverage its Automated Spreading Solution to enhance lending.
Open banking
Dwollaexpands its partnership with MX to power account aggregation and verification.
Open banking platform Link Moneyforges partnership with Silicon Valley Bank to enhance ACH processing and money movement for merchants.
Wealth management
Online trading and investing platform Robinhoodlaunches rewards credit card for its Robinhood Gold subscribers.
Wealth-building platform Belongsecures $3.7 million (£2.95 million) in pre-seed funding.
Multi-asset class investment accounting platform FundGuardraises $100 million in Series C funding.
Financial education
Wealth building and financial education platform Goalsetterclosed a $9.6 million Series A extension round.
Cash management
Cash-flow management platform SettlelaunchesAutomatic 3-Way Matching for Purchase Orders.
Fraud prevention
Plaidforges partnerships with Sandbox Banking and RealPage to help fight fraud in the customer experience.
AI-powered fraud and risk platform DataVisorlaunches its end-to-end anti-money laundering (AML) solution.
Financial crime compliance company Napier AI reports that its customer Banco do Brasil has won the Celent Model Risk Manager 2024 Award for combatting financial crime.
Visaadds three new AI-powered risk and fraud prevention solutions.
Cryptocurrencies / Blockchain
Revolut and Layer 1 blockchain Sui team up to boost blockchain education and adoption.
Trading and investing platform eToroadds 12 new altcoins to its cryptocurrency offerings.
Identity management / verification
ID verification company AU10TIXunveils expanded Digital ID solution.
Insurtech
Rewards credit card company Yonder to offer its members a new travel insurance experience courtesy of a partnership with embedded insurance orchestration firm Qover.
New Jersey’s largest credit union, Affinity Federal Credit Union, partners with Insuritas to launch Affinity Insurance Agency.
PayPal Ventures and MassMutual Ventures lead $47 million Series C funding round for Indonesian insurtech Qoala.
Mortgagetech
Equifax UKteams up with Homely to help first-time homebuyers become “mortgage-ready.”
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.
In a round led by Macquarie Capital Principal Finance, payment and data security technology company Bluefin has raised $25 million in new financing. With total capital now standing at more than $30 million, the company said the funding would “fuel” its product line, help drive growth internationally as well as within the U.S., and support “opportunistic acquisitions.”
In its statement, Bluefin put this week’s investment, and the growth opportunities for the company, in the context of changes taking place as a result of the global health crisis. Noting that the pandemic has increased reliance on mobile point of sale devices, Bluefin warns that this means the number of potential attack entry points for hackers and cybercriminals has also increased. With an estimated 27.7 million mobile POS devices in use by 2021, Bluefin argues that additional security to defend private data will be required for all businesses, regardless of their sales hardware preference.
“Bluefin is dedicated to remaining at the forefront of technology and solution development in the fight against breaches and cyberattacks,” Bluefin CEO John M. Perry said. “Our partnership with Macquarie will enable Bluefin to not only introduce more solutions to protect e-commerce, online and point-of-sale transactions, but also to make these solutions available globally through our extensive partner network and Bluefin’s products. We look forward to leveraging Macquarie’s deep financial and global expertise in this next phase of company growth.”
A specialist in securing Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), as well as financial card data, Bluefin leverages PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) and tokenization to safeguard information upon entry, in transit, and in storage. Bluefin’s technology enables secure payment acceptance for card present, e-commerce, and mobile transactions, and is available via its network of 130+ integrated partners or directly through the company.
“Bluefin has developed industry-leading data and payment protection technologies, which are crucial in the global climate of rising data breaches and cyberattacks against organizations of all sizes,” Macquarie Capital Principal Finance Managing Director Anand Subramanian said. “We are very pleased to partner with this innovative company to expand their cybersecurity product suite and fuel continued growth in the U.S. and internationally.”
An alum of our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, Bluefin announced a partnership with CPA Site Solutions in September, enabling the accounting website provider to offer enhanced online billpay. In August, the company teamed up with electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solutions provider Invoice Cloud.
Payment security solutions company Bluefin is expanding its expertise this week with the launch of ShieldConex, a tool to help secure personal data for firms in retail, hospitality, healthcare, and high education verticals.
With ShieldConex, firms can enter sensitive consumer data– including personally identifiable information and card data– into forms embedded on their website. Once sensitive data is entered into an online form, Bluefin’s technology immediately tokenizes it, replacing it with a Format Preserving Token (FPT) or Format Preserving Encryption (FPE) that can be used in the same way as the original data. With the encryption in place, even if an organization is hacked, the fraudster only sees tokenized data, which is useless to them.
The new tools allows merchants to remain compliant in encrypting their data while maintaining control over the embedded, client-facing form.
According to Bluefin Chief Strategy Officer Ruston Miles, the company is currently “in testing” to help a major airline tokenize user information entered online. “What makes this system unique is the fact that we will collect the information on behalf of the client first, and then perform FPT or FPE. Thus, the client never touches the sensitive data on their web property and the partner gets back a vaultless token for storage – it’s the best of both worlds,” added Miles.
Originally focused exclusively on securing the payment experience, Bluefin offers token-based payment processing, payment tokenization, point-to-point encryption, EMV authentication, and Payment iFrame, a tool that allows merchants to embed an iFrame in their checkout page to encrypt user-entered payment data.
Miles gave a presentation at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014 about how Bluefin’s point-to-point encryption can help with PCI compliance. Recently, the Georgia-based company partnered with NCR and Powertranz to help secure NCR’s Aloha POS solution.
Bluefin has raised $6 million and was founded in 2007. John Perry is CEO.
SumUpto power card payments for Fleximize members.
Wiproteams up with Blue Prism to launch new automation lab in Australia.
AiThority talks withDataSine CEO Igor Volzhanin on the role of machine learning and AI in marketing technology.
IdentityMindpicks up new patent for digital identity-based automated review.
Tinkurges regulators to “be flexible” when it comes to the implementation deadline of September 14 for PSD2.
Flybitsnamed to the Digital Finance Institute’s list of Canada’s Top 50 Fintech Companies for 2019.
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 Global is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
Latin America and the Caribbean
PayPalinvests $750 million in Argentina-based e-commerce company MercadoLibre.
First Data to acquire Brazilian electronic funds transfer (EFT) solution provider Software Express.
NCR, Bluefin, and Powertranz team up to support POS card processing for Caribbean quick serve restaurants.
BlueRushdeploys its Individeo platform with a large Colombian bank courtesy of a partnership with Bee Concept.
The Wall Street Journal looks at how global FIs are gaining interest in the Latin American alternative lending market.
Asia-Pacific
Experianlaunches Singapore-based incubator, Experian X Labs.
South Korean crypto company Kakao raises $90 million via private coin offering.
Thai Stock Exchange to launch a digital asset exchange next year.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Front office and core banking technology from Temenos to drive digital revamp for African challenger bank, Vista Bank.
Financial Software and Systems takes 46% stake in South Africa’s Ecentric Payment Systems.
South Africa’s second largest retail bank, Capitec, extends its partnership with ACI Worldwide.
ThreatMetrixteams up with Blue Turtle Technologies to help market its fraud prevention solution to customers in Africa.
Central and Eastern Europe
Tinkoff Bankreports 2018 highlights including launch of new mortgage app, a joint P2P money transfer offering with Sberbank, and more than 2.7 million new active credit customers.
iSignthisInks Banking and Payments Deal with Ibanera.
Bulgaria-based Software Group scores €18 million loan from Europe Investment Bank.
EU Startups features lending platform Inlock its look at 10 Hungarian startups to look out for in 2019.
Bulgaria’s Municipal Bank to deploy new core and payments solutions from Oracle.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) launches $10 million fund for fintech startups in the MENA region.
PayActiv and Visa Help Workers Access Earned Wages Earlier.
TemenosDrives Digital Transformation for Africa’s Vista Bank.
iSignthisInks Banking and Payments Deal with Ibanera.
Around the web
BioCatchadds touchscreen pressure as a new behavioral biometric value.
NCR, Bluefin, and Powertranz team up to support POS card processing for Caribbean quick serve restaurants.
Experianlaunches Singapore-based incubator, Experian X Labs.
ETFLogicunveilsETFLogic Pages, a new platform for analyzing exchange-traded funds.
Minna Technologies and Exateearn spots in the fourth edition of ING’s FinTech Village.
BlueRushdeploys its Individeo platform with a large Colombian bank courtesy of a partnership with Bee Concept.
Inspire Federal Credit Union goes live with NYMBUS.
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.
Native American Bank selectsJack Henry’sSilverLake system.
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.
Cryptoline News: Payfone’s technology now used to prevent SIM swap attacks.
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.
Dutch fintech Five Degreespurchases core banking IT systems provider, Libra.
QuickBridge to participate in Lendio’s turndown lending program.
PasswordPingannounces new Chief Executive Officer, Michael Greene. See PasswordPing at FinovateFall next month.
Identity-as-a-service specialist Onfidoforges partnership with Claim Technology.
Alphacomm Solutions to deployACI Worldwide’sUP eCommerce Payments technology.
CurrencyFairacquires Hong Kong-based Convoy Payments.
PYMNTS.com interviewsEntersekt SVP of engineering, Richard Bailey.
Bluefin and payment service provider Anderson Zaks partner to provide Bluefin’s PCI-validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) security solution to merchants and retailers.
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.
identitiiForges New Partnership with Robot Automation Specialist Blue Prism.
Around the web
Interactionsunveils enhanced IVA platform to deliver the omnichannel intelligent virtual assistant capabilities.
QuantConnect users now have access to Algorithm Framework, a tool that breaks down algorithmic trading strategies into core modules to make code reusable in the QuantConnect community.
Temenosannounces launch of its Front Office Suite.
Bluefinpartners with Paya to provide PCI-validated point-to-point encryption.
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.
