Daily news

The European Payments Initiative Makes Acquisitions to Fuel New European Unified Payment Solution

The European Payments Initiative Makes Acquisitions to Fuel New European Unified Payment Solution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • The European Payments Initiative (EPI) acquired two payments companies– Currence-owned payment solution iDEAL and payment solutions provider Payconiq.
  • EPI will leverage the new acquisitions to build a unified payment solution for Europe. 
  • The unified payment scheme will begin by offering P2P payments by the end of 2023 across France and Germany.

Payments solutions initiative European Payments Initiative (EPI) announced it has acquired two payments companies and has simultaneously unveiled plans to launch an instant payments solution for Europe.

EPI is purchasing Currence-owned payment solution iDEAL and payment solutions provider Payconiq International (PQI) for undisclosed amounts. The three companies are joining forces to organize EPI’s unified payment solution for Europe. 

“EPI will leverage the strong operational experience, know-how and local market knowledge of these companies,” said EPI CEO Martina Weimert. “We are developing a new, scalable platform to address the modern and evolving payment needs of European consumers and merchants in the best possible way, with efficient, state-of-the-art technology.”

Based in the Netherlands, iDEAL is the region’s major payment scheme. In fact, iDEAL’s payment scheme operator, Currence, counts all major Dutch banks as members. In the Netherlands, 55% of online transactions use iDEAL to facilitate payments. iDEAL was first launched in 2005 and was revamped 15 years later in 2020 to accommodate for the growth of ecommerce transactions and updated consumer expectations.

Founded in 2014, PQI offers a mobile payment platform that can be used in-store, online, and for peer-to-peer money transfers. With headquarters in Amsterdam, the company operates in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Luxembourg.

Both iDEAL and PQI will help build the EPI digital wallet solution that will offer instant, account-to-account payments under a single brand for users in all European countries. The unified payment scheme will begin by offering P2P payments by the end of 2023 across France and Germany. In the future, EPI will also offer person-to-professional (P2Pro) payments followed by ecommerce and point-of-sale payments. The scheme will support one-off payments, subscriptions, installments, payments upon delivery, and reservations. Over time, EPI will add in more services such as buy now, pay later, digital identity features, and merchant loyalty and rewards. 

The scheme has a diverse set of shareholders, including BFCM, BNP Paribas, BPCE, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, DSGV, ING, KBC, La Banque Postale, Nexi, Société Générale, and Worldline. Also worth noting are the newest members. Belfius and DZ Bank joined in 2022, and today, ABN Amro and Rabobank are joining as well.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

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Super.com Raises $85 Million for Savings Super App

Super.com Raises $85 Million for Savings Super App
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Super.com raised $85 million in a Series C funding round led by Inovia Capital.
  • Super.com did not disclose its current valuation but said that it has “increased significantly” since 2021.
  • Super.com rebranded from Snapcommerce in October of last year.

Super.com is bringing in an $85 million investment today in a Series C fundraising round that boosts the company’s total funding to $186 million. While there is no update on Super.com’s current valuation, the company noted that it has “increased significantly” since it closed its Series B round in March of 2021.

The round was led by Inovia Capital with contributions from new investors Harley Finkelstein, Deb Liu, Allen Shim, Josh Proctor, Chris Best, Neha Narkhede, and Mike Lee. Existing investors Telstra Ventures, Acrew, Lion Capital, Full In Partners, NBA star Steph Curry, and others also contributed.

“Raising our Series C is proof of investor confidence in our ability to scale the business responsibly. This will allow us to both continue investing in growth while driving improving margins,” said company CFO Daniel Weisenfeld.

Super.com rebranded from Snapcommerce in October of last year and offers a savings app to help users save money, access credit, and find travel experiences. In 2022, the company launched SuperCash, a secured credit card product that offers cashback while helping users build their credit.

In addition to helping consumers track their SuperCash transactions, the Super.com app also offers deals and savings opportunities when purchasing travel experiences and shopping major brands. Since the company was founded in 2016, it has helped its five million customers save more than $150 million.

“Super.com’s diversified business model now drives savings across all facets of our customers’ lives, from travel to fintech. It’s great to see market excitement match our own as we rapidly build the first savings super app focused on everyday Americans,” said Super.com CEO Hussein Fazal.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

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Array Launches Debt Manager to Bring Transparency to Customer Accounts

Array Launches Debt Manager to Bring Transparency to Customer Accounts
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Array, Daily news
  • Financial enablement platform Array has launched its Debt Manager solution.
  • Debt Manager provides consumers with real-time information about their debts.
  • Array won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021. The company won a second Best of Show award on its return to the Finovate stage at FinovateSpring 2022.

Financial enablement platform Array has launched its Debt Manager solution. The new offering is an embedded solution that gives consumers real-time information about their debts. Debt Manager is especially helpful during lead qualification, debt management, and similar processes. The technology helps reduce borrower risk and enhance loan marketing by ensuring that the prospective borrower’s most current credit data is accessible.

“At Array, our vision is to empower every individual to own their financial future by providing access to the right data and tools at the right time,” Array founder and CEO Martin Toha said. “Today’s introduction of Debt Manager is another key step to delivering on that vision by ensuring consumers can secure a loan faster or pay down debt quicker without having to jump through unnecessary hoops to make that possible.”

Debt Manager helps financial services companies negotiate two specific challenges. The first issue is the cumbersome task of gathering and collecting data from a range of financial accounts. These accounts often include credit cards, mortgages, student and auto loans, and more. The second issue is that, without this data, financial institutions can often make “suboptimal decisions” and court “significant risk” in the words of Array VP and GM of Digital Financial Management Products Deepak Sharma.

Debt Manager is the latest addition to Array’s suite of solutions for financial services companies and their customers. The new offering joins Array’s credit and financial management tools like its BuildCredit Loan, HelloPrivacy, and Identity Protect. The company is also moving toward the launch of its Subscription Manager product. This technology gives consumers better insight into their recurring payments. Array reported that 47% of banking customers in the U.S. would find subscription management tools “useful” on mobile banking apps.

The launch of Debt Manager comes one month after the company announced its partnership with FICO. The collaboration will bring FICO scores and credit data to consumers on Array’s platform. “Our partnership with FICO delivers on our promise to provide valuable data with the experience that people want, and it provides banks, credit unions, and fintechs with an embeddable solution to enable them to offer FICO Scores to meet the growing demand for credit score data.”

Founded in 2020, Array is headquartered in New York. The company has raised $67 million in funding from investors including General Catalyst, Battery Ventures, and Nyca Partners. Array won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2021. The company returned to the Finovate stage the following year, securing a second Best of Show award at FinovateSpring 2022.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov

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TransUnion Brings Credit Scoring to the Blockchain

TransUnion Brings Credit Scoring to the Blockchain
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, TransUnion
  • TransUnion has partnered with Spring Labs and Quadrata to bring credit scoring to the blockchain.
  • Spring Labs’ technology will deliver TransUnion-powered data to Quadrata’s Web3 digital passport.
  • TransUnion EVP of Financial Services Jason Laky said the move will “allow for DeFi lenders to have access to this critical information when making their lending decisions with confidence, ultimately minimizing their risk and providing borrowers more opportunity for better terms.”

TransUnion has partnered with two firms to bring credit scores onto the blockchain. The Illinois-based company has tapped data security firm Spring Labs and decentralized networks expert Quadrata to ultimately help lenders make data-driven decisions on credit applications submitted via the blockchain.

The partnership will enable TransUnion to– upon the customer’s request– provide credit data that is not stored on a blockchain to decentralized finance applications (DApps). TransUnion, which holds the consumer credit data off-chain, will leverage Spring Labs’ patented technology that delivers credit scoring data while keeping the consumer’s identity on blockchain secure. Quadrata will leverage its digital passport, a Web3 identity solution that will automatically sync the credit scoring data across the blockchain.

“Credit scoring is an important tool for lenders to help mitigate risk regardless of the platform being used,” said TransUnion EVP of Financial Services Jason Laky. “This partnership with Spring Labs and Quadrata will allow for DeFi lenders to have access to this critical information when making their lending decisions with confidence, ultimately minimizing their risk and providing borrowers more opportunity for better terms.”

DeFi lending platforms have the potential to reach a more diverse set of consumers than traditional lending platforms. Not only do they offer more flexibility when compared to traditional lenders, but they also allow the borrower to customize their loan. Borrowers choose the collateral they provide, the duration of their loan, and the interest rate they are willing to pay.

Bringing credit scoring to the Web3 space will facilitate DeFi lending, lower the risk for DeFi lenders, and increase opportunities for borrowers. “As more consumers and lenders move to blockchain to conduct business, it’s important to ensure that the balance is struck between the information that lenders need to assess risk and the privacy and anonymity expected by users of the technology,” said Spring Labs CEO John Sun. “This new product featuring TransUnion’s identity and credit data at its core is a big step toward achieving that balance and allowing more lending opportunities on blockchain while minimizing risk.”

Photo by Joey Kyber

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Arkose Labs Introduces New Technology to Combat Advanced Phishing Attacks

Arkose Labs Introduces New Technology to Combat Advanced Phishing Attacks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Arkose Labs, Daily news
  • Arkose Labs introduced new detection and alert capabilities against advanced phishing attacks.
  • The new capabilities combat an evolution in phishing called “reverse proxy phishing.”
  • Arkose Labs won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2019.

Bot detection specialist Arkose Labs now detects and alerts against advanced phishing attacks. The new functionality combats “reverse proxy phishing,” the latest evolution in the challenge of dealing with fraudsters and cybercriminals.

“Phishing isn’t simply about domain block lists or analyzing website contents anymore,” Arkose Labs CTO Ashish Jain said. “Those methods might work against unsophisticated attacks, but new phishing attacks require a comprehensive security posture.”

Reverse proxy attacks use fake websites to impersonate legitimate websites. Bank websites are a common target. In the process, users are encouraged to visit the fake website via a message and are asked to login. The fake website then sends the user’s information to the server of the real web site. This causes the real website to issue a one-time password (OTP) or security PIN. The fraudster can then leverage the proxy to extract user credentials, including the OTP or PIN. The attacker can also secure the cookie from the legitimate website. This enables the cybercriminal to access the user’s account.

“Arkose Bot Manager beats attackers at their own game by forcing them to integrate Arkose into their fake pages with absolutely no effect on the user experience,” Jain added. “With Arkose integrated, we can thwart a phishing attack and give the business data on the attackers – and unlike traditional phishing detection methods, Arkose Phishing Protection is able to detect and block malicious requests in real-time.”

Arkose Labs’ new advanced phishing protection comes as the company announced a new anti-fraud guarantee against SMS toll fraud attacks. The warranty covers up to one million dollars in telecom expenses if Arkose Bot Manager fails to stop an SMS toll fraud attack against one of its managed service customers.

SMS toll fraud is a type of bot attack in which large volumes of SMS messages are sent to premium rate numbers. Also known as SMS pumping or International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF), this attack can result in sizable fraudulent SMS charges against a business. In some cases, the charges can amount to millions of dollars a month.

“This type of attack hits a company right in the wallet,” Arkose Labs CFO Frank Teruel said. “We stand confident in our platform, and Arkose already has saved customers millions in fraudulent SMS charges by stopping these attacks. Frankly, this type of warranty should be table stakes for any security vendor.”

Founded in 2017, Arkose Labs is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2019. Arkose Labs returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateFall in New York. Kevin Gosschalk is founder and CEO.

Photo by Noelle Otto

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SmartAsset Acquires DeftSales to Help Advisors Grow their Practices

SmartAsset Acquires DeftSales to Help Advisors Grow their Practices
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, SmartAsset
  • Financial advice platform SmartAsset has acquired advisor prospect engagement company DeftSales.
  • The company has integrated DeftSales into its SmartAdvisor advisor growth solution, renaming the technology DeftSales by SmartAsset.
  • The new tool helps advisors respond to leads instantly, enabling them to engage warm leads before another advisor follows up first.

Financial advice platform SmartAsset is acquiring prospect engagement company DeftSales this week for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in 2020, DeftSales offers tools that integrate with a range of CRM platforms to automate financial advisors’ business development outreach and provide analytics insights on client engagement. The technology helps advisors respond to leads instantly, enabling them to engage warm leads before another advisor follows up first.

“We are enormously excited to announce the acquisition of DeftSales and we look forward to integrating their solutions with our own SmartAdvisor platform,” said company CEO and Founder Michael Carvin. “The feedback from advisors using DeftSales has been incredibly clear – by automating many tasks, it dramatically decreases the work required to be successful in converting SmartAdvisor prospects into clients.”

SmartAsset has integrated DeftSales into its SmartAdvisor advisor growth solution, renaming the technology DeftSales by SmartAsset. The new solution integrates SmartAsset’s compliant user interface with DeftSales’ automated campaigns and analytics. DeftSales by SmartAsset offers automated emails and text messages, FastCall technology that enables advisors to follow-up on leads while they are busy with a current client, and an analytics dashboard to monitor engagement efforts.

DeftSales Co-Founder and COO James Fason will join the SmartAsset team as Director of Engineering.

SmartAsset has a mission to help people make smart financial decisions. The company’s educational content, calculators, and tools reach 75 million people each month. In 2021, the New York-based company raised $110 million in funding, boosting its total funding to more than $161 million. And the company is still growing. SmartAsset has brought on 27 new hires so far this year.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

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NayaOne Wins Tender from Financial Conduct Authority to Build Digital Sandbox

NayaOne Wins Tender from Financial Conduct Authority to Build Digital Sandbox
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, NayaOne
  • Digital sandbox developer NayaOne secured the Digital Sandbox tender from the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
  • In the past year, NayaOne has built digital sandboxes and marketplaces for Lloyds Banking Group and FinTech North.
  • NayaOne won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in March.

FinovateEurope Best of Show winner NayaOne has scored again this year. The London, U.K.-based fintech has secured the Digital Sandbox tender from the country’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The Digital Sandbox will give startups a safe and secure environment to build, test, and develop their fintech solutions. All with the full support of the FCA.

“We are thrilled to have been selected for this prestigious opportunity to collaborate with the FCA on driving innovation in financial services,” NayaOne CEO Karan Jain said. “We believe that our digital transformation platform and synthetic data technology will be a valuable asset in helping fintech companies to develop and test their products more efficiently and effectively.”

The FCA’s decision comes in the wake of a pair of pilot projects, in 2020 and again in 2022. The initiatives gave startups access to synthetic and publicly available data in order to test and develop their solutions. The FCA announced that it would make the digital sandbox permanent in the summer of 2023. NayaOne has built a business of creating digital sandboxes for financial institutions, such as Lloyds Banking Group and FinTech North. And it is this experience – according to FCA Chief Data, Information, and Intelligence Officer Jessica Rusu – that makes the company well-positioned to help the FCA fulfill its goal of “promoting solutions to complex regulatory challenges like APP fraud, greenwashing, and scam detection.”

NayaOne demoed its Digital Sandbox in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope. The company’s platform helps make innovation, integration, and partnership an easier – and faster – process for banks. NayaOne offers single key access to more than 200 technology vendors; a secure, digital sandbox environment; and 2.5 billion data points to support tech evaluation. The company reports that it has enabled banks to accelerate their proof-of-concept timeline from 12 months to only two months. This saves banks up to 80% in costs and significantly increases productivity.

NayaOne’s Digital Sandbox announcement comes as the company reports that Bambu is now available via the NayaOne Marketplace. Bambu is a Singapore-based B2B roboadvisor and fellow Finovate alum. A three-time Best of Show winner, the company most recently demoed at FinovateFall in 2021. “We recognize NayaOne’s commitment to enable banks and financial institutions to take advantage of revolutionary innovations in financial technology by bringing banks and fintechs together for innovation,” Bambu founder and CEO Ned Phillips said. “As a wealth technology provider, we at Bambu want to bring our award-winning financial solutions to the forefront, and we look forward to doing so on the NayaOne Digital Transformation Platform.”

NayaOne was founded in 2019. Karan Jain joined the company as CEO in 2021.

Photo by Jorge Sepúlveda

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Q2 Now Helps Firms Navigate Real Time Payment Rails

Q2 Now Helps Firms Navigate Real Time Payment Rails
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Q2, Q2 Holdings
Q2 payment rails
  • Q2 is launching the Q2 Instant Payments Manager.
  • The new tool helps banks manage workflows for instant payment schemes, including Clearing House RTP and Federal Reserve FedNow rails.
  • The Instant Payments Manager supports multiple functions, including Request for Payment, Request for Information, Credit Transfer, and Receipt Confirmation messages.

Digital banking solutions provider Q2 Holdings unveiled its Q2 Instant Payments Manager this week. The new tool helps banks manage workflows for instant payment schemes, including Clearing House RTP and Federal Reserve FedNow rails.

The Clearing House has offered its real-time payment (RTP) rails since 2017 and the U.S. Federal Reserve is planning to launch its FedNow RTP solution this summer. The new capabilities have many U.S. firms seeking to integrate real-time payment flows into their systems to not only keep up with competing banks, but also with customer expectations. For both of these instant payment message sets, Q2’s new solution supports multiple functions, including Request for Payment, Request for Information, Credit Transfer, and Receipt Confirmation messages.

“Q2 Instant Payments Manager solves the challenges many businesses face around partial B2B payments and exchanging invoice data between billers and payers,” said Q2 SVP of Product Management Dallas Wells. “The new solution will modernize B2B payment flows and provide a competitive advantage for banks and credit unions striving for operating account deposits in a crowded commercial banking market.”

The Q2 Instant Payments Manager is a part of the company’s Q2 Catalyst, a set of commercial banking solutions. Q2 anticipates today’s offering will help banks improve their accounts receivable and payable processes by reducing the times to post and reconcile B2B payments.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Q2 offers a range of digital financial solutions for consumers, business clients, and fellow fintechs. The company is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker QTWO, and has a market capitalization of more than $1.36 billion.

The topic of RTP among banks and fintechs has gained major headway in the U.S. this year. Earlier this week, Plaid unveiled its Instant Payouts solution. The multi-rail payout tool enables a range of financial services firms– including verticals like personal lending, marketplaces, insurance, brokerages, and digital investment platforms– to send funds instantly, 24/7 within Plaid’s Transfer product. 

Photo by Albin Berlin

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RightCapital’s Cash Flow Maps Bring Intuitive Visuals to Financial Planning

RightCapital’s Cash Flow Maps Bring Intuitive Visuals to Financial Planning
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, RightCapital
  • RightCapital launched its new data visualization tool, Cash Flow Maps, this week.
  • The new offering provides intuitive data visuals to illustrate cash inflows and outflows in financial plans.
  • Headquartered in Connecticut, RightCapital most recently demoed its technology at FinovateSpring in 2019.

Seeing is believing. And RightCapital is betting that its new Cash Flow Maps will make it easier for financial advisors to collaborate with their clients. The latest addition to RightCapital’s data visualization tools, Cash Flow Maps offers intuitive data visuals to illustrate cash inflows and outflows in financial plans.

“RightCapital has built its reputation on listening to advisor feedback and adding new product features at a fast clip,” co-founder and CEO of RightCapital Shuang Chen said. “The Cash Flow Maps are a good example of that.”

Cash Flow Maps present data in two different formats. The “Waterfall” format is a horizontal Sankey chart in which cash inflows and outflows move from left to right. The “Breakdown” format is a vertical flow chart that allows users to click on each item for greater detail. The new offering is available now to all RightCapital subscribers at all subscription levels. Cash Flow Maps leverage Sankey charting, which emphasizes transfers or flows within a system. Famous examples of early Sankey charts include a visualization of Napolean’s 1812 Russian Campaign created in 1869. Another famous example was the illustration of the efficiency of a steam engine back in 1898.

“My first experience seeing Sankey cash flow charts used in financial planning was in what I called the ‘Beautiful Financial Plan’ that Mike Zung, CFP, created,” Michael Kitces said. Kitces is publisher of The Kitces Report and the financial advisory industry blog, Nerd’s Eye View. “Now that RightCapital has released this new feature that automatically creates cash flow maps, the entire community of advisors can use them in their financial plans with ease,” he added.

Founded in 2015, RightCapital made its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateFall. The Shelton, Connecticut-based fintech last demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateSpring 2019. RightCapital also offers Snapshot, which summarizes financial planning charts and notes into a single personalized document. The company’s Blueprint solution helps organize household financial data and goals using interactive, intuitive visuals.

Photo by Pixabay

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GoDaddy Teams with Apple to Offer Contactless Payments

GoDaddy Teams with Apple to Offer Contactless Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • GoDaddy has added a contactless payments option for its merchant clients.
  • By leveraging Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhone, GoDaddy enables entrepreneurs to accept in-person, contactless payments without a card reader.
  • The transaction capabilities are powered by GoDaddy Payments, which the company launched in 2021 after acquiring Poynt.

Internet domain registrar and online business facilitator GoDaddy unveiled its latest small business tool today. The Arizona-based company is leveraging Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhone to enable entrepreneurs accept in-person, contactless payments without a card reader.

Apple launched Tap to Pay in February 2022 to allow merchants to use their iPhone to accept Apple Pay, contactless payment cards, and other digital wallets by tapping it to their iPhone. “As more and more consumers are tapping to pay with digital wallets and credit cards, Tap to Pay on iPhone will provide businesses with a secure, private, and easy way to accept contactless payments and unlock new checkout experiences using the power, security, and convenience of iPhone,” Apple Vice President of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet Jennifer Bailey said at the launch.

With the integration of Apple’s Tap to Pay technology into the GoDaddy mobile app, GoDaddy said that it takes merchants just “a couple of minutes” to accept contactless payments on their phone. After downloading the GoDaddy Mobile App on their iPhone, they log in, and choose Tap to Pay on iPhone. Customers can pay using contactless debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, or other digital wallets.

“Based on our data, more than half of all in-store purchases are now contactless, making it a favorite way for consumers to make payments in-store,” said GoDaddy Commerce President Osama Bedier. “Many of our U.S. customers already have an iPhone. By adding Tap to Pay on iPhone to the GoDaddy Mobile App, we will enable millions of small businesses to accept in-person payments without having to purchase additional hardware. That matters in this climate. It’s part of GoDaddy’s mission to put merchants first by making user-friendly, connected commerce tools accessible to all businesses, no matter their size.”

The contactless transactions are powered by GoDaddy Payments, which launched in 2021 after the company acquired payment terminal operating system Poynt for $320 million. Prior to the acquisition, Poynt handled more than $16 billion in gross merchandise volume each year for its 100,000+ merchant clients.

Founded in 1997, GoDaddy is best known for its domain name registration service and website building tools. The company has slowly been expanding its expertise to better serve its small business clients, having added email and marketing tools, as well as online marketplace tools and sales dashboards. GoDaddy is publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $11.8 billion. Aman Bhutani is CEO.

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Qolo to Power Payment Solutions and Virtual Accounts for KeyBank

Qolo to Power Payment Solutions and Virtual Accounts for KeyBank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Qolo
  • Omnichannel card and payment platform Qolo has partnered with KeyBank.
  • Via the partnership, Qolo will power KeyBank’s payment solutions and virtual accounts.
  • Based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in September 2022.

KeyBank has selected omnichannel card and payment platform Qolo to power its API-based payment solutions and virtual accounts. The partnership will enable KeyBank customers to create advanced virtual accounts instantly. Customers also will be able to connect seamlessly to other payment modalities such as real-time payments, ACH, and wire transfers.

“Qolo’s partnership with KeyBank will bring our leading card issuing, omnichannel payments, and flexible virtual accounts to more fintechs and businesses looking to quickly launch and scale revenue-generating digital banking services,” Qolo co-founder and CEO Patricia Montesi said. “We are excited to power this intrinsic component of KeyBank’s next-generation digital offering.”

Qolo enables banks to leverage advanced digital payments functionality without having to replace their core systems. Via a single API, Qolo offers direct access to all payment rails and account types. The company’s technology also provides program management, processing, platform licensing and more. Qolo made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall last September, where it demoed its Companion Core solution.

Head of Commercial Product and Innovation at KeyBank Jon Briggs praised Qolo for its “shared commitment” to helping businesses access innovative new solutions to better serve their customers. “The integration of Qolo into KeyBank’s API is another proof point in our embedded banking strategy, allowing clients to streamline and scale their strategies by utilizing our digital payment tools to power innovation in their platforms.”

Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo was founded in 2018. The company’s partnership announcement with KeyBank follows recent news that Qolo was working with global payouts firm PayQuicker. The collaboration will enable Qolo to provide unified disbursement services to PayQuicker and its customers. Qolo began the year celebrating a major milestone: processing more than $1 billion in total payouts in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Qolo has raised $19 million in equity funding. The company’s most recent fundraising was in August of 2021 when it secured $15 million in a Series A round led by The Raptor Group.

Photo by Blue Arauz

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Affirm Launches Adaptive Checkout for Canadian Stripe Users

Affirm Launches Adaptive Checkout for Canadian Stripe Users
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • BNPL company Affirm and payments infrastructure company Stripe are expanding their relationship.
  • The move will make Affirm’s Adaptive Checkout tool available to businesses using Stripe in Canada.
  • The two began working together in May of 2022, when the payments company added the Affirm’s Adaptive Checkout tool as an option for U.S. businesses.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) giant Affirm announced it is doubling down on its relationship with payments infrastructure company Stripe this week.

Under the agreement, Affirm is making its Adaptive Checkout tool available to eligible Canadian Stripe users. Launched in 2021, Adaptive Checkout offers more personalized payment options in the checkout flow. The checkout tool offers shoppers BNPL options, including four interest-free biweekly payments, monthly payments, or both.

Stripe Product Lead for Payment Methods Sophie Sakellariadis said that the addition of the tool will help Canadian businesses “continue to scale and adapt with changing consumer preferences.”

Stripe began working with Affirm in May of 2022. The payments company added the BNPL provider’s Adaptive Checkout tool as an option for U.S. business customers to add into their checkout flows. After the partnership, Stripe saw users increase their average order value by 41% when leveraging Affirm’s flexible payment plans

“Since launching in the U.S. with Stripe, we’ve helped many businesses better serve their customers and drive growth by providing transparent and flexible payment options,” said Affirm Chief Revenue Officer Wayne Pommen. “We are excited to expand our partnership and strengthen our position as one of the leading providers in Canada. By providing consumers with greater choice to select the custom payment plan that is right for them, Adaptive Checkout has been proven to increase sales and conversion, and is now available to Stripe’s Canadian users.”

A BNPL pioneer, Affirm was founded in 2012. The company now enables 240,000 merchants and platforms to offer flexible payment options. Affirm’s other Canadian partnerships include Apple, Hudson’s Bay, Browns Shoes, and Samsung. 

Founded in 2010, Stripe processes hundreds of billions of dollars each year and offers a range of products– including a suite of global payments solutions, banking-as-a-service offerings, and revenue and financial management tools. Last month, the company landed $6.5 billion in Series I funding to provide liquidity to employees and address employee equity awards withholding tax obligations. Stripe is currently valued at $50 billion, which is less than half of the company’s peak valuation of $95 billion in March of 2021.

Photo by Andre Furtado

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