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Impact Asset Manager Finance in Motion Partners with Financial Crime Regtech Napier AI

Impact Asset Manager Finance in Motion Partners with Financial Crime Regtech Napier AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Napier
  • Impact asset manager Finance in Motion has teamed up with financial crime compliance specialist Napier AI.
  • Finance in Motion will deploy Napier AI Continuum as its anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) platform.
  • London-based Napier AI made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2018.

Financial crime compliance company Napier AI announced a partnership with impact asset manager Finance in Motion this week. The partnership calls for Finance in Motion to deploy Napier AI Continuum as its anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) platform.

Additionally, Napier AI will include its Client Screening solution and Client Risk Assessment module as part of the Napier AI Continuum platform deployment. The objective is to provide Finance in Motion with the tools it needs to continue driving public and private capital toward impact investments in emerging markets – while ensuring that capital does not end up financing illicit or criminal activity.

Finance in Motion Managing Director Sylvia Wisniwski explained: “Like any institution, we have a duty to ensure that the public and private capital raised is used exclusively for the intended objectives, in our case impact investments in emerging markets. Accordingly, regulation requires effective measures to prevent funds from being used to finance criminal activities. The collaboration with Napier AI allows us to efficiently query data through automated processes and integrated systems.”

Napier AI Continuum will provide Finance in Motion with API-enabled, cloud native, automated client screening, and supports transliteration of 22 languages. The platform also offers AI fuzzy matching and secondary scoring capabilities. Finance in Motion will benefit from customizable workflows, a sandbox environment for optimizing screening configurations, and configurable dashboards with no-code rule binding and AI insights to drive efficient decisioning.

“The key to dismantling criminal networks lies in cutting off their sources of revenue entirely by correctly identifying accounts, transactions, and behavioural patterns associated with financial crime,” Napier AI CEO Greg Watson said. “Napier AI’s cutting edge compliance solutions supercharge Finance in Motion’s mission to generate positive change in emerging markets with automated client screening.”

Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and founded in 2009, Finance in Motion specializes in development finance. An impact asset manager, the company structures, advises, and manage both private debt and equity investments in emerging markets. The company supports financing of projects ranging from sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and biodiversity, to micro-finance, natural capital, and affordable housing.

Finance in Motion has $2.8 billion (€3.6 billion) in assets under management or advisory, and has active investments in 39 countries. Last month, the company was featured in the ImpactAssets 50 roster of the top 50 impact managers in the world. The recognition was the eighth consecutive listing for Finance in Motion, which was named “Emeritus Impact Manager.”

Founded in 2015, Napier made its Finovate debut three years later at FinovateEurope 2018. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its Customer Screening and Transaction Monitoring Enhancement tools help improve AML oversight. The technology reduces false positives by up to 80%, and can be used to supplement or replace existing customer screening systems.

Napier began 2024 announcing a partnership with Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) digital banking provider Satchel. The following month, Napier unveiled its Napier Continuum Live and Napier Continuum Flow services to facilitate the deployment of its AML platform. Napier Continuum Live is a plug-and-play hosted offering. Napier Continuum Flow is a headless API service.

Also in February Napier secured $56 million (£45 million) in funding from private equity firm Crestline Investors. The company said that the investment will help power business expansion over the coming years. The funds will also support Napier AI’s development of new NextGen screening and monitoring solutions powered by Explainable AI.

Photo by Felix Mittermeier

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ComplyAdvantage Acquires Knowledge Graph Creator Golden

ComplyAdvantage Acquires Knowledge Graph Creator Golden
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • ComplyAdvantage announced plans to acquire knowledge engine builder Golden Recursion for an undisclosed amount.
  • ComplyAdvantage will implement Golden’s data extraction and disambiguation methods to help financial institutions minimize their risk of financial crime.
  • The deal will also increase ComplyAdvantage’s footprint in the U.S. and will make Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) a top shareholder of ComplyAdvantage.

Fraud and AML risk detection platform ComplyAdvantage announced it has agreed to acquire knowledge engine builder Golden Recursion. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2017, Golden is developing a self-constructing knowledge database used to accelerate discovery and education. The San Francisco-based company combines human effort and machine intelligence to simplify the process of gathering and communicating knowledge. As a result, Golden has created one of the world’s largest knowledge graphs, a diagram that facilitates information analysis by displaying interconnected data points and their relationships.

“By combining our experienced team of AI and large language model (LLM) specialists with ComplyAdvantage’s industry-leading data science team, we are creating a global team of data experts,” said Golden Founder and CEO Jude Gomila. “Together, I’m confident we will transform financial crime risk management for businesses worldwide.” Gomila will join ComplyAdvantage as a board observer and special advisor.

Golden has raised almost $60 million, having Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as one of its top contributors. As part of today’s deal, a16z will become a top ComplyAdvantage shareholder, joining Goldman Sachs, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital.

“We are excited to welcome their talented team to the ComplyAdvantage family, alongside a16z, who bring powerful expertise as we embark on the next phase of our growth journey,” said ComplyAdvantage CEO Vatsa Narasimha.

U.K.-based ComplyAdvantage offers financial institutions a wide view of their vulnerability to financial crime. The company leverages AI and machine learning to sort through ComplyAdvantage’s database of entities, which is updated continuously to ensure accuracy. The company plans to implement Golden’s data extraction and disambiguation methods that use natural language processing to bring supplementary, disparate data sources into what ComplyAdvantage calls its “data ingestion layer.” These additional data points will offer ComplyAdvantage clients more comprehensive, real-time financial crime risk insights.

“Delivering AI-enriched financial crime insights to our customers through a best-in-class user experience built on the most interconnected data has been our north star at ComplyAdvantage since day one. The acquisition of Golden is a critical milestone on that journey,” said Narasimha.

The acquisition will also help ComplyAdvantage expand its footprint in North America, specifically in the U.S. With its five offices based in New York, London, Singapore, Cluj-Napoca, and Lisbon, the company currently serves more than 1,000 organizations in 75 countries.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov

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Small Business Lending Platform JUDI.AI Inks a Trio of New Credit Union Customers

Small Business Lending Platform JUDI.AI Inks a Trio of New Credit Union Customers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, JUDI.AI

What do Apple Federal Credit Union, Carter Credit Union, and SCE Credit Union all have in common?

All three financial institutions announced this month that they are teaming up with small business lending platform JUDI.AI.

In a series of blog posts at the company’s website, JUDI.AI’s Director of Marketing Kyle Thom welcomed the three credit unions to what he called “our growing group of 35+ forward-thinking community lenders who are on a mission to reinvent small business lending.”

JUDI.AI offers credit unions and community banks an alternative approach to helping small and medium sized businesses secure the funding they need. The company enables financial institutions to digitally transform their credit decisioning and underwriting operations to assess the financial health of their small business customers and members on a continuous basis.

In addition to instant cash flow analysis, automated underwriting, continuous monitoring, and real-time portfolio reporting, JUDI.AI adds automated analysis of current banking data to supplement traditional financial data sources such as credit scores and financial statements.

Here’s a look at JUDI’s new partners:

  • Apple Federal Credit Union. $4.3 billion in assets. 240,000+ members, Twenty-one locations across northern Virginia.
  • Carter Credit Union. $722 million in assets. 55,000+ members. Eleven locations in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Fort Worth, Texas.
  • SCU Credit Union. $1.1 billion in assets. 67,000+ members. Eight locations in southern California and southern Nevada.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada, JUDI.AI made its Finovate debut at our all-digital fintech conference, FinovateWest 2020. Most recently, the company demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2022. At the event, Thom and JUDI.AI Chief Product Officer Su Ning Strube, demonstrated how the platform enables lenders to process 50% more SME loan applications without committing any additional resources, and approve 20% more loans with no added risk.

“What makes JUDI.AI unique in that we identify cash flow metrics that are predictive and correlated to future defaults, and we combine that information in our proprietary small business model with traditional credit scores to calculate the creditworthiness of any borrower,” Su Ning Strube explained from the Finovate stage.

In addition to the credit unions signed in April, JUDI.AI this year has also welcomed Canadian alternative lender Glasslake Funding and Hawaii’s Kauai Federal Credit Union to its client roster. Kauai FCU is the first and only certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) on the island of Kauai.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto

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Betterment to Acquire Marcus’ Digital Investing Accounts

Betterment to Acquire Marcus’ Digital Investing Accounts
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Betterment, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Betterment has agreed to acquire Goldman Sachs’ Marcus Invest.
  • The deal does not apply to Marcus Deposits and does not cover any of Marcus’ technology, employees, or operations.
  • Financial terms of the deal, as well as the number and value of Marcus Invest accounts, were undisclosed.

Automated investing service Betterment signed a deal with Goldman Sachs to acquire the digital investing accounts at Marcus Invest. Marcus Invest, which offers digitally customized investment portfolios to consumers, will transfer these accounts to Betterment in the coming months. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.

The acquisition does not apply to Marcus Deposits, Goldman Sachs’ neobank that currently serves over three million customers globally and has more than $100 billion in consumer deposits. Goldman Sachs plans to maintain possession of and continue to focus on growing Marcus Deposits. The deal also does not cover any of Marcus’ technology, employees, or operations. Betterment will only acquire Marcus Invest accounts and assets under management.

“As we increase our focus on our growing Marcus Deposits platform, we made the decision to transition away from our digital investment advisor offering and wanted to find a great home for those customers,” said Goldman Sachs Marcus Global Head Marcos Rosenberg. “Betterment was the obvious choice for those accounts as we share a deep commitment to customer satisfaction. We look forward to continuing to serve our Marcus Deposits customers with great products and a great experience.”

The number of Marcus Invest accounts, as well as the funds under management that will be added to Betterment are undisclosed. The clients will join Betterment’s more than 850,000 customers who hold more than $45 billion in assets in the Betterment platform.

Betterment was founded in 2008 to combine technology with personalized support to create a roboadvisor that suits a range of customer preferences. The company provides diversified portfolios, tax-smart tools, a range of account types, planning tools, educational resources, and human advisors. Betterment also offers services that compete with Marcus Deposits, including a high yield cash account, checking account, and debit card.

Under the deal, which is subject to customary closing conditions, Marcus Invest customer accounts will be transitioned to Betterment “on or about” June 29, 2024 unless they opt out of the transfer.

“This acquisition further cements our leadership in the digital investing space,” said Betterment CEO Sarah Levy. “We are excited to welcome these customers to Betterment where our scalable technology platform will continue to support them on their investing journeys.”

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

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Data Privacy Vault Skyflow Secures $30 Million in New Funding

Data Privacy Vault Skyflow Secures $30 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Fundings, Skyflow
  • Data privacy vault Skyflow has raised $30 million in an extension Series B round led by Khosla Ventures.
  • The investment comes amid growth in the market for sensitive data protection for Large Language Models (LLMs).
  • Founded in 2019, Skyflow made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022.

Data privacy vault Skyflow raised $30 million in an extension of its Series B funding round. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, and featured participation from existing investors Mouro Capital, Foundation Capital, and Canvas Ventures. The investment takes the company’s total equity capital to $100 million, according to Crunchbase. Valuation information was not immediately available.

The investment in Skyflow arrives as the proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) raises the stakes when it comes to protecting sensitive data. Skyflow’s global network of data privacy vaults enables businesses to isolate, protect, and manage sensitive customer data across any app, data cloud, or LLM. Skyflow supports nearly a billion records of user data for its customers and processes more than two billion API calls a quarter.

“We see an urgent need for companies to make privacy a core part of their technology stack as LLMs and AI hurdle forward, ingesting more and more personal data,” Skyflow Co-founder and CEO Anshu Sharma said. “Skyflow is the only solution that allows companies to build privacy by design into their technological infrastructure without overhauling anything – anywhere in the world.”

Skyflow credits a proprietary technology – polymorphic encryption – for its ability to protect data without inhibiting its usability for critical business tasks. Skyflow’s technology serves as a “privacy trust layer,” blocking sensitive information from entering AI models, and making adoption of AI technology safer. Companies can personalize their own definition of “sensitive data” as needed, providing additional protection beyond PII, intellectual property, or other categories of critical information.

“With the advent of enterprise applications powered by AI, the need for trust and privacy infrastructure is key to protecting sensitive data,” Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla said. “Skyflow is rethinking how data can be managed and protected across any app, cloud, or LLM, making it a company that will be vital for every enterprise business.”

Founded in 2019, Skyflow made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022. At the conference, the company showed how its technology helps financial services companies securely orchestrate sensitive data and exchange it with third party providers without having to directly handle the data itself.

Interested in demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May? We are happy to read applications from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateSpring hub today to learn more.

Photo by Gotta Be Worth It

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TabaPay to Acquire Assets of Bankrupt Fintech Synapse

TabaPay to Acquire Assets of Bankrupt Fintech Synapse
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, SynapseFi
  • TabaPay plans to acquire the assets of troubled BaaS company Synapse Financial Technologies.
  • TabaPay will use the assets to widen its selection of financial services.
  • The news comes as Synapse has filed a voluntary bankruptcy petition under Chapter 11.

Instant payments fintech TabaPay has announced plans to acquire the financial assets of troubled BaaS company Synapse Financial Technologies.

TabaPay will use Synapse’s assets to bolster its selection of financial services for fintech firms and financial institutions. Both TabaPay and Synapse offer payouts and payments processing technologies. Synapse, however, also provides neobanking, gig economy, lending, credit, wealth management, and embedded finance tools.

“The addition of the Synapse features is an acceleration of our TabaPay story, one dedicated to delivering great solutions that help our clients rapidly innovate, save money, and offer great financial products to their customers,” said TabaPay Co-founder and CEO Rodney Robinson. “The Synapse assets are a great and natural fit to our existing services to grow our offerings in tandem with providing continuity to Synapse clients and banks.”

TabaPay was founded in 2017 to help clients disburse and collect one million transactions daily– and in real time– on behalf of more than 2,500 clients in the U.S. and Canada. The company’s API offers direct access to 15 banking partners, 16 network connections, and full-stack payment processing. Last March, we spoke to the company’s VP of Strategic Partnerships Maggie O’Toole on her role in the industry.

Both TabaPay and Synapse were listed on Deloitte’s 2023 Fast 500. Synapse has seen a 650%+ growth over the past five years. That growth is now come to a halt, however, since Synapse has today revealed it filed a voluntary bankruptcy petition under Chapter 11. The bankruptcy comes after Synapse’s partner bank Lineage received a consent order from the FDIC earlier this year. The California-based company also signaled trouble when it laid off 40% of its staff last October after losing its client, Mercury, to its partner, Evolve Bank & Trust. Synapse was founded in 2014 and had raised $50.7 million.

TabaPay’s acquisition is pending approval by the bankruptcy court.

Photo by Sam Poullain on Unsplash

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Betterment, Bottomline Technologies, Daily news, eToro, Finastra, Fintech Rundown, Finzly, Klarna, nCino, Tink, Weekly Alumni News, Weekly News

Happy Earth Day! Partnerships in payments and fundraising in the international investment/wealth management space are dominating fintech news headlines as the week begins.

Digital banking

Temenos announces appointment of new Chief Executive Officer Jean-Pierre Brulard, effective May 1, 2024.

Caribbean Bank Limited partners with Finastra to modernize its core technology and upgrade its back office operations.

Zafin appoints Charbel Safadi to replace Al Karim as CEO.

Open banking

Open banking firm Fintech Galaxy collaborates with Singapore-based FinbotsAI to launch new credit profiling capabilities.

Bill-sharing app Splitwise teams up with open banking platform Tink to bring Pay by Bank to Splitwise customers.

Banking-as-a-Service

BaaS innovator Finzly partners with EverBank to enhance the firm’s payment processing system.

Crypto

eToro teams up with 21Shares to launch a new, “data-driven,” crypto portfolio, 21Shares-Flows.

Payments

Ad-subsidized payments network (ASPN) Zilch extends its collaboration with Amazon Web Services.

Payments and financial platform for businesses Airwallex launched its payment acceptance solution in the U.S.

Klarna forges global partnership with Uber, bringing its Pay Now option to the company’s ride-sharing and delivery platforms.

Brite Payments goes live in Germany with its Instant Payments solution.

Business payments specialist Bottomline forges strategic partnership with spend management company Coupa.

TabaPay to acquire the assets of BaaS provider Synapse Financial Technologies.

Real-time, cross border payments company Nium introduces new Chief Payments Officer, Alexandra Johnson.

Versapay appoints Ed Neumann as Chief Financial Officer.

UAE-based Careem Pay expands its international remittance services in the U.K. to include its Faster Payments offering.

GoCardless and Intuit QuickBooks integrate to allow U.S. QuickBook users to use ACH-Pull for account-to-account payments.

Thunes agrees to acquire Tilia. Tilia will be rebranded as Thunes and will remain based in San Francisco.

Klarna expands global partnership with Expedia to offer BNPL payment option for flights and hotel stay purchases.

Sopra Banking Software and Paymentology partner to deliver card issuing services within its SBP Digital Core platform.

Visa and Standard Chartered partner on cross-border payments.

Regtech

U.K.-based digital compliance and AML solutions provider SmartSearch appoints Phil Cotter as CEO.

Investing and Wealth Management

Wealth management platform TIFIN introduces new Chief Operating Officer of its TIFIN AG platform Jeannette Kuda.

Goldman Sachs announces deal to sell its Marcus Invest digital investing accounts to Betterment.

Istanbul, Turkey-based investment app Midas secures $45 million in new funding.

Kinsted Wealth partners with software provider Objectway for its investment management platform.

Cairo, Egypt’s Bokra raises $4.6 million in pre-seed funding for its platform that offers investment products via asset backed securities.

Lending and Credit

U.K. property lender Together partners with nCino to enhance its lending operations.

BMO unveils its Greener Future Financing program to help SMEs in the U.S. build climate-resilient operations.

Pomelo lands $20 million in Seed funding and a $50 million warehouse facility for its tool that combines credit and international money transfer.

Figure Technology Solutions appoints Michael Tannenbaum as Chief Executive Officer.

E-commerce

Subscription management and billing platform Recurly introduces new dashboards with built-in benchmarks.

Klarna sells Hero, the virtual shopping platform it acquired in 2021, for $1.3 million (€1.3 million).

Splitit unveils FI-PayLater to empower banks to provide in-checkout installments for existing customers.

Identity verification

Financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology company ComplyAdvantage acquires knowledge graph builder Golden.

AU10TIX announces $18 billion in business fraud prevented since 2021.

Small Business Tools

Basware introduces AP Protect, an AI-powered solution that empowers finance teams to protect their organizations against profit loss, invoice errors, and fraud. 

Marqeta partners with OakNorth to offer commercial cards in the U.K.

Payroll

Rippling raises $200 million in new financing with $13.5 billion valuation.

Photo by Valentin Antonucci

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10x Banking Inks Strategic Alliance Agreement with Deloitte

10x Banking Inks Strategic Alliance Agreement with Deloitte
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: 10x Banking, Alumni News, Daily news
  • U.K.-based core banking platform 10x Banking announced a strategic alliance agreement with Deloitte.
  • As part of the agreement, 10x will build a series of Centres of Excellence in the U.S., U.K., and India to facilitate collaboration between the two firms.
  • 10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023.

SaaS core banking platform 10x Banking has inked a strategic alliance agreement with Deloitte. Effective in both the U.S. and the U.K., the agreement will power greater cooperation when it comes to helping financial institutions around the world access transformative technologies.

As part of the strategic alliance, the two firms will launch a series of 10x Centres of Excellence in the U.S., the U.K., and India. The centers will facilitate collaboration between 10x Banking and Deloitte, and should be fully-staffed with their initial 100-member teams by the end of the year.

Courtesy of the alliance, the 10x platform will also be fully integrated into BankingSuite from Converge by Deloitte. BankingSuite is a modern composable platform that enables banks to build new digital capabilities at pace. Introduced in 2022, Converge combines Deloitte’s software, industry expertise, and partner ecosystem to help Deloitte’s clients maximize the opportunities of digital transformation and emergent technologies. This collaboration, between 10x and Converge, will focus initially on serving credit unions, building societies, and mutual banks to help them fulfill their digital transformation goals faster and with less cost.

“By working with Deloitte, we will enable banks and mutuals across the U.S., U.K., and beyond to modernise their legacy tech and deliver financial products and services fit for the 21st century,” 10x Banking Founder, Chair, and CEO Antony Jenkins said. “With Deloitte’s global experience and our leading technological solutions, we have a strategy in place to enact widespread change in the pursuit of making banking ten times better.”

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, U.K., 10x Banking made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. The company won Best of Show for its demo of its 10x Bank Manager, which offers a no-code interface to enable product teams to “build products, offerings, brands, and even enter new markets at speed,” as Product Marketing Manager Nicole Sanders explained at the conference. “Code less. Innovate more.”

10x Banking began 2024 partnering with mortgage origination platform Mast. The partnership will enable real-time connectivity between the two platforms, giving lenders streamlined data exchange and real-time mortgage servicing. Mast CEO Joy Abisaab said that working with 10x would “empower U.K. lenders to unlock new levels of operational efficiency and enable the delivery of exceptional customer experiences.”

10x Banking has raised $297 million in funding. The company includes JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock among its investors.

Photo by Ricky Esquivel

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Finovate Global: Digital Banking in Romania, Alternative Lending in Latvia, ESG in the CEE

Finovate Global: Digital Banking in Romania, Alternative Lending in Latvia, ESG in the CEE
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global

This week’s edition of Finovate Global reviews the latest fintech developments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

This region features a diverse range of countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia. More than 250 million people live in the CEE, which has a combined GDP of $2.6 trillion.

Romania’s Salt goes live with Starling’s SaaS platform

Romania’s Salt Bank launched this month, giving the country its first 100% digital bank. Salt Bank reported that more than 80,000 people signed up in less than three weeks to be a part of the new financial institution.

“By launching Salt, we are not only bringing the first 100% Romanian neobank to the Romanian market, but we are also offering a unique perspective that combines technology and finance,” Salt Bank CEO Gabriela Nistor said.

Salt Bank currently offers 3% yearly interest on current accounts as well as on Spaces, Salt Bank’s savings account offering, as long as customers make payments of 1,000 lei/month or more (equivalent to $215). Customers also get a multi-currency card that enables transactions in 17 currencies around the world. Users of the Salt banking app can take advantage of money management tools, in-app card controls, as well as Apple and Google Pay in-app provisioning.

Headquartered in Bucharest, Salt Bank is owned by the Banca Transilvania Financial Group. The institution also offers its customers the opportunity to become founders of Salt Bank and, ultimately, shareholders in the event that the institution goes public. Salt Bank notes that its Salt Founders Community currently has 2,200 members.

Powering the launch is Starling’s SaaS platform Engine, which helped the digital bank onboard 100,000 customers in the first two weeks of operation. And although AMP Bank in Australia has also announced that it will deploy Engine, the institution is not scheduled to do so until 2025, making Salt Bank the first bank to go live with the technology.

“Our work with Salt Bank shows just what our platform is capable of,” Engine by Starling CEO Sam Everington said, “Starling’s feature rich and highly personalizable banking products can be deployed around the world to attract impressive customer volumes, while our operational experience and cloud-expertise can help build, launch, and run a bank in less than 12 months.”

Latvian fintech inGain raises EUR 650,000

inGain, a no-code SaaS loan management system based in Latvia, has raised $692,000 (EUR 650,000) in funding. Participating in the investment were VC funds Trind VC and Fiedler Capital. The Latvian Business Angels network and other business angels were also involved in the round.

The funding announcement marked the first publicly announced investment in a Latvian startup in 2024. The company will use the capital to complete work on its SaaS-based loan management system that helps facilitate lending for products that banks traditionally have been reluctant to finance. inGain Co-founder and CEO Armands Liseks explained how inGain works, using the example of a family trying to decide whether or not to commit to their child’s efforts to become the next Mozart.

“Some parents are ready to buy a piano, but what happens if they spend several months trying to persuade their kids to play the piano, but their kids still refuse to play it?” Liseks asked. “It is with this kind of situation in mind that the seller would like to offer piano leasing. For parents, this means that the payment for the musical instrument will be higher. However, this also gives them two options: either the piano is eventually purchased in full or can be returned to the seller at any time.”

Liseks added that inGain’s solution even benefits those who know they are ready to buy. “How can the bank offer leasing for the piano?” he said. “Most likely it will advise the customer to use a credit card or take out a consumer loan with 20% interest, which makes no sense whatsoever.”

inGain is headquartered in Riga. The company was founded in 2011.

Bulgaria’s Paynetics acquires UK neobank Novus

Here is some CEE-based acquisition news in the payments space that slipped beneath our radar this spring. Bulgaria’s Paynetics has acquired Novus, a neobank based in the U.K., for an undisclosed sum.

A B-corp certified digital bank – and self-described “impact neobank” – Novus enables customers to monitor their carbon footprint and get cashback when they make sustainable purchases via the app. Additionally, Novus automatically directs a portion of revenue from every transaction to an NGO of the customer’s choice.

For Paynetics, the acquisition will enable the company to offer carbon- and climate-conscious solutions to customers as well as expand “the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ecosystem across Europe.” Paynetics will also leverage the acquisition to help its clients achieve their social and environmental goals via its own embedded finance solution.

“This deal not only reinforces our dedication to ESG but also marks a significant leap forward in revolutionizing the financial sector with our cutting-edge embedded finance suite,” Paynetics noted in a post on LinkedIn.

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, Paynetics acquisition news comes a year after the firm was granted an electronic money institution (EMI) license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Last month, the company announced that it had promoted Hana Rolles from Chief Revenue Officer to U.K. Chief Executive Officer.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • U.S.-based payments provider Nium officially registered as a Financial Services Provider in New Zealand.
  • South Korea joined seven-nation, cross-border payments tokenization initiative.
  • Ant International announced plans to set up a new digital business center in Malaysia.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Pan-African payments provider Onafriq partnered with Mastercard to bring payment options to consumers and SMEs in Africa.
  • TechCrunch profiled Nigerian fintech LemFi, which provides money transfer services to African migrants.
  • South African fintech Float secured a $11 million funding facility from Standard Bank.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Core banking software provider Tuum announced its expansion to the Middle East and the establishment of a regional headquarters at ADGM.
  • Israel’s central bank reported that it will launch a sandbox to enable private sector entities to experiment with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
  • UAE-based digital fintech infrastructure firm Fils teamed up with digital banking solutions company Aion to advanced ESG in the MENA region.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Amazon Pay introduced credit services to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India.
  • Separate from Google Pay, Google Wallet readied to go live in India.
  • Indian home financing company Altum Credo raised $40 million in Series C funding.

Photo by Eduard Balan

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Bankjoy Teams Up with Account Activation Specialist Pinwheel

Bankjoy Teams Up with Account Activation Specialist Pinwheel
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Bankjoy, Daily news
  • Bankjoy, a digital banking provider for banks and credit unions, announced a partnership with Pinwheel this week.
  • Bankjoy will help its more than 70 bank and credit union customers integrate Pinwheel’s digital deposit switching (DDS) solution, Pinwheel Prime.
  • Pinwheel Prime has been credited with increasing direct deposit enrollment by 32%.

Digital banking provider Bankjoy has partnered with Pinwheel to help financial institutions remove friction from the account activation process.

Via the partnership, Bankjoy will enable its 70+ bank and credit union customers to integrate Pinwheel’s digital deposit switching (DDS) solution, Pinwheel Prime. Pinwheel Prime offers a two-click deposit switch that enables customers to set up their direct deposit in seconds rather than dealing with a multi-step process that requires customers to exit the banking experience.

“By seamlessly integrating from Bankjoy online account opening through various tightly-knit third-party integrations like Pinwheel, we can equip our clients to excel in the competitive deposit market,” Bankjoy COO Weiwei Duncan said. “Our goal is clear: to ensure that our clients not only compete but win the deposit war, leveraging technology to streamline processes and enhance user engagement.”

According to research from Pinwheel, solutions that make deposit switching faster and easier can significantly impact deposit growth. Pinwheel’s own deposit switching technology can enable FIs to boost direct deposit enrollment by 32%, and reduce the amount of time before a customer makes their first direct deposit by 65%.

“With this collaboration, we can bring the ability to easily switch direct deposit settings to an even wider set of consumers, facilitating a fairer financial systems with greater choice and portability,” Pinwheel Co-founder and CEO Kurtis Lin said.

Headquartered in New York and founded in 2018, Pinwheel began the year teaming up with Finovate alum Jack Henry to imbed its direct deposit switching (DDS) solution into Jack Henry’s Banno Digital Toolkit. Pinwheel has raised $77 million in funding according to Crunchbase, and includes Indeed and Franklin Templeton among its investors.

A Finovate alum since 2016 , Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall last year. At the conference, the company, in partnership with Panacea Financial, showing how the fintech helped the digital neobank provide financial services to medical professionals.

So far this year, Bankjoy has added two new financial institutions to its customer base: Oregon State Credit Union, which teamed up with Bankjoy in February, and Emporia State Federal Credit Union, which partnered with Bankjoy in March. Oregon State CU ($2+ billion in assets; 142,000+ members) will deploy Bankjoy’s online account opening solution as part of its strategy to fuel new member acquisition and grow deposits. Emporia State FCU, headquartered in Emporia, Kansas, launched its online and mobile banking app in March courtesy of its partnership with Bankjoy. Emporia State FCU has more than $130 million in assets and 7,800+ members.

Founded in 2015 , Bankjoy is headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Photo by Min An

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Mercury Launches into the Personal Banking Space

Mercury Launches into the Personal Banking Space
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Business banking fintech Mercury is expanding into personal banking.
  • The new accounts, dubbed Mercury Personal, will offer advanced banking tools such as free wire transfers, multiple debit cards with account-level controls, and will pay 5% APY on savings accounts at launch.
  • Mercury Personal will allow users to easily switch between their business and personal accounts and will cost users $240 per year.

The planet Mercury may be in retrograde, but that didn’t stop business banking fintech Mercury from launching its new retail banking service this week. The new offering, Mercury Personal, creates a personal banking experience for entrepreneurs, investors, and builders who want a self-serve banking option to help optimize their personal finances.

Choice Financial Group is serving as the sponsor bank for Mercury Personal. The new personal accounts will offer individuals advanced digital banking tools, including the ability to create rules around auto-transfers, multiple debit cards, customizable permissions for additional account users, access to $5 million in FDIC insurance, and 5% APY interest on savings accounts at launch.

Launching into the consumer digital banking space may place Mercury in the same category as other popular digital banks like Chime. However, Mercury is seeking to differentiate itself from the majority of digital banks, many of which target underserved consumers. Instead, Mercury has made it clear that it is targeting entrepreneurs, founders, and investors with its advanced banking tools and capabilities.

“As we celebrate the fifth anniversary of Mercury’s launch, introducing Mercury Personal marks not just our expansion into consumer banking, but a step forward in growing our relationships with the founders and tech leaders we serve,” said Mercury Co-founder and CEO Immad Akhund. “By offering personal banking for founders and investors, we’re able to deepen our relationship with them. Mercury Personal is a strategic move toward helping people and businesses operate at their best. This is our next step in building a generational company that innovates, supports, and grows alongside the most ambitious companies and individuals.”

Other factors differentiating Mercury’s new personal bank account offering are fee-free domestic wires and ACH transfers, worldwide ATM reimbursements, and the ability to easily switch between business and personal bank accounts.

The cost is also a differentiating factor. While Chime boasts fee-free banking and a multi-card service like Greenlight charges $60 to $180 per year, Mercury Personal will charge $240 per year at launch. Depending on how a customer uses the account, however, the $240 could be worth the free wire transfers and 5% APY (though the bank makes it clear that the rate can change at any time).

There is currently a waitlist for Mercury’s personal banking accounts. The fintech expects general availability to open up later this year.

Mercury was founded in 2017 and has since been entirely focused on serving small businesses and investors. The fintech is currently under regulatory scrutiny from the FDIC for allowing users in Russia, Pakistan, and Myanmar to open accounts and for facilitating fund transfers between Saudi Arabian businesses.

Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash

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Codat’s New Product Aims to Replace Checks

Codat’s New Product Aims to Replace Checks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Codat launched a Supplier Enablement data product with an aim to help businesses replace paper checks.
  • The Supplier Enablement tool recruits suppliers to accept virtual card payments instead of checks by allowing card issuers to access the right ERP data.
  • The Supplier Enablement tool is currently in production with select J.P. Morgan commercial clients.

Paper checks were invented in 1762, and yet we can’t seem to completely eradicate the antiquated payment technology. Business data API startup Codat is seeking to change that, however. Today, the U.K.-based company announced the launch of its new Supplier Enablement data product.

The new product allows businesses to share their spend and supplier data from ERP systems and accounting software. To reduce the need for checks, the Supplier Enablement tool recruits suppliers to accept virtual card payments instead of checks by allowing card issuers to access the right ERP data.

Piloting the launch is J.P. Morgan, which is using the new offering to allow its commercial clients to efficiently manage supplier payments using virtual cards. By connecting to the current supplier and spending data, clients can easily set up and expand their payment programs. The new Supplier Enablement tool replaces outdated payment files with secure API connections, which facilitates better data analysis and drives higher spending per client.

“With the rapidly-growing adoption of virtual cards for B2B payments, we felt the time was right to release a new data product specifically designed to transform supplier enablement and accelerate how the value of payments innovation is realized in the market,” said Codat CEO Peter Lord. “Codat’s ongoing collaboration with J.P. Morgan has been hugely valuable in helping us develop products that maximize the value of data sharing for financial institutions and their business clients.”

Codat was founded in 2017. In addition to Supplier Enablement, the company offers a Bank Feeds API that allows clients to push transaction data straight to their accounting software; Sync for Commerce, which provides merchant accounting integrations for POS and eCommerce platforms; Sync for Payables, a tool that allows customers to build accounting integrations for AP automation; Sync for Expenses, which allows clients to build accounting integrations for corporate card providers; and a Lending API.

Photo by cottonbro studio

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