Daily news Archives - Page 120 of 141

Infinicept Secures Funding from Mastercard, MissionOG

By David Penn Posted on November 17, 2020
Categories: Daily news, Funding, MasterCard

Another day, another opportunity for Mastercard to find itself in the fintech headlines. Last week, we highlighted a handful of Finovate alums that earned spots in Mastercard’s Start Path program. Then, yesterday, we covered news that the company had enhanced its Mastercard Track Business Payment Service to help modernize business payments. We also reported on Monday that Mastercard had earned the go-ahead from the U.S. Department of Justice to complete its big acquisition of data aggregation innovator Finicity.

Today’s Mastercard-related performance comes in more of a “Best Supporting” role as the company – along with VC firm MissionOG – announces an investment in payments facilitator-services provider Infinicept. The amount of the funding was not disclosed, but Infinicept’s co-CEO and co-founder Todd Ablowitz highlighted adding engineering talent and investments in product management and customer service as ways Infinicept plans to put the new capital to use. He also said that Infinicept is experiencing a 8x growth rate, as well.

“The opportunity in front of us is enormous, and we’re going to invest intelligently and aggressively to meet the needs of our customers,” added Deana Rich, co-founder and co-CEO of Infinicept. “Our customers need the ability to get payments up and running on their own terms, without having to do all the work themselves. While others try to lock-in customers with templated solutions, Infinicept puts software companies in control of their payments experience – and their payments future.”

Infinicept enables businesses to offer embedded payments to a wide variety of customers, including in health care management and hospitality. Infinicept’s platform offers software providers, financial institutions, marketplaces, and more a payments infrastructure that can help them generate payments revenue, onboard merchants faster, and improve the overall customer experience.

This week’s investment is the latest expression of a partnership between Mastercard and Infinicept that extends back to 2012. Infinicept is an alum of Mastercard’s Start Path accelerator, joining the program as part of the 2019 cohort. Infinicept’s first customers were Stripe and Shopify in 2011.

“Infinicept’s technology now supports acquirers and payment facilitators with the critical tools to help businesses around the world manage payments,” Mastercard EVP of Merchant Solutions and Partnerships Zahir Khoja said. “Mastercard’s technology and scale, with partners such as Infinicept, is helping our larger acquirer ecosystem support businesses around the world to accelerate growth, modernize transactions, and ensure businesses have the tools to succeed.”

Founded in 2011, Infinicept is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

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Chase Launches its Own BNPL Tool

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 17, 2020
Categories: Chase Bank, Daily news

If you’ve started online shopping for the holiday season you’ve likely seen buy now, pay later (BNPL) offerings at the checkout. And starting today, Chase cardholders have even more options to pay over time.

That’s because Chase is launching My Chase Plan, a BNPL option available to Chase credit cardholders. The new tool allows users to select a purchase of $100 or more they’ve made within the last 90 days and choose a payment duration ranging from three to 18 months.

Cardholders will not be charged interest on the purchase but they will face a monthly fee for using the service. Chase doesn’t list a range for the fee but the bank does disclose that the fee is based on the amount of the transaction selected, the number of billing periods, and “other factors.” In the example on Chase’s website, a purchase of around $587 split into six month increments incurs a monthly fee of $2.35.

“We developed My Chase Plan to provide our cardmembers with more flexibility and control of their payment options,” said Chase Card Services General Manager of Lending and Pricing Anthony Cirri. “We are thrilled to offer My Chase Plan as a tool to help cardmembers make the most of their money and pay for their purchases over time. With the holidays fast approaching, this embedded card feature can be used to pay off gifts and everyday purchases alike.”

From a business model perspective, Chase is taking a different approach than traditional BNPL players. Most BNPL companies work through merchant partners, charging the retailer a fee for each customer that makes a purchase using the BNPL technology. This offers a large incentive to the customer, since they receive more flexible purchase terms for free. Chase is coming at the equation from the other side, targeting the customer after they’ve made the purchase and charging them instead of the merchant.

Chase’s new feature is reminiscent of U.K.-based Curve’s tool that allows users to “go back in time” and switch their purchase from card-to-card. While Curve doesn’t enable users to pay over time, it does help with users who may have paid with the wrong card or need to free up some cash on a debit card by shifting a purchase to a credit card.

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

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Mastercard Modernizes Business Payments with Multi-Rail Strategy

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 16, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MasterCard

Mastercard has been busy this week. In addition to finalizing its acquisition of data aggregation provider Finicity, the company is also enhancing its Mastercard Track Business Payment Service.

Mastercard launched its Track Business Payments Service in May of this year to help modernize the business payments experience. The overall goal of the initiative has been to provide businesses with a richer data exchange experience and greater control over payments.

Today’s launch adds account-to-account (A2A) functionality to the Track Business Payments Service. The new addition offers businesses a similar experience for A2A payments as they had with card payments. That is, businesses can exchange data with greater efficiency and facilitate payments across multiple payment rails including Real Time Payments (RTP) and the Automated Clearing House (ACH). Overall, the new tool enhances security, as it doesn’t require suppliers to share their bank account details with buyers, nor does it require buyers to store those details.

“Today, the vast majority of B2B payments are made through bank account transfers. Extending Mastercard Track Business Payment Service to support these transfers is a step on our way to building out the best and most secure B2B payment network in the world,” said Mastercard EVP of Global Commercial and B2B Solutions James Anderson. “Our commitment to supporting multiple payment rails has always been about helping customers operate more efficiently and effectively leveraging all the capabilities available in the market with as little change as possible.”

The A2A functionality is now available for Track Business Payments Service customers in the U.S. Mastercard plans to roll out the service for users in all geographies by the end of next year.

“This milestone is another step in the journey away from paper-based frustration, incomplete data, and manual reconciliation work and toward a fully digitized business payments process,” added Anderson.

Photo by Natalia Y on Unsplash

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PayPal Launches P2P Payments Tool in Collaboration with American Express

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 13, 2020
Categories: Daily news, PayPal

PayPal, Venmo, and American Express have partnered up this week in a move that will help deal with the awkwardness of group expenses.

The group is launching Amex Send and Split, a tool that enables eligible American Express cardholders to split purchases with and send money to Venmo and PayPal users directly from the Amex app.

The send feature enables cardholders to send money via Amex to their friends on PayPal or Venmo. Users can make transfers in real time using their spend balance within the app or by paying with their Amex credit card balance.

With the split purchases feature, cardholders can select any pending or posted purchases to split with other PayPal or Venmo customers. Customers will receive payment as a statement credit on their Amex card.

The general terms of the money transfer and purchase splitting capabilities aren’t too compelling. Since all parties to the transaction need to be existing PayPal or Venmo users, there is not much incentive for them to conduct their P2P money transfer activities in the Amex app.

The one outstanding benefit to the new co-branded launch, however, is that when users send money and split purchases within the Amex app they can do so using their available credit. While they can also do this within PayPal and Venmo, there may be extra friction involved for the user to add their card details.

Photo by Foodguide App on Unsplash

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Snapchat Parent Company Acquires Voca.ai

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 12, 2020
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Voca.ai

With all of the drama around TikTok these days, you may have forgotten about Snap. Formerly known as Snapchat, the photo messaging app allows users to send and receive ephemeral messages complete with fun filters, animation, and augmented reality.

It appears that Snap may be on the verge of change, as the company reportedly acquired Voca.ai, a smart voice assistant that helps replace customer service agents in call centers. The acquisition, which was first reported by Globes and later picked up by TechCrunch, is estimated to be around $70 million.

While one of the main use cases for Voca.ai’s technology is phone-based debt collection, it can also be used for surveys, customer service, appointment scheduling, and lead qualification. As the name suggests, Voca.ai leverages AI to imitate human representatives’ responses. To create a convincing, human-sounding cadence the technology adds pauses and filler words such as “um.”

Snap may intend to leverage Voca.ai to build out a new voice command feature. According to Globes, “This range of abilities in identifying speech and producing artificial speech have attracted Snapchat, which in June launched a voice command function for users to request filters, which can alter their appearance. For example, the user can ask for their hair to turn pink, and the voice command function ensures that the operation is completed.”

Voca.ai was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Herzliya, Israel. The company has raised $6 million across two rounds of funding. Voca.ai won a Best of Show award at FinovateSpring last year after company CEO Einav Itamar demonstrated how a bank used the AI voice agent to follow up on a loan inquiry.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

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Zopa Launches Credit Card with Unique Feature

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 11, 2020
Categories: Daily news, Zopa

News first broke of Zopa’s plans to launch a bank in November of 2016. During the four-year-period since then, the U.K.-based P2P lender has been slowly progressing toward becoming a fully fledged challenger bank.

Today, Zopa took this initiative a step further, launching a credit card offering. Zopa said that the card is specifically designed to help users stay in control of their money and their debt.

The card has two tools that help users manage their money. The first is called Safety Net. The Safety Net feature allows users to lock up some of their available credit balance to use for small, unexpected expenses. Customers decide how much of their available credit to lock away and can easily unlock access to the credit via the mobile app.

The card, in combination with the mobile app, also offers real time balance updates. The feature enables users to see how much credit they have available in real time, without needing to wait for the transaction to show up in their balance statement.

“The credit card market hasn’t caught up with the standard of other digital products and customers have been waiting too long for a better experience,” said Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana. “At Zopa, we believe that credit cards need to be revolutionized so we have built a card designed around putting the customer in control. Industry firsts such as our Safety Net feature and handy tools like real time credit balance updates help customers manage their money effectively, enabling them to build a good credit profile.

Zopa’s credit card also offers users the ability to view spending categories, instantly freeze and unfreeze the card, turn on/off certain spending categories such as gambling and cash withdrawals, and make contactless payments.

The Safety Net tool is just the latest example of Zopa launching customer-first products for the underbanked population. In October of last year the company launched Borrowing Power, a tool that leverages AI to show users what makes up their personal borrowing power and guide them toward actions to help improve it.

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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.

Photo by Aubrey Odom on Unsplash

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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.

Photo by Tina Morlock on Unsplash

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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.

Photo by Eric Dalrymple on Unsplash

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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.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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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.

Photo by August de Richelieu from Pexels

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