CEO Interview

Finovate Global Israel: Talking Revenue Workforce Solutions with Stav Levi-Neumark of Alta

Finovate Global Israel: Talking Revenue Workforce Solutions with Stav Levi-Neumark of Alta
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Finovate Global, MasterCard, Ripple, VISA, Xero

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features an interview with Stav Levi-Neumark, CEO and Co-Founder of revenue workforce solutions provider Alta.

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Israel, Alta leverages data and AI to help drive revenue growth at every level for businesses. The company’s AI Revenue Workforce agents ensure that everyone on the team is connected, aligned, and equipped with the data insights and AI automation they need to enable their businesses to scale efficiently and grow faster. Alta’s agents have helped produce a 3x increase in qualified leads, a 15% increase in win rates, and a 80% reduction in costs.

Our conversation with Levi-Neumark is also a part of Finovate’s and Finovate Global’s commemoration of Women’s History Month. Be sure to check out her thoughts on gender diversity, current opportunities for women in fintech, as well as her advice for female CEOs.

Can you tell us a little bit about Alta and the revenue workforce solutions business?

Stav Levi-Neumark: AI is impacting almost every industry now. But go-to-market and revenue teams across many vertical markets are struggling to fully harness AI for sustained growth. Choosing the right tools to enhance capabilities of salespeople while also automating relevant tasks is a real challenge.

Alta is an AI revenue workforce that is data-driven. It supports revenue teams, allowing each person to be like a 10x version of themselves.

Alta agents automate repetitive and mundane tasks that require limited human oversight, such as researching potential leads and conducting personalized outreach across multiple channels. The agents also provide actionable insights based on real-time data across all revenue functions. This streamlined workflow helps companies achieve improved revenue growth by working more efficiently, accelerating their sales cycle, and enabling humans to focus on relationship-building opportunities, strategic, and creative work.

Who are Alta’s primary customers and how do you reach them?

Levi-Neumark: Alta has really diverse customers across virtually every business sector, and they range from SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. We’ve been able to ramp up the number of clients we have really quickly as well, adding almost 100 customers in less than six months.

Your latest solution—AI Revenue Workforce—leverages innovations in agentic AI. Can you talk about how this technology and new product empower go-to-market and revenue teams?

Levi-Neumark: Agentic AI has endless potential to dramatically improve efficiency and drive revenue growth. By leaving automated tasks to AI agents, human-led go-to-market and revenue teams can work smarter and faster, focusing their attention where it matters most: developing strategy, building relationships, closing deals, and increasing ROI through creative thought.

AI agents in Alta’s workforce include Katie, a Sales Development Representative (SDR), Luna, an AI RevOps agent, and Alex, an AI Calling agent. The workforce can integrate into more than 50 internal and external marketing, sales, and revenue systems that include CRMs, ERPs, payment, advertising, social media tools, and more.

Alta is a very young company, founded in 2023. There has been a lot of discussion about the current environment for tech startups. How would you characterize the climate for startups today?

Levi-Neumark: The founders who thrive will be those who can harness technological advancements while building businesses with solid foundations that can stand on their own, beyond the AI hype. Here’s the advice I typically share when talking with other tech founders:

  1. Success means your customers attribute significant revenue growth directly to your product. When they look at their business results and can clearly see your impact on their bottom line, that’s when you’ll know you’ve truly succeeded.
  2. Maintaining balanced, healthy growth is key. While it may be tempting to focus more attention on one specific area of your organization, it’s critical to ensure all departments grow at an equal pace.
  3. Be proactive rather than reactive to market shifts to position yourself ahead of certain trends. When deeply focused on product development and customer acquisition, it’s easy to miss emerging signals from the broader ecosystem.

Alta recently secured $7 million in seed funding. What does this investment mean for the company and what will it enable Alta to do?

Levi-Neumark: This funding solidifies Alta’s position as an industry leader in workforce intelligence automation. It will allow Alta to continue developing out-of-the-box solutions that redefine the relationship between AI and sales teams to unlock limitless revenue growth opportunities.

We plan to utilize the investment to expand into new markets, grow operations, scale R&D, and accelerate product development to meet increasing market demand from enterprise and mid-market customers. In fact, we are currently developing our newest AI agent, Greg, a sales assistant for account executives, to further bolster our workforce’s capabilities.

You are one of very few female CEOs in the enterprise AI space. Are there unique challenges to greater gender diversity in enterprise AI compared to other areas of technology, fintech, or financial services?

Levi-Neumark: I don’t feel there are unique challenges specific to the AI space compared to other tech sectors. The gender diversity issues we face in enterprise AI mirror what we see across technology, fintech, and financial services more broadly.

The fundamental challenges remain consistent: representation gaps, unconscious bias in hiring and promotion, and the need for more visible role models.

That said, I prefer to focus on the opportunity. AI is still a relatively young field, and at the end of the day, our success is what will define us. I hope more female founders and women will enter this market and look forward to welcoming them.

What advice would you give to female CEOs, especially those who are new to the role?

Levi-Neumark: I would advise female CEOs, especially those new to the role, to build strong support networks early. Connect with other female founders and executives who understand your specific challenges—these relationships become invaluable resources for candid advice and emotional support that you can’t always find within your company.

Trust your unique leadership style and perspective. There’s often pressure to conform to traditionally masculine leadership traits, but the most effective leaders bring their authentic selves to the role. Your different viewpoint is actually a strategic advantage that can help identify opportunities others might miss.

Be strategic about which battles to fight. As a female CEO, you’ll likely face additional scrutiny and challenges. Learn to distinguish between issues that are worth addressing directly and those where it’s better to let your results speak for themselves.

Prioritize building a diverse leadership team from the start. This not only leads to better decision-making, but also creates a culture where different perspectives are valued.

Finally, remember that your visibility matters. By succeeding in your role, you’re creating pathways for others. Share your journey, mentor upcoming leaders, and when possible, be the voice and representation you wished you had when starting out.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

  • UK-based open banking payments company Atoa announced an integration with New Zealand-based small business platform Xero.
  • Vietnam-based Buy Now, Pay Later platform Fundiin announced a strategic partnership with Visa to enhance its credit scoring model.
  • Australia’s Bank of Queensland Group teamed up with digital lending technology company Trade Ledger.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • African money movement company Chipper Cash partnered with Ripple to provide crypto-enabled cross-border payments.
  • Payment orchestration platform FinMont announced a partnership with South African online payment gateway Payfast by Network.
  • Ethio Telecom integrated its mobile money platform with Mastercard Africa to enhance finanical inclusion in Ethiopia.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Hamburg-based fintech Flexvelop secured $47.4 million (€44 million) to grow its business equipment financing model.
  • Romanian trading and investing app NAGA announced zero commissions for Romanian stocks on its platofmr
  • Estonian fintech Hoovi raised $8.6 million (€8 million) from Finish Multitude International Bank.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Dubai-based embedded payments company Enza secured $6.75 million in funding.
  • National Bank of Kuwait announced enhancements to its mobile banking app.
  • Australia-based debt resolution company InDebted launched operations in the UAE.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India-based fintech Findi raised $28.4 million (INR 243 Cr) to enhance operations of its majority-owned Indian subsidiary TSI.
  • Mastercard inked an agreement with Dubai-based Mashreq to support its launch as a digital bank in Pakistan.
  • Indian startup OneStack secured $2 million in Series A funding, with another $1 million expected.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Colombian fintech Gold raised $50 million in Series C funding to fuel further development of its e-payment solutions.
  • Uruguayan cross-border payments company dLocal enabled Airtel Mobile Money as a payment method for Google Play in Kenya.
  • UK-based AstroPay expanded access to its multicurrency wallet to users across Latin America.

Photo by davebusiness GT13

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Finovate Global: Boku’s Stuart Neal Talks About Local Payment Methods, EPI, and More!

Finovate Global: Boku’s Stuart Neal Talks About Local Payment Methods, EPI, and More!
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Boku, CEO Interview, Finovate Global, Interview

What happens when an ongoing revolution in payment innovation meets a regulatory regime determined to ensure secure and safe transactions for individual consumers, business entities, and even governments? This is the payments landscape in the UK and EU in 2025. As a proliferation of payment options promises to streamline banking and commerce, regulators, fintechs, and financial services companies are looking for ways to make sure that the challenges to these new payment options—from technical complexity to new forms of fraud and financial crime—are met.

To discuss these and other issues involving payments and the emerging regulatory environment, we caught up with Stuart Neal, Chief Executive Officer of Boku. Appointed CEO in January of 2024, Neal previously served as the company’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer of Boku’s Identity Division. A champion of payment choice, Boku supports a global network of localized payment solutions, including Direct Carrier Billing (DCB), digital wallets, and account-to-account connections. Founded in 2008, Boku is headquartered in London.

Local Payment Methods (LPMs) have proliferated around the world over the past decade. Socially and technologically, what has powered this growth?

Stuart Neal: Local Payment Methods (LPMs) have had a meteoric rise over the past decade. It’s hard to overstate what a significant and rapid change we’ve seen, and behind it are two main driving forces: changing consumer preferences and rapid technological innovation.

Payments as an industry is finally beginning to reflect the diversity of people’s preferences around the world. And that’s a really positive development. It’s fair to say that traditional financial systems left many people and communities underserved, but LPMs—from mobile wallets in Africa to RTP schemes like UPI in India—bridge this gap, and they’re empowering billions of consumers to participate in the digital economy. This financial inclusion is great for society, for merchants and for the payments industry as a whole. 

At Boku, we want to be at the heart of this transformation. People just want convenience, and we’re here to help them buy what they want, the way they want. With one of the biggest LPM networks in the world, we’re making it easier than ever for global merchants to meet consumers where they are. 

Looking at Europe specifically, what role has the European Payments Initiative (EPI) played in driving this trend?

Neal: While still in its early stages, the European Payments Initiative (EPI) is playing a crucial role in reshaping the EU payment landscape. Its focus on creating a unified, pan-European payment solution, fostering instant payments, acquiring established players like iDEAL and Payconiq, and advocating for regulatory changes positions it as a future leader in European payments. By competing with global giants, EPI is pushing Europe toward a more integrated, efficient, and competitive payment system. However, full market transformation will likely take a few more years, with real change expected in 2025.

So far the EPI has excelled in laying the groundwork for this payments evolution by clearly articulating its vision and aligning strategically with the key pillars of ecommerce. By fostering strong relationships with merchants, PSPs, and issuing banks, EPI is now in a great position to effect significant change and shape the future of digital payments across Europe.

Part of this was the launch of the real-time payment system Wero last summer. Can you tell us a little about the significance of the Wero launch and how adoption has been so far?

Neal: The Wero Wallet, launched by the European Payments Initiative (EPI), serves as a strong entry into the EU market with the goal of unifying Europe’s fragmented payment landscape. Initially focusing on person-to-person (P2P) payments, Wero will expand to e-commerce in 2025 and in-store payments by 2026, offering various options such as instant payments, installment plans, and subscriptions. With the acquisitions of Dutch payment solution iDEAL and Luxembourg-based Payconiq International or the transition of the former Paylib P2P user base in France to Wero, EPI / Wero is well-positioned for success. However, EPI has opted for a phased market rollout, like what we have seen by other payment schemes in the past, starting with smaller-scale P2P launches in countries like Germany and France, while the true transformation is expected to unfold in 2025. Notably, these acquisitions continue to operate under their original brands, allowing for organic user growth before transitioning fully to Wero.

Has adoption of Wero been uniform across Europe or have some markets remained more reluctant? What distinguishes the eager adopters from the more cautious?

Neal: This is an interesting question, and one that will be clearer by the end of 2025, when we can fully assess the impact of Wero’s initial e-commerce launches. However, what we can say so far is that Wero’s adoption has been strongly shaped by key market dynamics. Starting in July 2024, users of participating German banks were able to sign up for Wero, with Belgium following suit by the end of 2024, also seeing gradual, organic growth. Around the same time, Wero benefited from a significant boost in France, where the transition from Paylib to Wero provided a built-in user base of approximately 35 million registered Paylib users. Looking ahead, the exit of local payment schemes like Giropay in Germany is expected to reshape the competitive landscape, presenting new opportunities for Wero to establish itself as a leading player in the market.

What can be done to encourage broader acceptance of solutions like Wero and less reliance on cards?

Neal: Accessibility is key to the adoption of anything. And if solutions like Wero are to be more broadly adopted, they must become more accessible for consumers and merchants. So to start with we need to integrate these solutions seamlessly into merchant payment ecosystems and do so in a way that matches–or ideally betters–the convenience of cards. You need a frictionless experience for people on both sides of the counter, as it were, if you want to drive adoption.

And then trust.  When it comes to sending and receiving money, trust is non-negotiable. Wero and other solutions like it must be really secure, have robust fraud prevention, and partner with regulators to ensure compliance. When consumers and businesses feel confident, they’ll naturally shift to these modern, local payment methods.

The final piece is education and awareness. A lot of consumers, especially in places like the UK and the US, stick to cards out of habit. If it’s familiar and it works, why change right? That being said, in the last year we’ve seen a huge shift in payment habits and greater awareness and adoption of alternatives. Research by Juniper reveals that 60% of all ecommerce transactions will happen via local payment methods by 2028. To put that into context, it’s equivalent to $7 billion a year flowing through hundreds of different payment methods and away from the legacy card networks. Merchants and payment providers need to highlight the benefits of solutions like Wero—whether it’s lower fees, faster transactions, or better alignment with local preferences.

You have just concluded your first year as CEO of Boku. What are your biggest takeaways from the first year and what are you hoping for in 2025?

Neal: It’s been a whirlwind year for sure. I’m very proud of the progress we’ve made, which has been underpinned by the demand for more convenient payment solutions from consumers. From where we were at the start of 2024, we’ve positioned ourselves as one of the world’s largest and most innovative global networks for Local Payment Methods with significant expansion in key global markets and more significant launches planned for this year.

I think my biggest takeaways would be the size of the opportunity for LPMs and the interwoven nature of the industry. Collaboration is so important, between merchants, PSPs, local payment providers, and indeed consumers. All of these need to be on the same page for digital commerce to flow smoothly, which is why the breadth and depth of our network is so important. 

Looking ahead to 2025, ecommerce is going to continue to grow as you’d expect. Research that we’ve commissioned actually estimates that the industry will reach an astonishing $10.6 trillion in value by 2028 (from $5.75 trillion today). Local payment methods are no longer an alternative, they are mainstream. For my part, and for Boku, our focus will be on continuing to innovate and scale our offering across Europe, APAC, Africa and Middle East, as well as some exciting planned launches for Latin America, all as part of our push and our mission to give people the freedom to buy what they want, the way they want.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company Perfios acquired financial crime detection and risk management platform Claris5.
  • Pakistan fintech ABHI launched its microfinance bank.
  • Indian insurtech InsuranceDekho raised $70 million in a funding round co-led by existing investors including Beams Fintech Fund and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • CTBC Bank Philippines turned to Hitachi Asia to upgrade its digital corporate banking platform.
  • inDrive partnered with Fingular to launch its inDrive.Money solutions for customers in Indonesia.
  • Malaysia’s central bank and finance ministry granted licenses to a pair of new digital banks: KAF Digital Berhad and YTL Digital Bank Berhad.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Flutterwave secured a payment system license from the Bank of Zambia.
  • The Bank of Ghana and the National Bank of Rwanda inked an MoU to provide companies with a license passporting framework and cross-border payment interoperability.
  • Nigerian fintech ProsperaVest EGG introduced eNsc, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the Nigerian Naira.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Lithuanian identity verification service iDenfy announced a partnership with Highvibes to help protect artists from fraud.
  • Online payment and checkout solutions provider Montonio expanded its partnership with Inbank to bring BNPL and Hire Purchase options to customers in Latvia and Lithuania.
  • Austrian Reporting Services (AuRep) teamed up with the Nasdaq to provide regulatory reporting technology and support to companies in Austria’s financial services industry.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • UAE fintech Flow48 raised $69 million in combined debt and equity funding.
  • Egyptian fintech Khazna secured $16 million to power its expansion into Saudi Arabia.
  • Sadad teamed up with Mastercard to enhance digital payments in Qatar.

Photo by Peter Spencer

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Streamly Snapshot: Overcoming Increased Regulatory Scrutiny on Financial Promotions

Streamly Snapshot: Overcoming Increased Regulatory Scrutiny on Financial Promotions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Interview, PromoComply, Streamly

The regulatory landscape for financial promotions has become increasingly complex as regulators focus on ensuring that promotional materials are fair, transparent, and compliant. Today, both banks and fintechs are having to take a new approach to how they create, approve, and distribute promotional content to avoid regulatory breaches and potential penalties, while still conveying their messaging.

In this exclusive interview recorded at FinovateEurope last week, Sage Franch, CEO of PromoComply, shares her insights into how firms can navigate this increased scrutiny, the importance of real-time compliance monitoring, and how technology is transforming the way financial promotions are managed.

“Regulators are really cracking down on non-compliant financial promotions,” said Franch. “And every financial organization that markets a financial product here in the UK has to comply with these. If they don’t, illegal financial promotion is a criminal offense and so the potential consequences are huge.”

PromoComply offers a comprehensive compliance automation platform designed specifically for the financial services sector, helping firms streamline the review and approval process for financial promotions. The platform uses AI-driven content analysis to automatically flag potential compliance risks, reducing the manual burden on compliance teams while enabling faster marketing campaign approvals. By integrating with existing content management systems, PromoComply ensures that compliance is embedded into every step of the promotional lifecycle.

As CEO and Co-Founder of PromoComply, Sage Franch brings a unique blend of technological expertise and regulatory insight to the world of financial services marketing compliance. With a background in software development and product management, Franch helps banks and fintechs leverage technology to simplify complex regulatory processes.

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch

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Industrial Bank of Korea Wins Best Mobile Financial App at the Finovate Awards

Industrial Bank of Korea Wins Best Mobile Financial App at the Finovate Awards
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Finovate Awards

Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) won “Best Mobile Financial App” category at the 2024 Finovate Awards. Emerging victorious from a field of six impressive finalists, Industrial Bank of Korea’s i-ONE Bank app won over our judges for its “great set of features” in the words of one evaluator, and its “smooth and clean UX/UI,” in the words of another.

“This mobile app appears to do it all,” yet another judge said, “It was especially good to see that it gives customers a variety of options for log-in and personalization of the user experience. They’ve clearly focused on security and made sure there are many different functions available, even currency exchange.”

We caught up with Kim Sung-tae, CEO of Industrial Bank of Korea, to learn more about the institution’s award-winning mobile banking app and what sets it apart from competitors in the Korean market. We also discuss the bank’s role in the Korea financial services ecosystem, the relationship between fintechs and incumbent financial institutions in Korea, how enabling technologies like AI are creating new opportunities for innovation, and what we can expect from IBK this year and beyond.

Founded in 1961, Industrial Bank of Korea is headquartered in the Jung-gu District of Seoul, South Korea. Kim Sung-tae was appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2023.

Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) won the “Best Mobile Financial App” category at the 2024 Finovate Awards. What sets your app apart from competitors?

Kim Sung-tae: i-ONE Bank reflects our unwavering commitment to the customer. While all banking apps in Korea may appear similar, few demonstrate consistency and dedication to providing customer-centric services.

Yet, i-ONE Bank has always put the customer first since its inception, believing that “all the answers lie with the customer.” As a result, the app has consistently ranked first in the domestic financial app category on the two major app store platforms (iOS and Android) — a success that has culminated in winning the Best Financial Mobile App at the 2024 Finovate Awards.

Who does IBK primarily serve?

Kim Sung-tae: IBK serves both individual and corporate customers. As of now, approximately 17 million individuals and 2.2 million companies use IBK’s financial services.

What do you think is the most important banking service for customers today, and how has IBK responded to that need?

Kim Sung-tae: In the past, retail customers in Korea chose banks based on the proximity to their workplace or home. These days, however, we found a significant shift in their selection criteria: customers prioritize mobile banking convenience in selecting their primary bank. To respond to this changing need, we adopted “Easier, Faster, and More Secure Banking” as our slogan and positioned i-ONE Bank as the flagship service of our mobile channel.

i-ONE Bank delivers a full range of commercial banking products and services, including deposits, loans, investments, and pensions (Individual Retirement Pensions) through an open finance platform. It allows customers to view all of their financial transaction information dispersed at multiple institutions, such as banks, credit card issuers, and brokerages, on a single page. In addition, it offers much acclaimed personal finance management (PFM) services that automatically record spending history for easy control of customers’ personal finances.

Do you think emerging technologies such as AI play a significant role? Is this an area of innovation for the bank?

Kim Sung-tae: Absolutely. Upon taking office as CEO, I introduced “Value Finance” as my management philosophy, emphasizing that IBK must go beyond profit generation to enhance the value to all stakeholders in consideration of not just the customers, but also the entire community and even the environment.

AI is an innovative technology with the potential to elevate the value of IBK’s diverse stakeholders. We are currently running the IBK GPT Project which aims to leverage AI to improve operational productivity and promote digital transformation in customer services by, for instance, introducing conversational banking.

How would you describe the financial services environment in Korea? Is the relationship between fintechs and banks more collaborative or competitive?

Kim Sung-tae: The financial services environment in Korea is highly dynamic, characterized by both competition and collaboration between traditional banks and fintech companies. IBK strives to create synergies between the two by focusing on the areas where they can be complementary to each other, with a goal of fostering a sound ecosystem for greater financial innovation. For example, we operate IBK Changgong, an incubator program to support innovative tech startups, and IBK 1st Lab to help commercialization of the startups’ solutions.

What major initiatives does IBK have planned for 2025?

Kim Sung-tae: In 2025, IBK plans to transform i-ONE Bank into an open platform based on banking. By leveraging the two-side market nature of platforms, we aim to expand our end-user base for banking services while also increasing collaboration with partner companies to diversify non-financial content offerings. Through i-ONE Bank, we will create a virtuous circle that delivers tangible value to both customers and partner companies, and maximize network effects, which will ultimately propel i-ONE Bank to be a super app.

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Finovate Global: An Introduction to Islamic Finance with Musaffa’s Dilshod Jumaniyazov

Finovate Global: An Introduction to Islamic Finance with Musaffa’s Dilshod Jumaniyazov
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Finovate Global, Salt Edge

Last year, we published an edition of Finovate Global that featured new developments in Islamic finance. This week’s column will explore further the world of Islamic and Shariah-compliant financial services with Dilshod Jumaniyazov, CEO and co-founder of Musaffa.

Launched in 2020 and headquartered in New York, Musaffa offers a comprehensive platform for ethical investing, Halal stock trading, and financial education. More than 487,000 Muslim investors in 195 countries use Musaffa’s platform, which provides access to stocks in countries ranging from the U.S., U.K., and Australia to Malaysia, the UAE, and Turkey.

Musaffa recently launched its Purification Calculator, which enables Muslim investors to confidently identify and invest in Shariah-compliant businesses. And at a time when more investors are looking for investments that align with their values, Musaffa’s advanced screening tools, financial education, and other solutions can be useful to ESG-oriented investors as well as faith-based ones.

In our extended conversation, Jumaniyazov helps us understand the size and scope of Islamic and Shariah-compliant finance, the unique needs of the customers in this growing market, and how enabling technologies are bringing innovation to Islamic financial services in areas such as banking to wealth management.

How big is the market for Shariah-compliant financial solutions? How has this market grown in the West in particular? Are there countries in the West where the demand for Shariah-compliant financial solutions is especially strong?

Dilshod Jumaniyazov: The market for Shariah-compliant financial solutions is not just big—it’s growing fast. In 2022, the global Islamic finance industry expanded by 11%, reaching $4.5 trillion in assets, and it is expected to grow to $6.7 trillion by 2027, according to the ICD-LSEG Islamic Finance Development Report 2023.

In the West, Islamic finance has gained significant traction, particularly since the 2008 financial crisis, when it emerged as a more stable and ethical alternative. In the U.K., Islamic banks have doubled their assets over the past decade, reflecting a growing demand for Islamic finance. Sukuk issuances have also increased across Europe, with countries like Luxembourg and Germany leading the charge. The broader trend of sustainable and values-based investing has played a crucial role in driving this growth.

Certain Western countries stand out for their strong demand. According to Global Finance Magazine, the U.K. is a clear leader, serving as a global hub with five Islamic banks and more than 20 conventional banks offering Shariah-compliant products. Luxembourg, the first Eurozone country to issue a sovereign sukuk, hosts a wide range of Shariah-compliant funds. Germany has made significant strides by issuing sukuks and licensing its first Islamic bank, highlighting its growing interest in the sector. Meanwhile, France, with Europe’s largest Muslim population, holds enormous untapped potential despite its relatively underdeveloped Islamic finance market.

This combination of ethical investing and increasing demand in key regions has positioned the West as an emerging force in Shariah-compliant finance.

What are we talking about when we talk about Shariah-compliant finance? How is it different from financing in the West?

Jumaniyazov: Shariah-compliant finance is rooted in Islamic principles that emphasize fairness, transparency, and social responsibility. It prohibits earning or charging interest (riba), excessive speculation (gharar), and investments in harmful industries such as gambling, alcohol, and weapons. Instead, it focuses on ethical investing, risk-sharing, and linking all financial transactions to real economic activities. For example, rather than relying on traditional interest-based loans, Shariah-compliant finance uses models like mudarabah (profit-sharing) and musharakah (joint ventures), where risks and rewards are shared among all parties. This approach ensures that financial activities create tangible value and benefit society.

What sets Shariah-compliant finance apart from Western finance is its deeply embedded ethical framework. While Western finance often revolves around interest-bearing loans and speculative investments, Shariah-compliant finance requires every transaction to align with moral principles and economic justice. It’s not just about profit — it’s about creating shared prosperity and avoiding harm. This focus on equity, accountability, and real-world impact makes Shariah-compliant finance a compelling alternative, especially for those seeking a more values-driven approach to managing wealth.

How has digital transformation impacted the market for Shariah-compliant finance. Has technology made it easier to innovate and create new solutions for the community?

Jumaniyazov: Digital transformation has completely reshaped the landscape of Shariah-compliant finance, making it more accessible and innovative than ever before. With the rise of digital banking and mobile payment platforms tailored to the needs of Muslim consumers, financial services are now reaching communities that were previously underserved. This has opened up opportunities for growth and inclusion on a global scale.

Technology has also sparked exciting developments like digital sukuks and blockchain-based smart contracts, which align perfectly with Islamic principles. These innovations have not only made processes more efficient, but have also introduced entirely new ways to approach halal and ethical finance. By breaking down barriers and reducing costs, digital transformation has turned Shariah-compliant finance into a dynamic, forward-thinking sector that’s more relevant than ever in today’s world.

Is there a role for AI in Shariah-compliant finance?

Jumaniyazov: AI is revolutionizing Islamic finance by making it more efficient, innovative, and accessible while staying true to its ethical principles. One of its most significant contributions is in screening stocks and ETFs for Shariah compliance. AI can analyze large datasets to assess whether investments meet Islamic criteria, streamlining a process that would otherwise be time-intensive and complex. This ensures that investors can confidently align their portfolios with their faith.

AI is also transforming Islamic financial products, such as sukuk. By enabling smart contracts, it has improved the transparency, efficiency, and trustworthiness of sukuk issuances. With applications like blockchain integration and advanced analytics, AI is not just addressing operational challenges but also opening doors for innovation, making Islamic finance more dynamic and globally relevant while adhering to Shariah principles.

You are CEO of Musaffa, a company that has developed Shariah-compliant solutions. Can you tell us a little about Musaffa and how you came to co-found the company?

Jumaniyazov: Of course. The journey to founding Musaffa began with a deeply personal challenge. Over my 16 years of investing, I often faced a dilemma — questioning whether my investments aligned with my faith and values as a Muslim. Every time I ventured into the stock market, I carried the weight of uncertainty, wondering if I was compromising my principles. As I shared my experiences with friends and colleagues, I realized this was not just my struggle — it was a challenge faced by millions of Muslims worldwide in a financial landscape that offered little guidance or transparency for faith-aligned investing.

This realization sparked a vision over a decade ago: to create a platform that would empower Muslims globally to invest ethically and confidently while staying true to their faith. However, I quickly recognized that making this vision a reality required more than just ambition. It demanded deeper knowledge, broader experience, and substantial capital.

Determined to bridge these gaps, I pursued an MBA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned my CFA designation to strengthen my expertise in finance. I gained invaluable experience working with the technology team at Wells Fargo Securities, where I contributed to launching several trading platforms. Alongside this, I saved diligently, setting aside funds from my paychecks and 401(k) savings over the years. By late 2020, with $250,000 of my own savings, I was ready to bring Musaffa to life.

Musaffa is more than just a platform — it’s a solution to a deeply felt problem. At its core, Musaffa provides access to over 90,000 stocks and 9,000 ETFs globally, all meticulously analyzed for Shariah compliance. The platform enables users to seamlessly buy and sell halal stocks through an integrated network of brokerages. 

Education is another cornerstone of our mission. Through Musaffa Academy, we offer tailored courses in financial literacy and Islamic finance, equipping our users with the knowledge to make informed decisions. These tools are designed not just to help Muslims invest, but also to empower them to understand and take control of their financial journeys.

As a result, Musaffa has grown to serve over 482,000 users across 195 countries. Our users trust us to provide peace of mind and a way to align their investments with their faith. With features like advanced Shariah compliance screening, integrated trading options, and a robust educational platform, Musaffa has become a trusted partner for Muslim investors worldwide.

Looking ahead, we are excited to expand our offerings by launching proprietary Shariah-compliant ETFs and further integrating into global markets. Our goal is to make halal investing even more accessible and to continue simplifying access to the $30 trillion Shariah-compliant market.

What sets Musaffa apart are not just the tools we provide but our unwavering commitment to solving real challenges. We’re not just offering a platform; we’re creating a global financial ecosystem rooted in faith, trust, and ethics.

Today, I am incredibly proud of how far Musaffa has come. It stands as a testament to years of dedication, the belief that financial success should never come at the expense of one’s values, and a vision that’s empowering Muslims around the world to invest with confidence and purpose.

Who are Musaffa’s primary customers and how do you reach them?

Jumaniyazov: Musaffa’s primary customers are individual investors worldwide who seek to invest in alignment with their values, as well as both Islamic and traditional financial institutions. We engage with them through a strategic mix of targeted digital campaigns, partnerships with Islamic organizations, and our robust education platform, Musaffa Academy, which drives the majority of our traffic. Additionally, we leverage the Musaffa Ambassador Program, which empowers passionate individuals to represent our brand and bring more users to the platform. Word-of-mouth referrals also play a pivotal role in building trust and expanding our reach within this values-driven audience. Together, these channels foster a strong and authentic connection with our customers.

You recently launched a Purification Calculator? Can you tell us about this solution: why you launched it, what it does, and how the reception of it has been so far?

Jumaniyazov: The Purification Calculator is an indispensable tool designed to ensure that Muslim investors can maintain Shariah compliance in their investments. Purification is a mandatory condition for any investment to be considered Shariah-compliant, as it involves cleansing portfolios of any unintended non-compliant income. The calculator simplifies this process by determining the exact amount that should be donated to charity, enabling investors to align their earnings with Islamic principles.

We launched this solution to address a critical concern for Muslim investors and to simplify a process that many found complex or uncertain. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, as the tool empowers users to invest with confidence, knowing their financial activities align with both their faith and values.

What are some of the most interesting things going on in Islamic finance right now to you personally?

Jumaniyazov: For me, one of the most exciting developments in Islamic finance is the growing focus on halal investment research. With more Muslims wanting to align their financial decisions with their faith, the demand for tools and analyses to identify Shariah-compliant opportunities is stronger than ever. This isn’t just about screening stocks; it’s about providing in-depth research and actionable insights that help investors make confident, informed decisions in a complex market.

Another area I find fascinating is how digital platforms are transforming access to halal investments. From sukuk to Shariah-compliant ETFs and stocks, technology is making it easier for people to find and invest in Shariah-compliant and ethical assets. This combination of research and innovation is bridging a critical gap for Muslim investors, helping them grow their wealth while staying true to their values; it’s an exciting time to see how the industry is evolving to meet both faith-driven and financial needs.

What can we expect to hear from Musaffa in 2025?

Jumaniyazov: In 2025, at Musaffa, we plan to launch a comprehensive Islamic finance education platform, introduce our proprietary Shariah-compliant trading platform, and begin offering exclusive Shariah-compliant ETFs following SEC licensing approval. Our goal is to solidify our position as the premier global platform for halal investments while significantly expanding our user base.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure company Binance won approval from the Central Bank of Brazil to acquire a locally licensed broker-dealer.
  • Union Bank of India introduced new accessibility features to its Digital Rupee app.
  • Chilean fintech Tanner Servicios Financieros raised $40 million in funding from the International Finance Corporation.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South African fintech Sourcefin raised $8.2 million in funding to support SME financing.
  • Financial services provider Mukuru secured a Deposit-Taking Microfinance Institution (DTMFI) license in Zimbabwe.
  • Nigeria-based Bankit MFB launched its new web banking platform.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Digital asset infrastructure company Taurus expanded its operations in Turkey.
  • Serbian IT company Saga teamed up with Salt Edge to help banks in Serbia take advantage of opportunities in open banking.
  • German fintech Cleversoft announced its intention to acquire Turkish financial messaging and AML compliance solutions provider Fineksus.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Qatar-based Doha Bank to go live with Visa Commercial Pay, the first bank in the market to do so.
  • Iraqi fintech company Qi Card launched its app SuperQi, which serves as both a lifestyle super app and a digital bank.
  • Italian software company TeamSystem acquired Israeli fintech Morning for $150 million.

Interested in demoing at FinovateEurope 2025 in London? Applications are still being accepted from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today to learn more.

Photo by Aa Dil

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Streamly Snapshot: Micro Life Insurance

Streamly Snapshot: Micro Life Insurance
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Streamly

At FinovateFall last month, Finovate’s David Penn sat down with Wysh Founder and CEO Alex Matjanec to discuss the concept of micro life insurance.

We’ve highlighted pieces of the conversation below, and included the entire 10-minute video for you to check out the full story.

Tell us a little bit about Wysh and your approach to embedded life insurance.

Alex Matjanec: I think the first thing that surprises most people about Wysh is that we’re actually a life insurance company…. Our product is called Life Benefit, and Life Benefit is micro life insurance that sits on top of their deposit accounts…. We sell the policy to the institution, and they give it as a benefit to their customers or members as a way to differentiate their story beyond just credited interest rate, helping to bring a real protection to that story.

You spoke in the past about the context of the protection offering that Wysh provides. How does Life Benefit extend the capacity for protection.

Matjanec: Today, there is protection being offered… we have deposit insurance, FDIC insurance, overdraft protection, fraud protection. The issue with a lot of that protection is that it comes from a world of being in a negative place. What we want to do with Life Benefit is show how protection can help you from a positive direction. As you grow your deposits, you’re growing this policy and benefit along with it. That is how we’re following along with you in your journey. As you’re trying to become financially independent, we’re giving you a little bit of protection along the way.

How does an institution go about adopting Life Benefit?

Matjanec: One of the things we’re really proud about is that it takes less than 45 days to go from contract to launching Life Benefit…. We give you a one-page disclosure that you amend to your existing contract. That allows us to bring this benefit to market without requiring any sign-up, opt-in, or underwriting… That turns this into a 72-hour ability to turn on.

What makes Life Benefit really powerful is when you show the customer the benefit they’ve earned and it growing over time as you’re raising your deposits– much like showing people the value of interest rates or return on investments. That is a little bit of a larger lift, but we’ve made integrations with other cores and banking platforms, as well as built a low-code, no-code option that some of our partners have implemented, and that’s why we’re confident that… it takes less than 45 days to go live.

Catch all of this, and more, including Matjanec’s explanation of how Life Benefit can help firms avoid the “sea of sameness,” as well as a discussion on the tool’s affiliate offering, and the company’s future plans, in the full video below.

Enhancing financial inclusion with micro life insurance

Photo by Arafat Tarif

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From Automated to Actionable: Our Conversation with Tennis Finance’s Jake Pimental

From Automated to Actionable: Our Conversation with Tennis Finance’s Jake Pimental
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, CEO Interview, Tennis Finance

Could 2024 turn out to be the Year of the Regtech?

As more and more processes in financial services become AI-enabled, the impact of AI on regulatory technology and compliance solutions has been profound. From automating manual processes to more comprehensively engaging data, AI is helping regtech firms better serve their customers at a time when their customers – in banking, in fintech, in financial services in general–need it most.

We caught up with one such regtech, Tennis Finance, and its Co-Founder and CEO Jake Pimental. Headquartered in San Francisco, California and founded in 2022. Tennis offers an automated AI compliance and risk management solution to help businesses better manage customer complaints and external communications.

At its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring earlier this year, the company demoed Rally, its solution that enables financial institutions to intake customer complaints and data to automatically identify compliance issues as well as uncover trends in customer conversations.

What problem does Tennis Finance solve and who does it solve it for?

Jake Pimental: Tennis Finance addresses the growing complexity of compliance and risk management for banks, financial institutions, and debt collectors. As regulations tighten and customer complaints rise, these organizations face significant challenges in handling compliance effectively and efficiently. We specifically focus on automating the processing and analysis of customer communications to prevent regulatory breaches and lawsuits, while also optimizing customer service and operational efficiency.

How does Tennis Finance solve this problem better than other companies or solutions?

Pimental: We leverage AI-driven technology to analyze calls and customer interactions, providing actionable insights that streamline workflows. Our platform parses customer communications, automatically categorizing and tagging them for compliance risk. This automation reduces overhead by 80%, increases regulatory safeguards, and improves customer retention, giving our clients a significant competitive edge. Unlike other solutions, we don’t just automate tasks – we provide a comprehensive view with tailored action plans, ensuring our clients not only meet regulatory standards but exceed them.

Who are Tennis Finance’s primary customers, and how do you reach them?

Pimental: Our primary customers include banks, accounts receivable companies, and financial institutions that are heavily regulated and at risk of non-compliance. We reach them through industry conferences like Finovate, strategic partnerships, and referrals through consulting networks. We also work closely with compliance officers and decision-makers, demonstrating how our platform can save time and reduce compliance risk.

Can you tell us about a favorite implementation or deployment of your technology?

Pimental: One of our most impactful deployments was with a major debt collection agency that was struggling with complaint handling and agent oversight/coaching. Our AI solution reduced their operational overhead by 80% and helped them identify risks early, preventing costly litigation. 

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

Pimental: Before founding Tennis Finance, I was a compliance officer at SoFi, where I helped launch their investments arm and navigated complex regulatory environments. This experience, along with my background in compliance strategy and risk management across multiple startups, gave me a deep understanding of the challenges financial institutions face. My track record of building solutions that solve these problems, combined with the ability to scale AI-driven technologies, gave me the confidence to build Tennis Finance.

There has been a great deal of interest in regtech and compliance in recent years. Is this a trend you saw coming? What is driving it and where is it going?

Pimental: Yes, the rise in interest was anticipated, given the increasing complexity of financial regulations and the growing number of customer complaints. What’s driving it is a mix of stricter regulatory scrutiny, rising operational costs, and the need for faster, more efficient compliance processes. The future of regtech is all about automation and AI – providing real-time risk management, reducing manual tasks, and enabling institutions to stay ahead of the regulatory curve while improving customer experiences.

You demoed at FinovateSpring earlier this year. How was your experience?

Pimental: FinovateSpring was an incredible experience. It allowed us to showcase the unique capabilities of our platform in front of an audience of industry leaders, investors, and potential clients. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive, especially around our AI-driven approach to compliance automation. It was also a great platform to build valuable partnerships and foster industry connections.

What are your goals for Tennis Finance? What can we expect to hear from you in the months to come?

Pimental: Our primary goal is to scale our platform to serve more financial institutions and expand into new markets. In the coming months, you can expect to see us deepening our partnerships, launching new features focused on advanced predictive analytics, new AI workflows, AI coaching, and exploring new use cases beyond just compliance. We’re committed to pushing the boundaries of what AI can do in the financial services space.

Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash

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Can LLMs Do the Heavy Lifting When it Comes to Compliance?

Can LLMs Do the Heavy Lifting When it Comes to Compliance?
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Speaker series

The rapid evolution of technology turned regulatory compliance into a daunting frontier. Firms are not only required to keep up with changing technologies, but they also need to stay on top of increasingly complex requirements. Priya V. Misra, who sits at the forefront of this arena, is a pioneer in using LLMs to do the heavy lifting when it comes to compliance.

We recently spoke with Misra about his latest venture, the current regulatory environment, the landscape of LLMs, and advice for leveraging GenAI tools.

Tell us about EKAI and the problem you are trying to solve.

Priya V Misra: EKAI is the first AI compliance ‘co-worker’ for risk and finance professionals. The newer regulations are more complex and reporting on them is more frequent. Compliance platforms of the past are not able to cope with these new kind of reporting requirements. As a private SaaS platform, our proprietary AI software addresses the newer compliance requirements with ease. Our platform is designed to support the compliance plan development and sit at the holistic level for the Chief Compliance Officer and managers to digitally manage their compliance and prepare for regulation engagements and compliance submissions to the regulator. We are currently focusing on newer regulations like Operational Resilience, Consumer Duty, and ESG.

EKAI provides a natural language chat interface to make it easy to use. We believe that as the nature of data has evolved, compliance professionals in financial services also need enhanced systems and tools for this new normal to enable them to support the business and meet the requirements of regulators in a cost effective way. We tested the model with the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority as part of their sandbox and found regulator alignment for a tool such as our own to aid the industry in meeting their compliance requirements.  

Banks and fintechs have always faced regulatory challenges. Why have concerns around regulation been so heightened in the past few months?

Misra: The concerns around regulation have been heightened in the past few months due to a fundamental shift in different kinds of regulations. The newer regulations are moving from ‘what’ to ‘how’. This basically means that organizations need to show the evidence of compliance, the ‘how’ they are meeting the compliance and not just ‘what’ their compliance approach is. The regulation horizon we see is placing consumer protection at the heart. This could be multi-jurisdictional with the advent of the Consumer Duty regulation in the U.K., to follow similar types of regulations in Europe. For the industry, we see the impacts on costs from being able to handle the multiple and, at times, competing priorities between regulations and maintaining business-as-usual in an environment still competitive for talent. Tools like EKAI offer compliance professionals in financial services better oversight on how they are performing from a delivery perspective against the compliance requirements across multiple programs. 

How have you seen the conversation around GenAI and LLMs evolve in the financial services industry in the last year-and-a-half?

Misra: The conversation around GenAI and LLMs in the financial services industry has evolved in the right direction. The initial trepidation has now been met with wider adoption, with at least of ChatGPT opening the doorway for productivity enhancements from more business intelligence software like EKAI sitting at the intersection of compliance. EKAI has pioneered the use of the Small Language Model (SLM) for AI in corporate usage. SLMs de-risk AI implementation and provide a way to progressively deploy features. SLMs are eco-friendly as they require lower GPU usage and are quicker to train.

Apart from EKAI’s application of GenAI, what is the most powerful application of GenAI for financial services you have seen?

Misra: One of the most widely implemented GenAI applications within financial services that I have seen is in customer support. The power of GenAI lies in its ability to use company-specific information for answering customer queries and intelligently switch to a human counterpart for sensitive queries.

How do LLMs compare to traditional methods of regulatory compliance and risk assessment in terms of efficiency and accuracy?

Misra: The traditional methods of regulatory compliance work for traditional regulations. The data for these regulations was structured and mainly consisted of numbers. LLMs and GenAI are critical in compliance moving forward. They can handle unstructured data of documents, messages, and transcripts. This gives the organizations a strong foundation to build and use compliance platforms.

What advice would you offer firms who are avoiding GenAI tools because of regulatory and compliance concerns?

Misra: Every industry will be impacted by GenAI and/or LLMs eventually. I would advise them to embrace it selectively because it is coming anyway. The GenAI Act coming into force in Europe in the upcoming months will transform the landscape from a sort of ‘wild west’ into one with the types of benchmarks and controls that will ensure its wider and confident adoption across industries in a way that an industrial revolution is supposed to, transforming skillsets and producing efficiency gains future generations should benefit from.

Photo by Markus Winkler

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Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast: eCapital and the Future of SMB Financing

Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast: eCapital and the Future of SMB Financing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Interview, Podcasting

What challenges are small and medium-sized businesses facing when it comes to getting the capital they need when they need it? What role does technology – especially enabling technologies like automation and AI – play in helping make it easier for entrepreneurs and SMBs to access critical financing?

This week, Finovate VP and host of the Finovate Podcast Greg Palmer spoke with Marius Silvasan, CEO of eCapital, to discuss these and other issues important to small businesses and the financial services companies that serve them.

“SMBs in this current market are under pressure,” Silvansan explained in his Finovate Podcast interview. “They are challenged. And the reason behind that is we’ve come from an environment in which inflation is coming down, but has been high over the last year-and-a-half. We’ve come from an environment in which borrowing costs were near zero – and they’ve increased substantially over the last several years. And the labor market has been very tight, so it’s been tough for SMBs to hire, it’s been tough for SMBs to retain qualified personnel. So that’s made the environment for SMBs quite challenging over the several years.”

Headquartered in Miami, Florida, eCapital helps small and medium-sized businesses secure the financing they need in order to grow. Founded in 2006, eCapital offers a wide range of financing solutions including freight and invoice factoring, payroll funding, asset-back lending, equipment refinancing, and lines of credit.

This month alone, the company announced that it had funded a $15 million factoring facility for a technology company in the transportation industry, and funded a $5 million asset-based lending facility for a leading fiberglass media company.

Check out more interviews with fintech founders, executives, and entrepreneurs on the Finovate Podcast!

Photo by Michal Czyz on Unsplash

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Finovate Global Austria: BehaviorQuant Leverages Predictive Knowledge to Enhance the Investment Process

Finovate Global Austria: BehaviorQuant Leverages Predictive Knowledge to Enhance the Investment Process
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BehaviorQuant, CEO Interview, Finovate Global

What do you as an investor know about the people who manage your money? If your answer to this question is “not very much,” then imagine the challenge of banks and other financial institutions who invest millions of dollars with hundreds, if not thousands of investment professionals.

This is an underdiscussed problem in the investment world: the lack of systematic knowledge about the individuals and teams making investment decisions for millions of individuals, families, and organizations. This can lead to underperformance in terms of investments, as well as inefficient financial advisory.

To this end, we caught up with Thomas Oberlechner, CEO and founder of BehaviorQuant. The company he founded in 2018 gives financial institutions predictive information about the people behind investment decisions. BehaviorQuant leverages behavioral science, machine learning, and automation to learn and analyze the behavior of investment professionals and teams – as well as customers. The insights derived from BehaviorQuant’s automated survey technology enables fund managers to improve their performance and better customize their services to their customers.

Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, BehaviorQuant demoed its technology at FinovateEurope earlier this year.

What problem does BehaviorQuant solve and who does it solve it for?

Thomas Oberlechner: We developed BehaviorQuant because every financial decision is ultimately made by a person or a team. BehaviorQuant solves a core problem that underlies the entire investment industry: we don’t have systematic knowledge about the people and teams behind investment decisions. And that’s true for financial professionals and clients alike.

Financial players – for example, banks, funds, financial advisors – are used to having access to vast amounts of financial data and information. But without BehaviorQuant, they don’t have systematic knowledge and data about the people and teams behind this data.  Yet it is the people and teams behind the visible financial results that play the key role in investing. You can see this everywhere — in the performance of investment teams, in the selection of fund managers, in the efficiency and success of wealth advisors.

For example, in our research we found that 37% of the performance of top decision makers at world-leading financial institutions is based on their behavioral characteristics. However, there is no product to easily measure and quantify the behavioral characteristics of decision-makers. This lack of insight into the behavioral aspects and decision-making tendencies leads to underperformance of asset managers, missed profit opportunities for investors, unrecognized fund manager selection risks, costly staffing mistakes, and churn among dissatisfied clients.

How does BehaviorQuant solve this problem better than other companies?

Oberlechner: Our behavioral finance technology combines the highest level of expertise in behavioral science, personality and decision research with machine learning. For the first time ever, we are capturing the people and teams behind the visible investment decisions. And we give our customers predictive knowledge about themselves and about others – about their own investment teams, about the fund managers they allocate their money to, about their clients. Our solutions solve three distinct problems: first, they help asset managers to improve their performance; second, they help allocators choose the best fund managers; and third, they enable advisors to tailor their advice highly efficiently to each individual client.

As we all know and often forget, markets are made up of people. And financial decision makers have very different ways of processing information, personalities, values, goals, and decision paths. Before BehaviorQuant, there was no systematic knowledge of these aspects. But it is exactly these aspects that are critical to how successfully you steer your course through the rough waters of financial risks and returns.

So BehaviorQuant enables you to efficiently personalize your client advice, optimize your investment decisions, and avoid invisible risks in capital allocation and manager selection.

Regardless of how experienced you are as a financial professional, you will always benefit from a system that gives you systematic, quantitative knowledge about people. Our clients receive predictive knowledge about asset managers, investment teams, and clients. And they make far better decisions — whether they want to interact more effectively with their clients, optimize their team’s decision-making, hire promising professionals, or select compatible external fund managers. BehaviorQuant effortlessly makes them a master of these tasks.

Who are BehaviorQuant’s primary customers. How do you reach them?

Oberlechner: The lack of knowledge about the actual decision makers is pervasive, and it affects three kinds of financial companies in particular. These companies are also our main customers. First, we work with financial companies and asset managers who actively invest in the markets and who want to optimize the returns they generate by improving their own decision processes. Second, we work with family offices and other allocators who use BehaviorQuant to evaluate and select fund managers. And thirdly, we cater to banks and investment advisors who want to excel in advising their clients. They want to advise in a highly personalized way that is truly aligned with their clients.

How do we reach these customers? We’re proud that our first clients found us, not the other way around. Of course, in the meantime, we have grown our sales and marketing team and expanded our outreach efforts by maintaining an active presence on social and other media and attending of relevant conferences — like Finovate. And we’re finding that word of mouth from customers who love our solutions is increasingly supporting our efforts to win new customers.

Can you tell us about a favorite implementation or deployment of your technology?

Oberlechner: We have been receiving enthusiastic feedback from users on both sides of the Atlantic. It makes me and the team happy when they tell us that BehaviorQuant should be a mandatory tool in any decision-making process, when they emphasize how BehaviorQuant’s solutions help them to make better decisions in a systematic and sustainable way, and when they express their enthusiasm about how it helps them deepen their customer relationships.

But my personal favourite deployment of our technology is something that has only very recently come to market. It allows us to impact many more customers without them having to contact our friendly sales team first. Just in time for the 2023 fall season, we’ve introduced an all-new, self-service option for our financial and wealth advisors. They can now effortlessly get detailed information on our website and actively try out BQ Advisory. Then they can purchase single product uses for their work with clients. They can do this directly on the website, on a credit-by-credit basis. This self-service option and the ability to join on a credit basis alongside our attractive licensing offerings have made the of BQ Advisory much easier, especially for the many independent advisors who advise a limited number of clients. And it’s also great for advisors in large institutions who use us already and now want to easily show their colleagues what BehaviorQuant can do.

What in your background gave you the confidence to respond to this challenge?

Oberlechner: I was initially trained as a clinical psychologist in Vienna and always have been fascinated by the differences between people and the way they make decisions. As a university professor for many years, I have focused on how people actually make financial decisions — and the fact that we are all different financial decision makers. I have been fortunate to work with dozens of the world’s leading financial institutions for my research, from Goldman Sachs to Merrill Lynch to UBS. My female cofounder, Dr. Gerlinde Berghofer, and I both have PhDs and strong backgrounds in behavioral science. We have spent years doing research at Harvard, MIT, and Columbia University. We have worked with and studied hundreds and thousands of investment decision makers, from top fund managers to banks, advisors, and financial clients. From academia, we moved first to Silicon Valley and now to Vienna to translate this research into turnkey behavioral technologies for investment professionals.

Our solutions are therefore based on our many years of scientific work with many of the world’s leading investment institutions. And we have gone to great lengths to empirically test their benefits. For example, we have systematically tested the predictive power of BQ Performance with professional portfolio decision makers. While their average annual performance was about 10%, the annual performance of those whom the system predicted would outperform was more than twice as high. To give another example, in a comprehensive study of wealth advisory clients, BQ Advisory identified clients at risk of churn with 90% accuracy. Compare this to the 50% accuracy without BehaviorQuant!

Left to right: Dr. Thomas Oberlechner (CEO, Founder) and Gerlinde Berghofer (COO, Co-founder) of BehaviorQuant at FinovateEurope 2023.

What is the fintech ecosystem like in Austria?  What is the relationship between techs, fintechs, and traditional financial services companies?

Oberlechner: Austria and Vienna have proven to be a fertile breeding ground for the specific type of fintech that BehaviorQuant offers. Vienna historically has played a large role in the sciences that generate a better understanding of individual and collective behavior, from Freud’s psychoanalysis to the Austrian School of Economics. After spending many years in San Francisco developing fintech, we felt very fortunate that the Austrian government offered us a generous grant to bring BehaviorQuant here. 

I would describe the fintech industry as friendly and highly innovative, with some already well-known international players with roots in Austria like n26 and Bitpanda. Collaboration between traditional financial institutions and fintech startups has been a major driver of innovation in the Austrian market. Established banks are turning to fintech partnerships to expand their service offerings, improve the customer experience, and stay competitive in the digital age. Vienna has become a bit of a fintech hotspot, attracting both local and international talent and investment. Fintech companies benefit from Vienna’s consistently high rankings in international surveys of capitals’ attractiveness. The city offers an ecosystem of co-working spaces, incubators, and accelerators that foster collaboration and help fintech startups succeed.

At BehaviorQuant, we maintain close personal relationships with many of Austria’s “traditional” financial firms and banks, and we also have a very active bridge to the U.S. based on our history and our strong network on both the East and West coasts.

You demoed at FinovateEurope in London earlier this year How was that experience?

Oberlechner: Wow! We are absolutely thrilled by the incredible response we’ve received for our products! The interest and the number of new connections we’ve made were really overwhelming. We received amazing support from the organizers throughout the conference, as well as during in the preparation stage for our participation and presentation. The feedback from participants gave us an incredible boost of confidence and motivation. Thanks again to the team for a great and wonderfully rewarding experience!

What are your goals for BehaviorQuant and what can we expect in the months to come?

Oberlechner: Our goal with BehaviorQuant is simple: we want financial decision makers around the globe to become better decision-makers though our systematic behavioral data and decision support. And we want to become the world’s leading provider of predictive behavioral data for financial professionals and investment companies.

I briefly mentioned that we recently launched a self-service payment option for our advisory solution. In the coming months, exciting new self-service options are in the queue for the analysis of financial professionals with BQ Performance. This will allow individual investment professionals to easily get started with a comprehensive analysis of their personal untapped performance potential, as well as possible behavioral bias and performance blockers — before using it in the wider context, for example, with their entire team or company. So stay tuned for our upcoming releases!

Photo by Alesia Kozik

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Towards a More Transparent Financial Ecosystem with Matthew Parker of ModernTax

Towards a More Transparent Financial Ecosystem with Matthew Parker of ModernTax
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Diversity in Fintech, ModernTax

How can greater transparency in financial services help improve underwriting, lower risks, and create more opportunities for banks and small businesses alike?

We caught up with Matthew Parker, founder and CEO of ModernTax, to discuss how bringing more transparency to areas of finance like taxation can help credit providers make better decisions.

Founded in 2021 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, ModernTax made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring. At the conference, the company demoed its Business Verification Platform and Verifier API, a secure solution that enables fintechs and banks to verify tax records, business standing and KYC data.

Last month, ModernTax launched its Live Contributory Network for on-demand tax verification. The solution connects licensed tax professionals with ModernTax customers to provide on-demand, secure, and reliable tax verification services.

To start off, what is it about taxes that interests you? Of all the areas of finance, what’s special about taxes?

Matthew Parker: My first job out of college was in social services, specifically working in child support. My responsibilities included calculating the combined income of two people with misaligned incentives. This experience opened my eyes to how broken the world of tax, income, and finance can be at the ground level.

A few years later, I worked in consulting, helping banks understand what went wrong with the mortgage crisis. I then stumbled into my first entrepreneurial endeavor: a franchise tax preparation company. Over three years, I grew from one office to five and learned the ins and outs of the tax preparation business.

In 2017, I caught the technology bug and bought a one-way flight to San Francisco with the goal of starting a tax startup that utilized all of the tax data I had been accessing through my tax preparation business as alternative data to underwrite loans.

Six years later, I am building ModernTax to make use of this data to help underwrite, decrease risk, and create a more transparent financial ecosystem for U.S.-based small businesses.

Can you elaborate on that?

Parker: One thing that has consistently bothered me is the black box of tax information that lives outside of our bank feeds and accounting feeds. There is an entire business that helps accountants export accounting data into tax software (they are a customer), but that is a niche market.

The real problem we are solving is financial transparency. Many businesses that provide financial services are locked out of access to critical financial records, and 99% of U.S. businesses are not required to report any financials. This results in a massive transparency gap. Tax records are one way to fill this gap, with 15 million unique entities and 160 million individual tax returns filed annually in the U.S. alone.

How does ModernTax solve this problem better than other companies, or other solutions?

Parker: ModernTax aims to solve the problem of financial transparency by providing tax information on all U.S. small businesses, which can level the playing field and create a more transparent financial ecosystem. The commercial credit market in the U.S. alone is worth $8.8 trillion annually, and the average company in this industry generates approximately $7 billion in yearly revenue.

By utilizing tax records, which are filed by 15 million unique entities and 160 million individuals annually in the U.S. alone, ModernTax’s strategy revolves around transparency and eliminates the need for countless hours of back-and-forth communication and manual data entry to collect this information, saving commercial providers time and money, and making it easier to evaluate businesses.

What is your primary market? What has the response to your technology been like?

Parker: We primarily sell to commercial credit providers such as banks, online lenders, and other data providers that assist companies in underwriting, fraud prevention, and verifying financial documents for their customers.

We have received positive responses from data providers such as D&B, Experian, and Transunion, as well as from our first paying partner, Enigma Technologies. Moreover, ModernTax has been well-received by direct carrier insurance companies for both underwriting and claims processing on income-related products.

Are there any deployments or features of your technology that are especially noteworthy?

Parker: In the past month, we have added 14 new features. One notable observation is the need for a robust platform that allows our contributors to efficiently provide us with data. Unfortunately, the IRS does not provide adequate tools to help companies maintain transparency in their reporting. We are constantly learning from our contributors on how we can build tools to address this issue.

ModernTax is headquartered in San Francisco and was founded in 2021. What is it like to be a young startup in San Francisco today?

Parker: Personally, it feels surreal to me. I moved to San Francisco in 2017, lived through the pandemic, and experienced the boom of 2021 and the correction of 2022. Nevertheless, San Francisco is resilient. Although there are political and socioeconomic problems that come with being a high-stakes, high- reward city, founders can arrive here with nothing and become paper billionaires and liquid millionaires faster than anywhere else in the world.

This creates a tale of two cities. To be a young startup, you have a ton of resources right in your backyard, but you also realize how competitive it is. There was a new billion-dollar company born every day for a certain amount of time and now, with AI, we are seeing history repeat itself. It’s important to keep your momentum but also not get too distracted.

We also wanted to talk with you as a Black founder and entrepreneur. What advice would you give to other potential founders-of-color?

Parker: Starting a company is hard, full stop. I even joke with my wife that I don’t mind telling my 18-month-old son “no” a lot because it’s just the nature of life in general. As a black founder, I have experienced both ups and downs. George Floyd’s murder created a domino effect of predominantly white people at large institutions feeling guilty, which led to a lot of initiatives that were half-baked and more PR moves than anything. That sentiment wore off pretty quickly, especially as markets turned for the worst in 2022.

If you built your brand “how hard it is to be a black founder”, you are likely bitter right now because we learned that the market didn’t care about you being black or about what happened with George Floyd. We are now seeing pushback with the rollback of affirmative action, the lawsuit impacting Fearless Fund, and I think more challenges will come. So, I would say focus on your business, focus on your customers, and build products. If you play the victim in a game that is already hard, you decrease your chances of winning.

You demoed your technology at FinovateSpring earlier this year. What was that experience like for you and your team?

Parker: This demo helped us think about how our product helps financial institutions and we were able to demonstrate the capabilities that companies can experience by getting access to this information in real-time.

What are your goals for ModernTax? What can we expect from the company over the balance of 2023 and into next year?

Parker: ModernTax aims to provide near-instant access to verified tax and financial information through a network of licensed tax agents to create a more transparent verification process for their customers. Over the balance of 2023 and into next year, the company plans to add eight new customers, launch new features for its contributor portal and business user features, and attend various business development events and in-person client meetings.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich

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AI Squared on the Keys to Successful AI Adoption in Financial Services

AI Squared on the Keys to Successful AI Adoption in Financial Services
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AI Squared, Alumni profile, CEO Interview, Diversity in Fintech

Will 2023 be known as the year AI came of age? With the advent of Generative AI and tools like ChatGPT, the technology world got an unexpected boost this year as interest in the potential for artificial intelligence soared.

What does the surge in interest and activity in AI mean for financial services? How can fintechs leverage the technology to help banks, credit unions, and other financial services organizations and institutions better serve their customers with more choice, more security, and more efficiency?

We caught up with Dr. Benjamin Harvey, founder and CEO of AI Squared. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AI Squared made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring and will return to the Finovate stage next month for FinovateFall. The company specializes in integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning into existing apps. We discussed the rise of AI, the impact AI might have on financial services, and the work of AI Squared in helping businesses take advantage of the emerging technology.

We also talked about the challenges Harvey has faced as an African American entrepreneur and founder in the technology industry. As we commemorate Black Business Month here in August, we are also happy to share his insights and advice on what African American founders and entrepreneurs need to keep in mind when starting out.

Let’s start with a big picture question: what is overhyped about AI, what’s underhyped, and what are we getting right?

Benjamin Harvey: There’s a lot of hype around AI, and some of it is warranted, but not all. One of the most overhyped ideas is that AI will replace humans in the workforce on a large scale. While AI can automate certain tasks, it can’t replicate the creativity, empathy, and critical thinking that humans bring to the table. On the flip side, what’s underhyped is the potential for AI to be simple while being useful. Many AI products have incredible potential but are too complicated for widespread adoption. Simplifying AI and making it more accessible can unlock its true potential and bring about transformative change across industries.

What most observers and commentators are getting right about AI is that it’s here to stay. AI is not just a passing trend; it’s a technological revolution that’s reshaping the way we live and work.

Now let’s turn to your company. What problem does AI Squared solve and who does it solve it for? 

Harvey: AI Squared is a platform designed for product owners, data scientists, and enterprise leaders. We empower users to accelerate both predictive and generative AI projects, measure their benefits, and drive significant revenue growth and cost reduction. Our solution is industry-agnostic and loved by our users.

We address a critical issue in the AI industry: 90% of AI and ML models never make it into production or use, largely due to the time and cost involved. AI Squared tackles this problem head-on, reducing the time to production and use of AI and ML models from an average of 8 months to 8 hours or less. We provide a secure environment for accelerating AI projects, enabling users to measure benefits, use no/low code solutions, and deliver trustworthy AI results. By streamlining the AI deployment process, we help organizations harness their data to drive game-changing AI capabilities, driving innovation and growth.

How does AI Squared solve this problem better than other companies, other solutions?

Harvey: We understand that the key to successful AI adoption is seamless integration into existing workflows. Our solution is designed to fit effortlessly into the applications that our customers already use on a daily basis. By embedding AI capabilities directly into these familiar tools, we eliminate the need for users to switch between different platforms, thereby reducing friction and increasing efficiency. This approach not only enhances the user experience, but also drives greater AI adoption across the organization. Our technology is versatile and accessible, making it a valuable asset for teams at all levels, from operational staff to executive leadership. The result is a more informed, agile, and productive organization that can leverage AI to its full potential.

What is your primary market? What has their response to your technology been like?

Harvey: Our primary market is financial services and the response has been overwhelmingly positive! Financial services organizations are constantly seeking ways to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer experiences. And our platform has been proven to address these needs by accelerating the deployment of AI and ML models, making it easier for these organizations to harness the power of their data.

When clients see how we can reduce AI implementation from 8 months to 8 hours they’re blown away. We’re proud to say that we’ve turned our clients into our biggest champions. The value we provide goes beyond just the technology; it’s about the tangible benefits that our platform brings to their operations.  They appreciate the speed at which they can now bring AI projects to fruition, the ease of integration with their existing systems, and the measurable ROI that our platform delivers.

Are there any deployments or features of your technology that are especially noteworthy?

Harvey: First and foremost, we prioritize data security and privacy. Unlike many other AI platforms, we don’t store or copy our customers’ data. This is a crucial differentiator, especially for organizations in highly regulated industries like financial services, where data privacy and security are paramount.

We offer flexible deployment options to suit the specific needs of our customers. Our on-premises deployment ensures that all data remains within the customer’s own infrastructure, providing an added layer of security. For those who prefer a cloud-based solution, we offer a multi-tenant deployment that still maintains robust data privacy and security measures.

One of our standout features is our Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) capability. This feature allows human verification and corrections to be made to the data generated by Generative AI before it’s used in critical business applications. This ensures a high level of accuracy and reliability in the data, which is essential for making informed business decisions. Our HITL feature is particularly valuable for organizations that need to ensure the utmost accuracy in their AI-generated data, such as those in the financial services sector where even small errors can have significant consequences.

You and many of your team have significant backgrounds in academia and the government. How has the transition into a more entrepreneurial space been?

Harvey: The transition from academia and government to the entrepreneurial space has been both challenging and rewarding. Initially, it was a bit of a culture shock to shift from a focus on the technical aspects of AI to a more value-driven approach. In academia and government, the emphasis is often on the theoretical and technical aspects of AI, whereas in the entrepreneurial space, the focus is on delivering tangible value to customers.

But once we got past the initial adjustment, we found that our diverse backgrounds gave us a unique perspective and a competitive edge. While our experience in academia has equipped us with a deep understanding of the technical intricacies of AI, our government experience has given us insights into the importance of security and compliance, especially when dealing with sensitive data.

We’ve been able to leverage these insights to develop a platform that not only delivers powerful AI capabilities but also addresses the specific pain points and challenges faced by our customers. Our approach is rooted in a deep understanding of both the technical and practical aspects of AI, and we’re able to offer solutions that are tailored to the unique needs of each customer.

Left to right: AI Squared’s Benjamin Harvey, Alvin McClerkin (COO), and Michelle Bonat (CTO) at FinovateSpring.

We also want to showcase AI Squared as part of our Black Business Month commemoration. What challenges have you faced as a Black founder and entrepreneur? What advice would you give?

Harvey: Launching a company as a Black entrepreneur, particularly in the AI/technology space, comes with its own unique set of challenges. One of the most significant hurdles is the lack of resources and representation in the industry. As a Black founder, I often found myself navigating uncharted territory without the benefit of a robust network or role models to look up to. However, I believe that these challenges can be overcome with determination, persistence, and a strong support system.

My advice to aspiring Black tech founders is to build a solid network of mentors, advisors, and peers who can provide guidance and support along the way. Don’t be discouraged by setbacks or rejections; instead, use them as learning opportunities to refine your approach and strategy. Do your homework, stay informed about industry trends, and be prepared to articulate the value proposition of your technology clearly and convincingly. Most importantly, reach out to other Black founders and executives who have walked the path before you. Their insights and experiences can be invaluable as you navigate the complexities of the tech startup ecosystem.

Remember, you are not alone in this journey. There is a growing community of Black tech founders and professionals who are eager to support and uplift each other. By working together, we can break down barriers, create more inclusive opportunities, and pave the way for future generations of Black tech entrepreneurs.

Speaking of African-Americans, AI Squared is headquartered in Washington, D.C. What is the technology scene like there?

Harvey: D.C. is a hotbed of tech innovation, especially in security and intelligence. Being close to the Federal Government and defense agencies, we’re in a unique spot to work on projects that matter for national security. It’s a vibrant scene here, with big tech firms, cool startups, and research hubs all mixing it up. We’re a tight-knit community, always meeting up, sharing ideas, and pushing each other to innovate.

The best part is that if your tech is good enough for national security, it’s good enough for anything. We’re talking finance, healthcare, consumer goods – you name it. Being in D.C. gives us the credibility to branch out into these sectors. It’s an exciting place to be, and we’re happy to be part of it.

You demoed your technology at FinovateSpring earlier this year. What was that experience like for you?

Harvey: The experience of demoing our technology at FinovateSpring was exciting and valuable for us. It provided us with a unique platform to showcase our product to a large audience of stakeholders, and to connect with key decision-makers in the financial services industry. We got valuable feedback on our product.

But the demo wasn’t without its challenges. Some technical difficulties with signing in and that, combined with the strict time constraints of the event, impacted our demo. These are things that tend to happen when demo-ing in a new forum. But it’s in our DNA to adapt and we did – and received positive feedback from attendees and made valuable connections that have since led to fruitful discussions. Overall, the experience was a great opportunity for us to showcase our technology, connect with industry leaders, and learn from the challenges we faced.

What can we expect from AI Squared over the balance of 2023 and into next year?

Harvey: Our primary goal for AI Squared is to continue delivering exceptional value to our customers, with a focus on the financial services sector. We’re committed to optimizing our product to enhance the customer experience and build strong, lasting relationships. As we approach the end of 2023, we are on track to exceed our internal goals, thanks to the dedication of our team.

Looking ahead to next year, we have ambitious plans for growth. We’re preparing to raise our next round of funding with a strategic team of investors who share our vision. This funding will enable us to continue providing world-class service and products. We’re also planning to expand our product offerings and explore new markets. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and look forward to sharing our progress with you!

Photo by Emmeth Daavid

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