Daily news

Human Resources Management Innovator Gusto Teams Up with Xendoo

Human Resources Management Innovator Gusto Teams Up with Xendoo
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Gusto

Cloud-based payroll benefits and human resource management innovator Gusto announced a partnership with online accounting and bookkeeping firm Xendoo to help launch Xendoo Payroll. Gusto Head of Partnerships Somrat Nyogi described the partnership as part of an overall trend toward digitization of key business operations. “Through our partnership, Xendoo is combining payroll and bookkeeping services to deliver financial peace of mind to small business owners,” Nyogi said.

Not only is this week’s partnership announcement part of a relationship between the two companies that goes back “for years,” but the collaboration, according to Xendoo CEO and founder Lil Roberts, also anticipates the beginning of a “long-term deeper tech partnership” between the two firms.

“Partnering with Gusto was a natural decision as we both strive for the same outcome: taking the stress out of finances for small business owners so they can focus on what matters most – growing their businesses,” Roberts explained. “Integrating Gusto’s embedded payroll into our new Xendoo Payroll solution will allow us to better serve our customers and expand our offering to create an all-in-one-place solution for the SMB community.” 

Available via API, Gusto Embedded Payroll enables developers to embed and customize payroll functionality into their platforms. In addition to Xendoo’s launch, Gusto reported that “more than a dozen” companies already have begun to deploy the new payroll solution. Moreover, these firms will be able to leverage their new payroll functionality to gain deeper insights into their customers and discover opportunities to provide additional services. Among those first out-of-the-gate with Gusto Embedded Payroll is SMB banking platform Novo, which will become one of the first platforms of its kind to offer integrated payroll services.

“Payroll is one of the biggest expenses for small businesses, and being able to integrate it more deeply into the whole financial picture opens up many opportunities to optimize cash flow and operations,” Novo VP of Product Matt Hamilton said. “We’re excited about working with Gusto to provide the most flexible payroll experience to our businesses.”

Making its Finovate debut as ZenPayroll in 2014, Gusto was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. From its origins as a payroll services startup, Gusto has grown into a small business human resources management platform that helps companies with employee onboarding, benefits, insurance, and other HR operations. Plans start as low as $45/month and more than 100,000 businesses are on the Gusto platform.

Gusto has raised more than $516 million in funding, and includes Fidelity Management and Research Company, and Generation Investment Management among its most recent investors. Earlier this month, the company announced its first acquisition, a startup called Ardius that automates tax compliance for companies with R&D tax credits. Joshua Reeves is Gusto CEO.

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Investment App Stash Grabs Financial Literacy Platform PayGrade

Investment App Stash Grabs Financial Literacy Platform PayGrade
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Stash

Along with the fanfare surrounding so-called meme stocks and the “power of the individual trader” last year, there was a dark side. Investing and trading platforms that had embraced gamification were being accused of not fully preparing their customers for the dangers involved in stock trading – especially in volatile, illiquid stocks. Critics demanded that these platforms spend more time – and money, if necessary – educating their customers for their own benefit as well as for the good of the investing and trading industry, which has recovered impressively since the dot.com bust 20 years ago.

This is the spirit in which we take the news that Stash, a New York-based, mobile-first investment platform that made its Finovate debut in 2017, has acquired financial literacy platform PayGrade. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition marks Stash’s first acquisition and its biggest fintech news headline since a whopping $125 million Series G fundraising back in February.

Brandon Kreig, CEO and co-founder of Stash said that the acquisition was an example of the company’s mission to “empower everyday Americans to invest for the future.” He noted that personal finance education is not emphasized in American schools – with 43 out of 50 states not requiring coursework in personal financial management – and that an overwhelming number of American adults – as much as 80% – live “paycheck to paycheck.”

“With PayGrade,” Kreig explained, “Stash will provide teachers, parents, and children with interactive tools to learn effective money management skills that will last a lifetime.”

Stash enables users to begin investing on its platform with as little as $1 a month. The company’s “Stash Beginner” program allows investing – including fractional share investing – as well as banking, portfolio recommendations, savings strategies, and a Stock-Back card that helps users earn stock every time they use the card for shopping. Stash also offers Growth and Plus plans that add features such as portfolios for children, premium research, and enhanced bonuses for using the Stash Stock-Back card.

Purchasing PayGrade is not the only way that Stash will support the cause of financial literacy this year. Stash’s acquisition news arrived just a few days before the company announced that it was partnering with the Suh Family Foundation and the Big Yard Foundation to launch a financial literacy program over the summer. Dubbed the Stash101 Summer School, the program will be conducted in partnership with Portland Public Schools and will give 160 middle school students an introduction to vital money management and wealth building.

“From investing and banking to education and retirement planning, we believe everyone has the power to achieve greater financial freedom—one step at a time.” Krieg said. “We’re thrilled to deepen our commitment to childhood education through Stash101 and this special summer school program in Portland with the Suhs and Big Yard. It’s going to be a tremendous four weeks for the kids.”

Stash101 is part of the Portland Interscholastic League Trajectory Math Program, which provides additional learning resources for historically underserved students. The course will include a simulated economy experience in which the students will complete tasks like renting desks, while earning a salary and learning about the difference between savings and credit. The classes will be held between July 6 and July 27 at a pair of schools in the Portland School system.

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Raisin Teams Up with Texas Bank to Launch its Savings-as-a-Service Solution in the U.S.

Raisin Teams Up with Texas Bank to Launch its Savings-as-a-Service Solution in the U.S.
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news

Technology supergeniuses and uber-popular podcasters aren’t the only ones choosing to set up shop in the Lone Star State these days. German savings marketplace Raisin has gone live with its first U.S. partner bank – Dallas, Texas-based MapleMark Bank – launching its term deposit products o MapleMark’s digital platform.

“Together with MapleMark Bank, Raisin U.S. is pursuing Raisin’s core mission of breaking down barriers to better savings and investments,” Raisin CEO Tamaz Georgadze said. “The U.S. deposit market hasn’t seen an innovation in decades. As a pioneer in the deposits space across Europe, it made sense for us to enter the American market by modernizing one of the most important and popular U.S. deposit product categories.”

Raisin made its choice of MapleMark known back in April. The integration of Raisin’s savings-as-a-service technology will enable MapleMark to engage new customers beyond its current private banking base. Raisin’s solution will allow MapleMark’s affluent clients to access personalized certificate-of-deposit products easily without having to open multiple, potentially unrelated banking accounts just to meet their cash savings goals. MapleMark Chief Financial Officer Willy Wolfe said that the partnership was a “win-win” for both the bank and its customers, and changed what historically had been a long, complex, and expensive undertaking into a process that is “instantaneous and simple.”

“Being able to generate cost-effective individualized deposit products at the click of a button advances MapleMark’s digital positioning in a highly competitive field, while also simplifying funding for the bank,” Wolfe explained.

Raisin’s solution enables financial institutions and their clients to personalize term deposits, including a schedule of projected outflows. Banks and customers can also choose to customize market-linked products to add exposure to potential upside from the market while still benefitting from the protection of a time deposit. Raisin’s pre-built term solutions for ladder, liquidity, and market-linked products are available to customers, as well.

Founded in 2012 and launched from its Berlin, Germany headquarters a year later, Raisin has place $32 billion for 335,000 customers in more than 30 European countries and more than 100 partner banks. Named one of Europe’s top five fintechs for 2019 and 2020, Raisin has raised $206 million in funding from investors including PayPal Ventures and Thrive Capital.

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Partner Power: Interface.ai Brings Intelligent Virtual Assistants to Dover FCU

Partner Power: Interface.ai Brings Intelligent Virtual Assistants to Dover FCU
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Interface.ai, Partnership Outlook

The 43,000+ members of Dover Federal Credit Union (DFCU) are the latest beneficiaries of the marriage between AI and customer care that has been a growing feature of the customer experience in financial services. The Delaware-based institution, with more than $600 million in assets, has teamed up with interface.ai to leverage the company’s Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) in its call center operations initially, before expanding the technology to DFCU’s website, online, and banking services.

“The IVA will enable us to create a seamless experience for members across all of our contact channels,” DFCU VP of Marketing & Digital Experience Tyler Kuhn said. “It will also help to continue to create efficiencies across the organization. With the ability of the technology to continuously learn and improve, we will be able to adapt to new member needs and evolve. Working with interface.ai also allows us to retain our personal touch in every conversation through their neutral voice-enabled system that makes every voice-interaction with the IVA, human-like.”

In the partnership announcement, Kuhn recalled pandemic-era call center volumes that were twice as large as usual and had a major impact on DFCU’s ability to serve its members at a time of crisis. Finding no traditional solution to the challenge, Kuhn said that interface.ai’s IVA had a number of key features that DFCU needed in order to effectively respond to its members. Focusing on these critical issues – eliminating support bottlenecks, improving operational efficiencies, and enhancing the overall member experience – according to Kuhn, is what led DFCU to interface.ai.

“In our search, we discovered that interface.ai’s IVA would enable us to instantly respond to member inquiries around the clock, while maintaining high service levels – ultimately leading to enhanced member experiences and further optimizing our operational costs by creating efficiencies across the organization,” Kuhn explained.

Interface.ai won Best of Show in its Finovate debut last year, demonstrating its out-of-the-box, “personal teller” that uses human-level, natural language to enable call centers to automate 60% of their calls in 60 days. Since then, interface.ai has forged a number of partnerships with banks and credit unions including collaborations with Pasadena Service Federal Credit Union in May, with America’s Credit Union based in Washington State in April and, in December, with Dallas, Texas-based Neighborhood Credit Union.

Founded in 2018, interface.ai is headquartered in San Mateo, California. Srinivas Njay is founder and CEO.

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Illuma Labs Secures Funding to Fuel Innovation in Voice Authentication

Illuma Labs Secures Funding to Fuel Innovation in Voice Authentication
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Illuma Labs

An investment of $2.5 million from Curql Fund will help Illuma Labs further innovate in the field of voice authentication for credit union call centers. The company will use the capital to enable new anti-fraud features as well as new platform integrations to ensure its technology is accessible to a wide range of credit unions.

Illuma Labs flagship product, demonstrated at the company’s most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall last year, is Illuma Shield. The solution leverages real-time voice authentication rather than traditional, knowledge-based authentication techniques to combat fraud, improve efficiency, and enhance the overall member experience.

“This technology uses state of the art Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and voice biometrics to address three of the top concerns for credit unions,” Illuma Labs founder and CEO Milind Borkar explained. “Improving member experience by emulating the warm welcome of a brick-and-mortar visit, creating operational efficiency by shortening call times, and increasing security to prevent account takeovers.”

“The infusion of investment from Curql is very timely for expanding this solution to the entire credit union community,” Borkar added.

Earlier this year, Illuma Labs announced a partnership with TDECU (Texas Dow Employees Credit Union) which deployed Illuma Labs’ voice authentication technology in its Member Contact Center. With more than 354,000 members and more than $4 billion in assets, TDECU is a not-for-profit financial cooperative that offers a full range of deposit products as well as online and mobile banking, and lending solutions.

“Our top priority is to keep members connected to their money in a way that is not only safe and secure, but also easily accessible,” TDECU Chief Growth, Strategy & Marketing Officer Alex De La Cruz said. “We look to fintech as a solution through our partnership with Illuma Labs to provide added security and a best-in-class Member experience.”

Also this spring, Illuma Labs teamed up with Wisconsin-based Connexus Credit Union ($3.3 billion in assets; 382,000 members). Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Illuma Labs was founded in 2016.

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SmartAsset Secures Unicorn Status with $110 Million Investment

SmartAsset Secures Unicorn Status with $110 Million Investment
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, SmartAsset

SmartAsset, a fintech that helps individuals connect with qualified financial advisors and improve their overall financial health, announced a major fundraising this week. The company secured a $110 million investment in a Series D round led by TTV Capital that takes SmartAsset’s valuation to more than $1 billion.

“Our mission is to help people get better financial advice,” SmartAsset founder and CEO Michael Carvin said. “With this additional capital we are going to make further investments in building the web’s best personal finance resource and enhancing our ability to connect consumers to financial advisors across the U.S.” Specifically, SmartAsset noted in its funding announcement that it will invest in new product offerings, technology infrastructure, and data partnerships. The company also pointed to the growth it has experienced since its last major funding in 2018 – growing revenues by 10x and nearing $100 million in annual recurring revenue – to support its goal of “aggressively” adding to its workforce. With 202 full-time employees currently on board, SmartAsset is seeking to expand its workforce by more than 75% this year.

“SmartAsset is quickly expanding its lead in one of the largest markets in the U.S. by providing an incredibly valuable resource for both consumers and financial advisors alike,” TTV Capital Partner Mark Johnson said. “The company helps millions of people make better financial decisions while simultaneously enabling advisors to grow their business.”

Also participating in the round were Javelin Venture Partners, Contour, Citi Ventures, New York Life Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners, and CMFG Ventures.

More than 100 million consumers access SmartAsset’s personal finance content, tools, and other resources each month. Named one of America’s Best Startup Employers in 2020 by Forbes, the company announced recently that LPL Financial had selected SmartAsset for its Vendor Affinity Program, giving 18,000+ independent financial advisors access to SmartAsset’s SmartAdvisor platform.

“SmartAsset gives (advisors) a new way to connect with investors across the country digitally, while also freeing up time to spend with their existing clientele,” Rob Pettman, LPL Financial EVP for Wealth Management Solutions, said. “It also provides advisors more choice in solutions they can leverage to grow their business.”

SmartAsset began the year by announcing Firoze Lafeer as its new Chief Technology Officer. The company made another addition to its C-suite in April when it hired James Kennedy as its Chief Compliance Officer and Director of Legal. SmartAsset made its Finovate debut in 2014 at FinovateSpring.

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Wells Fargo Joins Akoya to Promote API-Based Financial Data Aggregation

Wells Fargo Joins Akoya to Promote API-Based Financial Data Aggregation
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Wells Fargo

Another day, another big bank joins the Akoya Data Access Network to bring greater financial data aggregation to banking customers.

“The addition of Wells Fargo to the Akoya Data Access Network is yet another signal marking the industry’s shift toward safer and more secure API-based data aggregation, especially as new fintechs offer consumers a wide range of innovative services,” Akoya CEO Stuart Rubinstein said.

Wells Fargo’s move means that fintechs and data aggregators will be able to request API-based access to Wells Fargo customer data for mutual customers through the Akoya Data Access Network. The Network was spun off from Fidelity Investments in February 2020, and has since secured support from a dozen financial institutions, including Wells Fargo. Akoya implements Financial Data Exchange API specifications, which enable bank customers to provide third-party financial apps with access to their financial data without having to share their login credentials. Akoya’s API-based approach compares favorably to screen-scraping or “credential-based data aggregation,” especially in terms of data access reliability and security.

Bank of America, Chase, Fidelity, and U.S. Bank already have joined the Akoya Data Access Network. This means that, according to Rubinstein, “nearly half of all U.S. retail banking accounts (are) available through our authorized API connections.”

Wells Fargo will make its data available on the network later this year, giving customers time to authorize Akoya-connected fintech apps and service to access their Wells Fargo account data. The bank said it will maintain its direct API connections with third-party fintech partners who have signed data exchange agreements with the company.

“We believe that using APIs as a means of data transfer is a model the industry can use to create more reliable and more secure data sharing,” Ben Soccorsy, SVP of Wells Fargo’s Strategy, Digital and Innovation group, said. “As we continue to move toward what we see as a more secure, transparent and convenient method of data exchange, our agreement with Akoya offers another implementation option for connecting with fintechs.”

With $1.9 trillion in assets, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the U.S., and more than 10% of all middle market companies and small businesses in the U.S. The company is ranked #30 on Fortune’s 2020 roster of America’s largest corporations.

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Ping Identity Acquires Fraud Detection Firm SecuredTouch

Ping Identity Acquires Fraud Detection Firm SecuredTouch
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Ping Identity, SecuredTouch

A pair of Finovate alums have announced plans to “tie the knot” this week. Intelligent Identity solution provider Ping Identity has agreed to acquire fraud and bot detection and mitigation specialist SecuredTouch. Terms of the transaction were not immediately available.

By leveraging a variety of enabling technologies – including machine learning, AI, behavioral biometrics, and deep learning – SecuredTouch’s technology empowers fraud and risk teams to identify suspicious and potentially malicious behavior across all digital entities. The acquisition will integrate SecuredTouch with Ping Identity’s PingOne Cloud Platform, giving business customers the ability to better understand and prevent malicious activity. Customers will have the option of using SecuredTouch as a standalone solution or as part of the PingOne platform.

Ping Identity founder and CEO Andre Durand said that the acquisition “accelerates” the company’s mission to provide cloud-based identity and anti-fraud solutions to businesses to help them fight a wide range of cyberthreats ranging from emulators to account takeover.

“Identity isn’t just about knowing who your customers are, it’s about knowing when someone is pretending to be a customer,” Durand explained. “As companies undergo massive digital transformation initiatives, the need for seamless, frictionless, and secure identity solutions to confidently understand both those situations is imperative.”

Ping Identity made its Finovate debut at our first European fintech conference in 2012. In the years since, the Denver, Colorado-based company has become the identity management solution provider of choice for 60% of the Fortune 100 and forged partnerships with technology companies like Microsoft and Amazon. Most recently, Ping Identity collaborated with ProofID to enhance identity security for Tesco Bank, the banking division of Tesco, the largest supermarket retail chain in the U.K.

Headquartered in Ramat Gan, Israel, SecuredTouch demonstrated its behavioral biometrics technology at FinovateFall 2018. The company’s solution analyzes more than 100 different behavioral behaviors – from scroll velocity to touch pressure – to create a unique user profile that benefits from continuous verification. Winner of Best Product at the Loyalty Security Association Lion’s Den event this spring, SecuredTouch earned a patent for its continuous use authentication in 2019.

“This is a defining moment for our industry as identity security and fraud come together,” SecuredTouch CEO Alasdair Rambaud said of this week’s acquisition news. “Ping Identity’s enterprise proven and robust platform provides the perfect foundation for SecuredTouch’s advanced fraud detection capabilities.”

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Power to the Partners! A Look at Who’s Teaming Up to Tackle Banking’s Biggest Challenges

Power to the Partners! A Look at Who’s Teaming Up to Tackle Banking’s Biggest Challenges
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Partnership Outlook

While cryptocurrencies and IPOs often grab the biggest headlines in fintech, much of the critical work of forging partnerships and innovating collaboratively between fintechs and financial institutions often goes, if not unnoticed, then at least a little underrecognized and underappreciated.

With this in mind, we’re starting off each week with a reminder that, when it comes to getting technology from idea to implementation, partnerships and collaborations are often the primary vehicle to getting it done. No man – or woman – is an island. And the same is true for any technology company or financial institution interested in making a meaningful impact in the lives of their customers and members.

Here’s a look at some of the more recent partnerships and collaborations between banks, credit unions, fintechs, and other players in the financial services space. Boldface indicates the company has demoed its technology at a Finovate and/or FinDEVr conference.

Banks and Credit Unions

Payments

  • Cloud payments and financial messaging specialist Volante Technologies announced an instant payments partnership with European payment services company SIA.

Security, Fraud Prevention, and Digital Identity

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Nutmeg Acquired by JPMorgan Chase

Nutmeg Acquired by JPMorgan Chase
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Nutmeg

Just when you thought the big banks might be getting a little too complacent about the challenge from fintech, JPMorgan announced today that it will acquire U.K.-based digital wealth management platform Nutmeg. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but Reuters cited a source who gave Nutmeg a valuation of more than $972 million (£700 million).

JPMorgan Chase CEO of International Consumer Sanoke Viswanathan said that the acquisition would give the bank the opportunity to “build Chase in the U.K. from scratch using the very latest technology.” The Nutmeg acquisition also will complement JPMorgan Chase’s U.K. digital bank launch scheduled for later this year.

A Finovate alum since 2012, Nutmeg was a pioneer in offering affordable, automated financial planning and investment services. Now the largest digital wealth manager in the U.K., Nutmeg has grown into a platform with more than 140,000 clients and $4.9 billion (£3.5 billion) in assets under management. Investors can open an account with as little as £100 or £500, depending on the product, and configure their investment goals and risk level, as well as investment style in a minutes. With a product suite that includes a variety of ISAs (Lifetime, Junior, Stocks and shares) as well as pension and general investment accounts, Nutmeg leverages exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to keep costs low and diversification options broad for investors.

Nutmeg and JPMorgan are far from strangers. The two companies announced a partnership back in November of last year to launch a “bespoke new investment offering” called Smart Alpha for Nutmeg customers. The new Smart Alpha portfolios blend Nutmeg’s core investment principles and expertise in exchange-traded funds and fractional investing with JPMorgan Chase’s in-house multi-asset knowledge and experience. Smart Alpha portfolios are designed for investors of all risk levels who want a globally diversified, dynamic portfolio derives additional returns via smart and transparent security selection.

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Digital ID Verification Specialist OCR Labs Secures $15 Million to Power Expansion

Digital ID Verification Specialist OCR Labs Secures $15 Million to Power Expansion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, OCR Labs

From the rise of digital commerce to the growth of the gig economy to the challenge of a global pandemic, digital identity technology has been one of the bigger beneficiaries of a number of trends sweeping societies around the world. Add to this a new emphasis on financial inclusion and social equity, and you have a recipe for opportunity for many innovators in the digital identity space.

The latest company to take advantage of the current moment is OCR Labs, which made its Finovate debut at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, in 2016. The company, headquartered in Sydney, Australia and founded by Matthew Adams and Daniel Aiello, returned to the Finovate stage the following summer, earning a Best of Show award for a demo of its ID verification solution.

OCR Labs combines five different technologies – ID document OCR, document fraud assessment, liveness detection, video fraud assessment, and face matching – in a single, end-to-end digital identity experience. The company’s technology has been deployed in a wide range of verticals – from financial services and e-commerce to telecommunications and real estate – to provide AML and KYC-compliant digital ID verification and customer onboarding.

This week OCR Labs announced that it had raised $15 million (EUR 12.5 million) in Series A funding. The round was led Oyak Group of Turkey and will enable the company to expand into markets into Turkey, the U.K., and throughout Europe. OCR Lab currently maintains an international headquarters in London.

“No one wants to spend hours trying to prove who they are, whether it’s for a job or for a bank account, and we also want to know we’re protected against identity theft and fraud,” OCR Labs co-founder Daniel Aiello said. “Digital ID verification has a key role to play, but this year we’ve also seen the limitations if hybrid models are used. People are a barrier and a risk, but fully automated technology can have a huge impact on many industries and privacy. OCR Labs is built to be secure, frictionless and fast, and capable of recognizing ID documents the world over.”

Enjoying triple-digit growth since its launch, OCR Labs has partnered with Reed Screening to help businesses verifying candidate identities during the COVID crisis ahead of a potential in-person COVID check mandate later this month. There is some pressure to allow businesses to continue remote COVID checking, an idea with which OCR Labs understandably sympathizes.

“The need for digital verification is growing exponentially,” Aiello said. “This past year we’ve seen more demand from new sectors as they try to navigate the pandemic and an inability to operate in-person. We believe it has accelerated what needed to happen.”

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Papa’s Brand New Bag: GoDaddy Unveils Small Business Payments Solution

Papa’s Brand New Bag: GoDaddy Unveils Small Business Payments Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news

Domain registrar and web hosting giant GoDaddy is the latest technology company to unveil its own payment processing solution. Launched this week, GoDaddy Payments enables GoDaddy Websites + Marketing and Managed WordPress WooCommerce customers to conduct their commerce transactions directly via GoDaddy. The firm’s new payments capability comes courtesy of technology and talent gained from its acquisition of Poynt last December.

“GoDaddy is hyper focused on empowering our customers to sell everywhere with a single solution in a seamlessly intuitive experience,” GoDaddy President of Commerce Osama Bedier said. “GoDaddy Payments represents a major step towards centralizing every tool and service a business needs to successfully sell online. Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we look forward to accelerating our efforts.”

Bedier founded Poynt in 2013 to reimagine payment terminals into smart, connected devices that power third-party apps and solutions. The company offered a range of point-of-sale hardware and software solutions to facilitate payments, including the its Android-based smart POS terminals and its PoyntOS-powered, third party-terminals. Before being acquired, Poynt handled more than $16 billion in gross merchandise volume a year for its 100,000+ merchant clients.

With more than 20 million customers on its platform, GoDaddy enables individuals and organizations to build professional websites that help them attract customers, and sell their products and services. The company’s new payments offering will give GoDaddy’s ecommerce customers a fast and secure way to manage orders, payments, and refunds. The solution also leverages a single intuitive dashboard that enables customers to manage their payments operations alongside the rest of their other business operations. GoDaddy Payments accepts all major credit and debit cards including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover, and the company added that GoDaddy Payments would be available for use for in-person, offline shopping later this year, as well.

Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, GoDaddy is a public company with a market capitalization of $14 billion. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GDDY.

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