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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
PayNearMe has integrated Cash App Pay into its app.
The move allows PayNearMe’s end users to pay their bills using their Cash App accounts.
The native integration helps users make payments within the app without having to manually re-enter their card or bank details.
Cash payments platform PayNearMeannounced it is adding more payment options today by natively integrating with Cash App Pay. The California-based company is leveraging Block-owned Cash App Pay’s technology to allow its users to pay their bills using their Cash App accounts.
“We are excited to be early to market with Cash App Pay, a payment type that is growing in popularity,” said PayNearMe Chief Product Officer John Minor. “By offering Cash App Pay, we’re enabling our clients to provide their customers with more payment options and greater convenience.”
By natively integrating Cash App Pay, PayNearMe’s end users can make payments within the app without having to manually re-enter their card or bank details. The seamless user experience keeps users’ sensitive information secure while enabling them to complete transactions in a few taps. Payments made using Cash App Pay are saved alongside all of the user’s other transactions in a single ledger.
Cash App was founded in 2013 as a peer-to-peer-payment platform. The company has since become a more robust, banking-like platform that enables users to hold funds, spend their money using a QR code or cash, invest, manage their Bitcoin, and file their taxes. It has built up its user base to 53 million monthly active users.
PayNearMe focuses on serving un-and-underbanked populations with its cash-based billpay tools. The company partners with more than 40,000 retail stores, including 7-Eleven, Walmart, and Family Dollar, to allow businesses to offer their users cash payment options.
PayNearMe launched a product called MoneyLine in 2021. MoneyLine allows gaming and sports betting operators to offer a payment gateway, hold deposits, make payouts, and more. Including a fresh $45 million round earlier this year, PayNearMe has raised $118 million in funding since it was founded in 2009.
Accounts payable and receivable platform Nook has partnered with Currencycloud.
Nook will leverage Currencycloud’s APIs to help its customers manage payments with international suppliers.
Currencycloud has been a Finovate alum since 2015. Visa acquired the company in 2021.
Accounts payable platform Nookannounced a new partnership with Currencycloud. Nook will leverage Currencycloud’s APIs to enable its customers to manage the full-life cycle of supplier payments. This will help Nook better serve companies who must make multiple transactions and manage other inefficiencies when working with international suppliers.
“The seamless integration with Currencycloud has strengthened our value proposition as an end-to-end accounts payable solution, and has helped us to expand our addressable market to include businesses that need to pay suppliers in multiple currencies,” Nook co-founder and CEO Joe Lines explained.
Nook offers an integrated accounts payable and accounts receivable platform that enables businesses to process, approve, and pay invoices without having to login to their bank or accounting program. The platform features auditable integrated approval workflows, and payments are integrated with both the company’s bank and ledger. The company noted that its platform has enabled users to complete their accounts payable 50% faster than before using the technology.
Currencycloud Chief Revenue Officer Nick Cheetham said that the partnership with Nook was a “perfect example” of how companies can leverage innovation to thrive in the payments space. Calling the support of companies like Nook a part of Currencycloud’s identity from the beginning, Cheetham added “We are eager to see how the platform can expand their customer base and further disrupt the market by integrating our seamless cross-border payment capabilities.”
Currencycloud demoed its technology on the Finovate stage for the first time at FinovateSpring 2015. In the eight years since, the company has grown into a financial infrastructure and enterprise-class solution provider for any business that needs to move money across borders. With nearly 600 employees, Currencycloud maintains offices in New York, Amsterdam, Singapore, Cardiff, and London. The company has processed more than $75 billion in payments and transferred payments to more than 180 countries around the world.
Last month, Currencycloud announced that it was working with Australian multi-asset broker ACY Securities. Currencycloud began the year with a pair of new partnerships: teaming up with Hong Kong-based remittance company Windsor First and venture capital platform Vauban in January. Visa acquired Currencycloud in 2021 for $912 million (£700 million). Mike Laven is CEO.
Earnest and Nova Credit are partnering to launch International Private Student Loans.
Earnest is tapping Nova Credit’s Credit Passport to leverage consumer-permissioned, cross-border credit data.
The solution is currently available to international students from India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea.
Student loan refinancing site Earnest has teamed up with Nova Credit to launch International Private Student Loans. The new tool enables select international students to access flexible loan options, competitive interest rates, and personalized repayment terms tailored to their needs.
Offered by Earnest, International Private Student Loans will leverage Nova Credit’s Credit Passport solution that taps into consumer-permissioned, cross-border credit data. With Credit Passport, borrowers can share their credit information from their home country when they apply for a loan. Nova Credit will share the borrower’s credit history with Earnest and offer a relevant score corresponding to that history.
“We believe that access to credit should be borderless, and financial barriers should never hinder someone’s pursuit of education or opportunity,” said Nova Credit CEO Misha Esipov. “The U.S. is home to nearly one million international students who not only fill our universities with the brightest minds from around the globe but also bring those lessons to accelerate our economy for generations. By partnering with Earnest, we can provide more students the financial access they need to arrive and thrive.”
International borrowers that are eligible will have access to Earnest’s loans without needing a cosigner on the loan. Currently, the International Private Student Loans product is available to international students from India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea pursuing a Master in Business Administration, Master of Laws/Juris Doctorate, or Master of Science in Engineering program at select schools. The loans can be used for tuition, housing, living expenses, and other education-related costs.
Nova Credit was founded in 2016 with an aim to extend credit to an entirely new set of potential borrowers– immigrants. In addition to the company’s Credit Passport solution, Nova Credit offers Cash Atlas, a tool that analyzes bank transaction data to provide lenders with a Fair Credit Reporting Act consumer report and generates a borrower risk profile to assess their affordability and ability to pay.
Nova Credit also offers a direct-to-consumer tool that provides new-to-country borrowers access to a marketplace where they can browse and apply for credit cards, phone plans, and loans using their foreign credit history.
San Francisco-based Earnest was founded in 2013 and offers student loans, personal loans, student loan refinancing, and marketplaces for tuition insurance, student credit cards, and home equity lines of credit.
Today’s news isn’t the only development in the international student lending space this month. Last week, global payments platform Flywire announced it had teamed up with Tencent’s fintech arm, Tencent Financial Technology, to help Chinese students pay for education abroad.
Consumer loyalty app loyalBe is transferring its user base to consumer rewards and payments app Cheddar.
The move comes as the Ireland-based company pivots from B2C to B2B.
Headquartered in Belfast and founded in 2018, loyalBe launched in Dublin in 2021.
“We literally give you free money for buying stuff you were going to buy anyway,” declares the Twitter page of Irish consumer loyalty app, loyalBe. The message is likely to remain the same. But today we learned that the focus has changed. LoyalBe has forged a strategic partnership with consumer rewards and payments app Cheddar. As part of the partnership, loyalBe will transfer its user base to the London-based company as part of its pivot from B2C to B2B.
LoyalBe CEO Cormac Quinn said that the decision to become a B2B business reflected “a thorough evaluation of our market positioning and long-term growth potential.” Quinn added that the pivot will enable the company to pursue more effectively the “democratization of frictionless reward programs in the marketplace.”
LoyalBe customers will receive instructions on how to transfer their rewards to Cheddar via email and in-app notification. The size of loyalBe’s customer base was not available.
LoyalBe was founded in 2018. The company raised $130,000 (£100,000) in seed funding from Techstart Ventures a year later. By 2020, loyalBe had secured a partnership with Visa as part of a strategy to expand beyond its local market in Northern Ireland. More investment followed in 2021. The company locked in more than $948,000 (£725,000) in funding from both Techstart Ventures and new investor Co-Fund NI. Later that year, loyalBe launched in Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland.
“We are delighted to introduce loyalBe in Dublin,” Quinn said when the launch was announced. “This gives local businesses the chance to compete with the larger brands and attract footfall with powerful, data-driven insights and tailored promotions for their top customers.”
Serving small businesses was always a major part of what loyalBe is all about. LoyalBe provides a digital loyalty solution that gives businesses and consumers an alternative to traditional paper loyalty cards. Via a smartphone app and a direct link to the consumer’s bank card, loyalBe’s technology makes the rewards process seamless. LoyalBe also enables merchants to leverage payment data to boost customer engagement and provide more personalized rewards and offers.
What does this mean for the company as a fully B2B enterprise? “We have always been driven by our mission to provide every merchant with a powerful tool to help them attract and retain the best customers,” Quinn said. If nothing else, that effort will benefit from a new focus courtesy of the company’s latest move.
Cheddar CEO Tariq Zaid co-founded the U.K.-based company in 2020. The bank account-powered rewards app enables users to earn up to 35% cashback at major brands.
Back off blockchain! And move over metaverse! The future tech on the minds of many innovators in fintech and financial services is quantum computing.
Quantum computing leverages the concepts of quantum mechanics to make complex computations that would be very difficult – if not impossible – for traditional, non-quantum computers. Quantum computing provides exponential increases in processing speed, boosting computational power and benefiting fields from risk modeling to natural language processing. Businesses can deploy quantum computers to provide enhanced cybersecurity with complex, hard-to-hack algorithms. And it is easy to see how quantum computing would fit comfortably in a world of increasingly sophisticated machine learning and AI. In fact, based on a forecast by Boston Consulting Group, the quantum computing industry is expected to be worth $850 billion by 2035. This is the year when the consultancy believes the technology will have “matured.”
But, as we’ve learned from our forays into cryptocurrencies and the metaverse, the devil is in the deployments. We need to see use cases in order to understand and invest in whatever role a new technology might play in our lives. Quantum computing has not done as well on this front as Generative AI has, of late. But there are signs that financial services in particular remain interested in quantum computing. And the fruits of those investigations may arrive sooner than we think. Last month, HSBC and Quantinuum announced a “series of exploratory projects that exploit the potential near- and long-term benefits of quantum computing for banking.” The joint statement highlighted cybersecurity, fraud detection, and natural language processing” as areas of emphasis.
And just this week, Truist Financial, one of the top ten commercial banks in the U.S. announced that it has joined IBM’s Quantum Accelerator program. The program will enable participants in financial services to build skills in quantum computing. For its part, Truist is focused on exploring potential use cases for the technology in consumer banking.
“Quantum computing has the potential to transform how we do banking and solve complex problems,” Truist Chief Information Officer Scott Case said. “IBM is a leader in quantum computing and their collaboration and expertise will be invaluable to ensure we are able to leverage these new technologies to the fullest potential.”
IBM Iaunched its Quantum Accelerator program in September 2021. The program is designed for organizations that are both “quantum curious” as well as those already looking to develop real competency in quantum technology. The accelerator gives participants access to the company’s quantum computing systems, as well as IBM’s quantum computing experts.
In turn, IBM joined Truist’s Innovators in Residence initiative. This initiative is designed support collaborations between IBM and startups in fintech and financial services.
Meanwhile, Japanese megabank MUFG is putting its money to work to bring quantum computing to the banking and financial services industries. The bank has purchased an 18% stake in a quantum computing startup called Groovenauts, a stake that reportedly cost the financial institutions “billions of yen.”
Based in Japan, Groovenauts specializes in a computing process known as “quantum annealing.” This technology involves finding an optimal answer based on a massive number of combinations. To this end, Groovenauts connects companies with quantum computers owned by various research institutions, blending data processing technology with AI to enable businesses to more readily take advantage of quantum computing.
MUFG’s investment is the first direct investment in quantum computing by any of Japan’s three large megabanks. MUFG is specifically looking to use quantum technology to mitigate risk in financial derivative trading and asset risk management. The bank also believes that quantum computing will help it achieve significant operational efficiency gains.
Flywire has partnered with Tencent’s fintech arm, Tencent Financial Technology.
The partnership will help Chinese students pay for education abroad via Tencent-owned Weixin Pay (WeChat Pay).
Students will be able to pay in their own currency, while the education facility will receive funds in their local currency.
Global payments platform Flywire is teaming up with Tencent’s fintech arm, Tencent Financial Technology to help Chinese students pay for education abroad.
This week, the two announced they plan to allow Chinese students and families making education payments abroad to pay using Tencent-owned Weixin Pay (WeChat Pay). Flywire anticipates the move will further streamline education-related payments.
“This partnership ensures that for Chinese students studying internationally at institutions that use Flywire, we essentially become their ‘pay’ button, by offering localized and seamless payment capabilities, which benefit students, families and institutions alike,” said Flywire Senior Vice President of Global Payments and Payer Services Mohit Kansal. “Flywire has long offered Weixin Pay as a payment method, but the direct connection with Tencent makes the payment experience more convenient and streamlined.”
The Weixin Pay app– which allows users to chat, browse, and make payments– is one of the most popular digital wallet apps in China. By offering its cross-border education payments within Weixin Pay, Flywire is meeting consumers where they already are. The company also removes the typical friction and complications that arise from the cross-border payments experience.
Using Weixin Pay, students can pay in their own currency, while their school will receive the funds in their local currency. Students will also have access to customer support in their own language.
“We are always looking for better ways to serve our users,” said Tencent General Manager of Tencent Financial Technology Asia Pacific Wenhui Yang said. “Flywire’s existing footprint in China, impressive client roster and proven technology made this a natural partnership for us. As more Chinese students are eager to study abroad again, we’re confident that Flywire will enable our users to improve their international payment experience, and make paying for education as easy as sending a chat.”
Corporate card startup Moss has selected GoCardless as its direct debit provider in the U.K.
The partnership will help Germany-based Moss break further into the U.K. market and will help Moss clients automate their corporate card management.
Since Moss does not charge late payments, GoCardless will also serve a key role in powering automatic collections of late payments.
U.K.-based direct bank payments company GoCardless has added a new client today. German corporate card startup Moss has selected GoCardless as its direct debit provider in the U.K.
Moss helps its 2,220 small business clients automate administrative tasks, including activities around corporate cards, invoices, approvals, budgeting, and accounting. Leveraging GoCardless’ direct debit technology will help Moss build momentum in the U.K., its third international market.
“Moss is a dynamic European start-up and we’re excited to play a pivotal role in its expansion plans,” said GoCardless VP and General Manager, EMEA Alexandra Chiaramonti.
Today’s partnership will also help Moss with automatic collections of late payments. Additionally, GoCardless’ technology will help Moss clients automate their corporate card management.
“At Moss, our mission is to automate spend management to make month end as seamless as possible for modern finance teams,” said Moss CEO Ante Spittler. “That’s why we’re excited to offer GoCardless for repayments. It removes one more point of friction for our customer, and helps fulfill our ethos of using automation to help SMBs save time and money.”
Moss was founded in 2019 and differentiates itself from other corporate card providers with two factors. First, it does not charge interest on late payments. Second, the company extends businesses a credit limit of up to £2.5 million per month, which is relatively high.
GoCardless, which wonBest Enterprise Payments Solution at the 2021 Finovate Awards, was founded in 2011. The U.K.-based company’s technology helps merchants collect recurring and one-off payments from customers via ACH transfers. Businesses can integrate GoCardless’ API to automate payment collection and reconciliation billing for subscription and invoice payments. Among the company’s clients are DocuSign, Survey Monkey, and Klarna.
“By combining the best of bank payments to get paid on time, every time with a relentless focus on saving businesses time and money, GoCardless and Moss can help millions of SMBs across the continent and beyond,” said Chiaramonti.
Vehicle payment platform Car IQ partnered with Visa to power its in-vehicle merchant payments solution, Car IQ Pay Vehicle Wallet.
The partnership will enable wallet users to pay for fuel, tools, parking, insurance, service, and repairs without requiring a physical card.
Analysts expect the connected vehicle market to reach $600 billion by 2030.
Payment platform for vehicles, Car IQ, has partnered with Visa. The San Francisco-based company is working with the payments and credit card giant to power its in-vehicle merchant payments solution, Car IQ Pay Vehicle Wallet. The partnership will enable vehicles to transact directly with Visa’s global merchant and bank network. The Car IQ Pay Vehicle Wallet can then be used to pay for fuel, tools, parking, insurance, service, EV charging, and repairs.
“Our collaboration with Visa allows us to accelerate the adoption of vehicle payments and make them a seamless part of the fleet experience today, and the consumer experience of the future,” Car IQ CEO Sterling Pratz said. “Our vehicle wallet allows banks and merchants to trust payments from vehicles as well as any other IoT device, over the Visa network.”
The addition of vehicle data is a key component of the partnership. This data supports new contextual payment experiences including real-time offers and personalized rewards for drivers, merchants, or even entire fleets. Car IQ’s Know Your Machine technology authenticates a machine’s identity in order to enable vehicles of all types to transact directly with merchants.
A recent study from Ptolemus Consulting Group noted that the connected vehicle payment market could reach $600 billion by 2030. In a statement, Veronica Fernandez, North American Head of Visa Business Solutions, added that the total spend for commercial fleet payments is more than $80 billion. This sum includes cash, checks, ACH, as well as traditional fleet car payments. Fernandez said that the collaboration with Car IQ will help “drive growth of vehicle-based payments that allow users to take control of their fleet business through enhanced and timely data capabilities that allow for real-time business decisions.”
Car IQ is also partnering with automobile OEMs to embed payments within consumer vehicles. The company’s Car IQ Pay in-dash vehicle wallet, for example, connects to merchants on Visa’s network, enabling payments directly from the car’s infotainment system. Pratz noted that while its efforts are focused on vehicles, there’s more to the Car IQ platform than making payments from cars. “Our platform is designed to easily support any IoT device payment, and we are already seeing interest for connected ‘smart’ city applications and believe the connected home will be next,” Pratz said.
More than 25,000 fuel stations in the U.S accept the company’s Car IQ Pay solution. In June, Car IQ announced a partnership with PDI Technologies to process commercial fleet transactions. In March, the company worked with the United States Auto Club (USAC) to sponsor the “The Fab Four” racing competition for female drivers.
Founded in 2017, Car IQ has raised $42 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. In February, the company secured $15 million in an oversubscribed Series B round. Car IQ began the year teaming up with BlackBerry IVY to launch its in-dash vehicle wallet.
Big data and AI company SESAMm announced the integration of Generative AI into its platform.
The integration will enable SESAMm to offer enhanced ESG risk mitigation.
Founded in 2014, and headquartered in Paris, France, SESAMm won Best of Show in its Finovate debut in 2022.
SESAMm, an AI company that provides investment firms with critical insights on ESG, risk controversies, and other significant events, has integrated Generative AI into its platform. The addition is designed to help financial institutions apply enhanced ESG risk mitigation. The integration also will enable the company to streamline the process with automated tools and other enabling technologies.
“With Generative AI, we are not only enhancing our internal processes but also focusing on the development of new features that redefine industry standards,” SESAMm co-founder and CEO Sylvain Forté explained. “These include intuitive dashboards, automated ESG/SDG event analysis tools, and a client interaction chatbot – all created to streamline data interaction and boost efficiency in risk management.”
SESAMm’s technology enables users to derive insights from web data on millions of companies in less than a minute. The company’s platform enables users to generate transparent, real-time ESG and SDG insights on portfolio companies, suppliers, as well as their own organization. Risk alerts and monitoring keep users abreast of potential controversies, and users can leverage the technology to build thematic strategies for ETFs and other index-related initiatives. SESAMm offers data from 20 billion articles and four million public and premium sources on five million public and private companies. More than 100+ languages are covered, as well.
This week’s announcement means quicker and more intuitive interaction with data on SESAMm’s platform. New functionality includes ESG/SDG event summarization and automatic competitor searches for both public and private companies. SESAMm announced that is will launch a suite of Generative AI-powered features in the second half of 2023. SESAMm’s Forté will host an online fireside chat on Generative AI and the Future of Finance later this month.
Founded in 2014, SESAMm won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2022. At the conference, the Paris, France-based company demoed its TextReveal solution. TextReveal is an alternative data platform that leverages NLP (Natural Language Processing) to provide daily sentiment and ESG data on public and private companies.
In May, SESAMm announced a partnership with Compass Financial Technologies. The two companies are collaborating to leverage web sentiment data to build a new cryptocurrency-based thematic index. In March, SESAMm closed a Series B2 round in March, securing $37 million. The investment took the firm’s total equity capital raised to more than $65 million (€50.5 million), according to Crunchbase. SESAMm counts Elaia, Opera Tech Ventures, and NewAlpha Asset Management among its investors.
A partnership between credit and risk decisions company Stratyfy and Beneficial State Foundation is designed to combat ethnic and racial disparities in lending. The partnership was formed under the auspices of the Foundation’s Underwriting for Racial Justice (URJ) program. URJ consists of a team of financial institutions and “equity champions” tasked with identifying ways to improve access to credit for underserved communities and individuals.
The partnership has kicked off a two-year pilot program that will resource capital for people of color with the goal of stimulating wealth-building in their communities. To this end, 20 lenders will use Stratyfy’s technology, including its credit risk and decision optimization solutions, to remove bias from the credit decisioning process and encourage the fairest possible outcomes. Beneficial State Foundation Executive Director and Chief Impact Officer Erin Kilmer Neel called Stratyfy a “key partner” in the effort. Stratyfy co-founder and CEO Laura Kornhauser praised the institutions who are supporting the initiative.
“The innovative lenders selected for the URJ program are redefining how people of color in their communities are able to access credit,” Kornhauser said. “And Stratyfy is the technology chosen to deliver the collective insights and recommended actions to make it happen.”
The selected lenders are:
Beneficial State Bank
Berkshire Bank
BetterFi
Chehalis Tribal Loan Fund
Community Vision
Eastern Bank
Enterprise Community Loan Fund (ECLF)
Leech Lake Financial Services
LISC
Montecito Bank & Trust
NBT Bank, N.A.
New Orleans Fireman’s Federal Credit Union
REDF Impact Investing Fund
Rivermark Community Credit Union
Texas National Bank
Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity Lending, Inc.
Urban Redevelopment Authority
Vermont Community Loan Fund
Working Solutions CDFI
Washington State Employees Credit Union
Leaders from both the Vermont Community Loan Fund and NBT Bank underscored the opportunity to work together on behalf of greater financial inclusion. “Our team looks forward to collaborating with the 20-lender cohort to enhance our individual and collective impact on racial equity in lending,” NBT EVP and Consumer Lending Executive Shauna M. Hyle said. Forbes named NBT Bank to its World’s Best Banks roster this year, making NBT Bank the highest rated bank in the state.
Founded in 2017, Stratyfy made its Finovate debut in 2018. The company won Best of Show in its return to the Finovate stage last September at FinovateFall. At the conference, the company demoed its UnBias solution. Unbias enables financial institutions and fintechs to uncover and undo bias in complex financial decisions. The API-delivered technology is one of many transparent, machine learning tools Stratyfy offers to help companies minimize bias and improve risk-adjusted returns.
New York-based Stratyfy raised more than $10 million in funding this spring. Truist Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners co-led the round.
Financial mentorship platform for women, Penny Finance, has launched a new automated account integration.
The new offering comes courtesy of a partnership with financial data connectivity innovator Plaid.
Wall Street veteran Crissi Cole founded Penny Finance in 2020.
Penny Finance has added a new feature courtesy of the company’s partnership with Plaid. The financial mentorship platform for women announced the launch of a new automated account integration that will power enhanced money insights for its members. After linking their bank accounts to the Penny Finance platform, members will receive personalized, financial wellness reminders via email. Members will also get a customized version of Penny Finance’s education and mentorship guidance. This includes everything from helping members understand the differences between their various accounts, to strategies to maximize their financial opportunities. An example of the latter could be a suggestion to transition from a standard savings account to a high yield savings account.
“Managing your finances should be easy. You shouldn’t have to dig through statements, read a finance book, or ask your dad how to manage your money,” Penny Finance CEO and founder Crissi Cole said. “We are so excited to take the guesswork out of managing your money for the most high-potential group of investors out there: women.”
Cole founded Penny Finance in 2020. The company is the first personalized, tech-powered financial mentorship platform to offer real-world advice to women who lack access to a financial advisor. Earlier this year, the company earned a spot in the 2023 Techstars Future of Longevity startup accelerator in partnership with Pivotal Ventures. Penny Finance is among ten startups participating in the program.
Penny Finance began the year with the launch of an all-in-one community feature. The offering provides a welcoming space for women to come together and share advice on a variety of financial wellness topics. The Penny Finance team moderates the new feature, which hosts questions on everything from debt management to investing.
“Women are whip-smart,” Cole said when the community feature was introduced in January. “We are more educated, live longer, and yet, we typically retire with one-third of the wealth of a man. Why? The system wasn’t built for us. The world of finance is a ‘boys club’ with its own rules. But, the good news is, it’s not as complicated as they made it out to be.”
Plaid has been a Finovate alum for nearly a decade. The company introduced itself to Finovate audiences as part of our developers conference, FinDEVr SiliconValley, in 2014. In the years since, the financial data connectivity innovator has grown into a leading fintech that powers more than 7,000 apps and services with its API-first network. The company also facilitates connections to more than 12,000 financial institutions. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Plaid was founded in 2013. Zach Perret is CEO.
Open data company Moneyhub announced a pair of partnerships at the beginning of the month.
The Bristol-based firm forged a referral partnership with fellow Finovate alum MX.
Moneyhub is also working with wealth management solutions provider Voyant, leveraging open data to accelerate the fact-finding process for financial advisors.
U.K.-based open data company Moneyhub announced a number of partnerships in recent days and weeks. At the beginning of the month, the fintech forged a strategic partnership with Utah-based open finance innovator MX. Via the partnership, Moneyhub will be able to refer customers to MX for support in North America, while MX will be able to refer customers who are looking for open finance solutions in European markets to Moneyhub.
Moneyhub provides consumers with data to enhance their financial health. The firm’s technology also helps businesses gain the kind of insights that enable them to deliver personalized solutions to their customers. In addition to Moneyhub’s Personal Finance Management platform and Open Banking APIs, the company offers decisioning tools that provide data-powered affordability checks that provide a real-time view of applicant financial information.
MX’s connectivity solutions and open finance APIs enable both consumers and businesses to leverage financial data to improve outcomes. MX provides reliable connections and data verification to help firms make insightful, actionable decisions, provide superior money experiences for customers, and grow their businesses.
“MX and Moneyhub share the belief that consumer-permissioned data sharing is critical to the future of our industry and we have an inherent responsibility to improve the money experience for consumers,” Raymond den Hond, Chief Commercial Officer, Partners at MX, said in a statement. “It will allow our clients to use consent-driven data to improve their customers’ financial lives, on a global scale,” Moneyhub CEO Samantha Seaton said.
A seven-time Best of Show winner, MX most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage in 2021 for FinovateFall. The fintech has more than 13,000 connections with financial institutions and fintechs, giving the firm a combined reach of more than 200 million consumers. Founded in 2010 by Ryan Caldwell and Brandon Dewitt, MX is headquartered in Lehi, Utah. Jim Magats is CEO.
In addition to its strategic partnership with MX, Moneyhub also announced last week that it has teamed up with financial planning and wealth management solutions provider Voyant. The Austin, Texas-based company will put Moneyhub’s Open Banking and Open Finance APIs to work giving advisors instant access to their clients’ financial information, including assets and analysis of income and expenditures in real-time. The data-sharing technology is secure, GDPR-compliant, and accelerates the fact-finding process for financial advisors.
Voyant’s technology analyzes real-time client data from a wide variety of sources. These include bank accounts, credit cards, investments and pensions, as well as loans and mortgages. The analysis of this broad range of data ensures more accurate, automatic modeling. It also supports advisors Consumer Duty requirements that mandate that financial products be focused on client goals by providing more personalized, tailored financial solutions.
Voyant was founded in 2008. Today the company serves more than 20,000 financial professionals and more than 40,000 of their clients. The digital wealth solution provider includes Lloyds Bank, CIBC, and BMO Bank of Montreal among its wealth management partners.
“Consent-driven, comprehensive and real-time access to financial data is critical for advisors to support their clients in achieving their long-term aspirations,” Kim Jenkins, Managing Director of Moneyhub, API explained. “Only with this information can they advise on the right products and solutions, at the right time, to deliver on those goals.”
A Finovate alum since 2015, Moneyhub offers solutions for a range of companies in financial services – from banks and building societies to wealth managers, insurers, and lenders. The Bristol-based fintech offers seamless, single source connectivity to thousands of financial institutions in 37 countries to help businesses better understand and serve their customers.
In June, Moneyhub partnered with pension management firm Standard Life to power the company’s MoneyMindset solution. MoneyMindset gives Standard Life’s 1.5 million workplace pension scheme members real-time access to their spending and savings data across financial products. The previous month, Moneyhub announced that it had become the first third-party provider (TPP) to connect to Chase Bank in the U.K.
