Daily news Archives - Page 119 of 140

BBVA to Use Prosper’s Tech to Power Digital HELOC Application

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 10, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, BBVA, Daily news, Prosper

BBVA USA announced a new digital HELOC offering today for customers in select states. The tool, which is available through BBVA’s website, is powered by P2P lender Prosper.

The digital HELOC tool aims to simplify the application process for users to obtain a HELOC, and early results of the new product indicate its effectiveness. BBVA is already seeing HELOCs close an average of 14 days faster when compared to its own turnaround times on applications submitted in other channels.

“Customers’ expectations are continuously being shaped by faster delivery and more convenience like they experience in other industries, so naturally they demand the same from financial services,” said BBVA USA Head of Mortgage Banking Murat Kalkan. “This partnership is well aligned with the core of our strategy, which aims to meet rapidly evolving customer expectations. Now, more than ever, customers can quickly and efficiently tap into the equity they have in their homes, which can provide much needed peace-of-mind, knowing they have access to the money they may need for home improvements, debt consolidation, or other major financial needs.”

Prosper and BBVA have been working together for over a year, enabling customers in Alabama, Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona to use the digital application through Prosper’s website. With today’s arrangement, BBVA becomes the first bank partner to integrate Prosper’s technology into its own website.

Differentiating factors of Prosper’s fully digital HELOC platform include a fast application that instantly returns offers and information about rate and prequalification status, access to a dedicated client services team, and electronic documentation uploads and delivery.

“Since our Prosper powered HELOC application launched in early September, we’ve seen a significant improvement in the number of customers who complete the online application, underscoring the power of technology to improve the customer experience,” Kalkan said. “And in a time where banks are increasingly pulling back on their HELOC offerings, for us to come together and make it available more broadly, more conveniently and more efficiently says something about our commitment to customers and their needs.”

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Prosper has originated over $17 billion in loans via its peer-to-peer lending marketplace. The company launched its HELOC product in 2019.

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CoverHound Acquired by Insurance Brokerage Firm

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 9, 2020
Categories: CoverHound, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions

Online insurance marketplace CoverHound announced today it has been picked up by insurance brokerage firm Brown & Brown in an acquisition deal this week. Terms of the arrangement, which also includes CoverHound subsidiary CyberPolicy, were not disclosed.

With 300 locations, Brown & Brown is the sixth largest insurance brokerage firm in the nation. The company has an 80 year history in the insurance industry and has since acquired more than 500 insurance agencies.

Today’s acquisition will help Brown & Brown tap into CoverHound’s and CyberPolicy’s digital reach into the insurance market for individuals and small businesses. The digital market has been growing quickly since the onset of the global pandemic. The deal will combine Brown & Brown’s strong carrier relationships and product knowledge with CoverHound and CyberPolicy’s partnership network and customer experience.

“We see CoverHound as an important platform for Brown & Brown’s expansion into the digital insurance marketplace while at the same time helping our traditional businesses to continually deliver an exceptional customer experience,” said Brown & Brown Senior Vice President of Technology, Innovation, and Digital Strategy Steve Boyd. “By combining CoverHound with our expertise and market strength, we will be able to meet more customers where they are and provide them with the appropriate coverage for their unique exposures.”

Brown & Brown will allow CoverHound and CyberPolicy to continue to operate independently under the Brown & Brown brand. The two tech firms will focus on scaling digital partnerships.

San Francisco-based CoverHound was founded in 2010 and has since raised $111 million. The company brings transparency to the insurance shopping process, offering a marketplace where shoppers can compare and purchase both personal and business insurance products.

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Lightspeed to Acquire ShopKeep in $440 Million Deal

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 6, 2020
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, ShopKeep POS

Cloud-based point of sale solution ShopKeep is taking an exit after 12 years in the business. Lightspeed, a competitor in the cloud-based POS space, has acquired ShopKeep for $440 million.

Lightspeed anticipates the buy will help position it as a leader for complex retailers and restaurateurs seeking to modernize their operations. The deal will also give Lightspeed increased market share. The company will serve over 100,000 customer locations worldwide, generating approximately $33 billion in gross transaction volume.

For its part, Shopkeep will benefit by offering clients access to Lightspeed’s analytics, loyalty, ecommerce, and payments modules. Shopkeep clients will also be able to tap Lightspeed’s multi-location solution.

“ShopKeep’s commitment to enabling independent businesses to dream big and rise above industry and economic challenges is deeply aligned with our own mission to power the future of commerce,” said Lightspeed Founder and CEO Dax Dasilva. “This acquisition will bring ShopKeep merchants, small and medium-sized businesses that make up the backbone of the U.S economy, into the Lightspeed family, providing them even more crucial product innovation and world-class support as they drive the reinvention of American commerce.”

The deal is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of this year.

ShopKeep helps more than 20,000 clients across the U.S. accept a range of payment types and enhance their business with features such as automatic inventory tracking, employee management, and real time sales reporting. Since it was founded in 2008, the company had raised $137 million in funding.

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Avaloq to Help Banks Deliver ESG Investment Portfolios

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 5, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Avaloq, Daily news

ESG investing index funds topped $1,258 billion at the end of September, cementing ESG stock selection into more than just a passing fad.

Taking note, digital banking and wealth management Avaloq launched a new offering today to help banks build ESG portfolios for their clients. The tool also facilitates compliance with the EU’s upcoming MiFID II amendment.

Avaloq’s ESG investment solution includes third party data streams and extra functionality to help wealth managers build portfolios tailored to their individual clients. Some of the tools integrated into the new solution include standardized scorecards, green benchmarks, exclusions, norms-based screening such as the UN Global Compact or the OECD Guidelines, and thematic investments.

The ESG market is expected to grow even more rapidly as investors begin to focus on addressing climate change, environmental damage, social inequality, and discrimination. Also promoting growth is the update to MiFID II which will require wealth managers to account for a client’s ESG preferences when deciding suitable investments.

While Avaloq’s tool will help with MiFID II compliance, it will also assist banks and wealth managers in addressing the lack of standards when it comes to ESG preferences. “One challenge for providers is that there are no rules defined by regulators or standard setters for how the ESG preferences should be collected – it is considered an area of competition between investment companies,” explained Martin Greweldinger, Avaloq Group Chief Product Officer. “As such, we believe that banks and wealth managers that can offer the most comprehensive ESG service will be the ones that see stronger market growth.”

Today’s launch is the latest aspect of Avaloq’s green agenda, which also includes sourcing 100% of its energy from renewable sources, reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 9% in 2019 compared to 2018, and receiving a Climate Neutral Company label.

The new ESG investment solution will be available “starting next year.”

Founded in 1991, Switzerland-based Avaloq agreed to be acquired by NEC Corporation last month. The transaction, which is valued at more than $2.2 billion, is anticipated to close in April of 2021.

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

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What PayPal Has In Store for 2021

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 4, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, PayPal

PayPal, one of the fintech originals, has had its fair share of news headlines in the past year. The fintech has been busy with its acquisition of rewards platform Honey, bringing QR code payment technology back into style, launching a buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) offering, and helping its users embrace cryptocurrency.

So where will PayPal run with these in 2021?

The company recently made its intentions a bit more clear during its third quarter earnings call this week, and TechCrunch tuned in to dig up some analysis about the company’s plans for next year. Here are some of the takeaways.

Digital wallet redesign

PayPal has always been an alternative banking solution, but has lacked some of the tools to help it effectively compete with its traditional FI counterparts. The company plans to redesign its digital wallet by enhancing the direct deposit experience, offering billpay tools, providing check cashing capabilities, and integrating budgeting tools.

Combined, these elements will help PayPal offer a challenger banking experience. All the while, PayPal will benefit from having an established user base. As of the second quarter of this year, the company counted 346 million active accounts. Chime, one of the most popular challenger banks in the U.S., blanches in comparison with eight million active accounts.

The digital wallet redesign is expected to roll out in the first quarter of next year.

Honey integration

Last November, PayPal purchased online shopping rewards platform Honey for $4 billion. Since then, PayPal has left Honey relatively untouched.

This week, however, PayPal has made it clear it plans to integrate Honey into its existing apps to create a more holistic shopping experience. Users can use Honey’s Wish List tool to create a shopping list, sign up for price tracking notifications, and receive deals and rewards that are built into the PayPal checkout experience.

Merchants will receive shopper data based on their interaction with Honey and its tools. The data, which can help merchants drive sales, will be anonymized.

Cryptocurrency plans

PayPal teased its plans to offer support for cryptocurrencies earlier this year and announced a partnership late last month that will help users buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

Starting in the first half of next year, PayPal users in the U.S. will be able to transact using Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum at PayPal’s 28 million merchant clients. The company also plans to roll out the capabilities within its Venmo app and to international markets in that same time frame.

BNPL

In August, PayPal announced its own BNPL competitive service. Dubbed Pay in 4, the short-term payments installment product allows U.S. customers to pay for their purchase over the course of a six week period. The company has also launched a similar offering in the U.K. and France.

Starting next year, PayPal plans to integrate Pay in 4 into its apps.

Venmo expansion

PayPal-owned Venmo is expanding in a variety of areas. As mentioned above, the P2P payments app is adding support for cryptocurrencies next year.

Additionally, the company is building its business profiles, which it originally launched in July of this year; adding more financial tools; providing better shopping capabilities; and overhauling its checkout experience.

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Fintech for Kids: Strive Goes Live with GoSave; Jassby Offers Virtual Card

By David Penn Posted on November 3, 2020
Categories: Daily news

The kids section of the fintech universe is making headlines as Strive – a U.K.-based challenger bank that helps parents preach financial literacy and practice smart financial behavior with their kids – made good on its acquisition of digital piggy bank GoSave. The company went live with the new functionality today in London.

“We’ve been working with GoSave for a period of time now with some of our clients, and the idea of a youth focused challenger bank kept coming up,” Strive CSO Ivan Muck said. “We see a real gap in the market to build a solution for parents that grows with the child, so it’s not just a debit card, it’s a whole 0-18 proposition that parents can start at any age.”

Strive is presently accepting “expressions of interest” of ahead of a Seedrs crowdfunding campaign “in a few months.” The company has pledged to donate a portion of sales of its digital piggy bank to help support financial literacy through youth charity MyBnk.

California-based GoSave was launched on KickStarter in 2018, and went on to earn recognition as part of VISA’s Everywhere Initiative later that year. The company is also an alum of Techstars Berlin (2019). Check out a profile of GoSave from February from our sister publication, Fintech Futures.

Strive and GoSave aren’t the only kid-friendly fintechs with headlines above the fold of late. Jassby, a Massachusetts-based mobile payments platform for families, kids, and teenagers, has introduced its no monthly fee, virtual debit card for kids.

Courtesy of a partnership with Mastercard, Jassby’s virtual debt card gives kids a contactless and cashless way to spend money raised from chores, allowances, or gifts. The card can be used anywhere contactless payments are accepted via mobile device, and Jassby is offering the card with no fee for the first six months and no fee afterwards as long as the card is used once a month.

As with Strive, Jassby is also taking names for early registration for its “virtual debit card for families.”

“The Virtual Debit Card is another example of putting our customers first and delivering a product that meets a growing need in the market,” Jassby founder and CEO Benny Nachman said. “I started Jassby to prepare my kids for life in the real world and thousands of families have joined us for the same reasons. With continued support, we’re able to empower kids with the hands-on financial experience necessary for today’s new normal.”

Founded in 2018, Jassby scored $5 million in funding in March. The company includes Blumberg Capital and Correlation Ventures among its investors.

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NerdWallet Acquires Small Business Lending Marketplace Fundera

By David Penn Posted on October 30, 2020
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions

Just a few months after buying U.K.-based financial service price comparison site Know Your Money, NerdWallet is back at the register with another big purchase. The company announced late last week that it had agreed to acquire online, small business lending marketplace Fundera. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The acquisition enables NerdWallet to expand its offerings for small business owners, and adds to the financial wellness platform’s content and marketplaces for products including student loans, insurance, mortgages, and investments. Founded in 2013 by Jared Hecht, Andres Moran, and Rohan Deshpande, Fundera will become a NerdWallet subsidiary as a result of the transaction, with all of Fundera’s employees joining NerdWallet.

In a statement, NerdWallet co-founder and CEO Tim Chen pointed to the small business market as an area of “tremendous opportunity” that the acquisition will enable his company to pursue.

“Although we offer free tools and content, we’ve never been able to fully support small business owners — that changes today,” Chen said. “Fundera has been one of our partners for several years and their deep understanding of the SMB market, the long-standing, trusted relationships they’ve built with both lenders and business owners, and their commitment to putting the needs of small business owners first is really unique and impressive.”

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, NerdWallet offers personalized, objective, actionable financial guidance to help consumers make intelligent financial decisions. Via its website and app, NerdWallet provides consumers with free access to its expert content and comparison shopping marketplaces to enable them to save time whether they are looking for insights into the best credit card for their needs or assistance in buying a first home.

NerdWallet has raised $105 million in funding. The company includes Camelot Financial Capital Management and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) among its investors.

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Embedded Banking Specialist Wise Raises $12 Million

By David Penn Posted on October 29, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Wise

Embedded banking-as-a-service platform Wise secured $12 million in funding this week. The investment is its second one this year – Wise announced a $5.7 million seed round in April – and was led by e.ventures with participation from Grishin Robotics. The company, which made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall, said in a statement that the capital will be used to help fuel growth and accelerate partnership-building in a number of verticals. Wise now has raised a total of $18 million in equity financing.

“We built banking so our partners don’t have to,” Wise CEO and co-founder Arjun Thyagarajan said. “By embedding banking, Wise unlocks deep product offerings and better customer experiences for our partners. e.ventures built a thesis on exactly this, and we agree 100%.”

Wise offers an embedded banking experience that gives small businesses a seamless way to bank, as well as make and accept payments. Companies partner with Wise and leverage its all-in-one business banking solution to offer accounts to their own clients such as e-commerce platforms and marketplaces. In addition to providing a fully-hosted and fully-serviced banking experience, Wise helps companies bridge the gap between what they have traditionally received from banking services and what e.ventures partner Brendan Wales called “an Apple-like experience” brought to the world of business banking.

“Business banking has been broken for far too long. Poor user interfaces, payments delays, unnecessary fees, a lack of integrations, the list goes on and on,” Wales said. Now, cloud-based B2B companies can offer banking services in a matter of days with no coding involved and have the entire operation managed and maintained by Wise.

Wise demonstrated its small business-banking-in-a-box solution at FinovateFall 2019. A Techstars NYC company based in San Mateo, California, Wise was founded in 2018. Check out our profile of the company from earlier this year.

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Icon Solutions Lands Strategic Investment from JP Morgan

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 29, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Icon Solutions

U.K.-based payments technology provider Icon Solutions is getting a boost today from U.S. banking giant JP Morgan in the form of a strategic investment.

The amount of the investment, along with specific terms of the deal, remain undisclosed.

“We’re excited to support Icon with this strategic investment as they look to continually build a simplified, collaborative payments ecosystem, driving emerging payments rails and innovation,” said Sara Castelhano, EMEA Head of Payments, Digital, and Solutions at JP Morgan Wholesale Payments.

As part of today’s deal, Icon has added Castelhano, to its Board of Advisors.

Icon will use the funds to expand development of its Instant Payments Framework technology, a collaborative, open source payments platform that helps clients process instant payments.

To facilitate these instant payments for U.S. clients, Icon has teamed up with The Clearing House to offer an accelerated route to accessing The Clearing House’s (TCH) real-time payments system. The company has also partnered with Featurespace to facilitate integration and block fraud attacks at scale and in real time.

“We will directly benefit from the support, scale and insight of a global banking leader and one of the most visionary technology companies in the world, while retaining our flexibility and independence,” the company said in a blog post. “We can now accelerate our strategic roadmap, invest more in our technology and team, and expand our geographic reach.”

The investment comes at a pivotal time in the U.S. payments scene. The U.S. Federal Reserve is lagging behind the rest of the globe in launching a real-time payments and settlement service, anticipating a delay until 2024. As the current speed of payments fails to meet consumer expectations, which have evolved to demand the delivery of everything from messages to groceries in real time, private players are coming to the market with their own solutions.

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TikTok and Shopify Partner on Embedded Payments

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 28, 2020
Categories: Daily news

Short-form video sharing and social network app TikTok and commerce platform Shopify announced a partnership today that will offer Shopify merchants exposure to TikTok’s highly engaged users.

The integration will allow merchants to create and connect their TikTok business account and launch shoppable video ads directly within Shopify. The merchant simply selects the product they’d like to feature in the video and combine their existing imagery or video with a selection of pre-made templates designed for commerce.

“We are delighted to partner with Shopify and provide a channel for their merchants to reach new audiences and drive sales on TikTok,” said Blake Chandlee, Vice President of Global Business Solutions at TikTok. “As social commerce proliferates, retailers are recognizing that TikTok’s creative and highly engaged community sets it apart from other platforms.”

Shopify is using its Shopify Channels to help merchants promote their products using TikTok. Shopify Channels are sales and marketing channels that help merchants to connect with their customers via integrations with social media, entertainment, search platforms, and major marketplaces such as Amazon and Walmart.

“TikTok is one of the world’s fastest growing entertainment platforms with over 100 million highly engaged users in the U.S. alone,” said Satish Kanwar, Vice President of Product at Shopify. “The TikTok channel means Shopify merchants—even those without a strong TikTok following of their own yet—can connect with these new audiences using content that feels authentic and genuine to the TikTok experience.”

As part of the partnership, Shopify and TikTok have teamed up to allow users to spotlight their favorite Black-owned businesses using the hashtag #ShopBlack. The campaign, which runs from November 10 to 15, will highlight products from more than 40 Shopify merchants.

Shopify’s TikTok channel is now available in the U.S. The company plans to launch it in additional markets throughout North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia in early 2021.

Photo by Olivier Bergeron on Unsplash

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Data Security Specialist Bluefin Banks $25 Million in Growth Funding

By David Penn Posted on October 27, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Bluefin, Bluefin Payment Systems, Daily news, Funding

In a round led by Macquarie Capital Principal Finance, payment and data security technology company Bluefin has raised $25 million in new financing. With total capital now standing at more than $30 million, the company said the funding would “fuel” its product line, help drive growth internationally as well as within the U.S., and support “opportunistic acquisitions.”

In its statement, Bluefin put this week’s investment, and the growth opportunities for the company, in the context of changes taking place as a result of the global health crisis. Noting that the pandemic has increased reliance on mobile point of sale devices, Bluefin warns that this means the number of potential attack entry points for hackers and cybercriminals has also increased. With an estimated 27.7 million mobile POS devices in use by 2021, Bluefin argues that additional security to defend private data will be required for all businesses, regardless of their sales hardware preference.

“Bluefin is dedicated to remaining at the forefront of technology and solution development in the fight against breaches and cyberattacks,” Bluefin CEO John M. Perry said. “Our partnership with Macquarie will enable Bluefin to not only introduce more solutions to protect e-commerce, online and point-of-sale transactions, but also to make these solutions available globally through our extensive partner network and Bluefin’s products. We look forward to leveraging Macquarie’s deep financial and global expertise in this next phase of company growth.”

A specialist in securing Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), as well as financial card data, Bluefin leverages PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) and tokenization to safeguard information upon entry, in transit, and in storage. Bluefin’s technology enables secure payment acceptance for card present, e-commerce, and mobile transactions, and is available via its network of 130+ integrated partners or directly through the company.

“Bluefin has developed industry-leading data and payment protection technologies, which are crucial in the global climate of rising data breaches and cyberattacks against organizations of all sizes,” Macquarie Capital Principal Finance Managing Director Anand Subramanian said. “We are very pleased to partner with this innovative company to expand their cybersecurity product suite and fuel continued growth in the U.S. and internationally.”

An alum of our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, Bluefin announced a partnership with CPA Site Solutions in September, enabling the accounting website provider to offer enhanced online billpay. In August, the company teamed up with electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solutions provider Invoice Cloud.

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DriveWealth Brings Home $56.7 Million

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 27, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DriveWealth, Funding

Brokerage infrastructure API provider DriveWealth brought in $56.7 million in Series C funding today. The investment is more than double the Series B round of $21 million the company received in 2018. Today’s investment brings the company’s total to $100.8 million.

The round saw participation from existing investors Point72 Ventures– which led the round– as well as Raptor Group, SBI Holdings, and Route 66 Ventures. New investors Mouro Capital and Fidelity International Strategic Ventures also participated.

DriveWealth will use the funds to strengthen its technology, make strategic acquisitions, and grow the organization to scale its business.

The New York-based company offers a suite of APIs that allows its partners to embed investment experiences of U.S. securities within their own apps. Among DriveWealth’s products are tools for advisors, fractional share investing, and purchase round-up investment capabilities.

“DriveWealth saw its partners open more accounts in 2Q than E*Trade, Schwab and TD Ameritrade combined, and 3Q saw a 33% increase over 2Q,” said DriveWealth Founder and CEO Bob Cortright. “This type of activity speaks to the power of making it simple for consumers to start investing immediately. The new funding from our great investors will only help us improve our technology capabilities to democratize investing.”

Since it was founded in 2012, DriveWealth has already scaled its business to serve a range of geographies and now reaches investors in 153 countries. The company has formed partnerships with firms on six continents, including Asia, where it collaborated with Singapore-based Bambu on the launch of a white-label roboadvisory platform for U.S. wealth managers; and Africa, where the company teamed up with Sigma Securities and Trove Technologies to launch a digital U.S. equities trading product for retail investors in Nigeria.

Among DriveWealth’s clients are Hatch, Revolut, Stake, and Moneylion. The company recently partnered with Access Softek to help community banks and credit unions offer their members access to investing tools.

Photo by Samuele Errico Piccarini on Unsplash

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