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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Multi-currency payment services company Conotoxia launched multi-currency card 2.0.
The update enables cardholders to add users to their card.
The multi-currency card 2.0 enables cardholders to hold accounts in 20 currencies and pay in more than 160 currencies.
Multi-currency payment services company Conotoxia is making it easier for users to share payment cards with friends, family, and employees. The new capabilities come as part of the company’s new launch, multi-currency card 2.0.
“We have been observing very strong interest in our multi-currency cards. Customers recognize their advantages and their superiority over bank debit cards,” said Conotoxia Vice President Pitor Kicinski. “The multi-currency card 2.0 and its new functionality can mean significant savings for families and businesses, as well as, for example, an interesting gift for those traveling abroad or shopping in international shops.”
Existing cardholders can share their card with new users after they register with Conotoxia. Once the new user is registered, they can begin making transactions using both physical and virtual cards. Meanwhile, the primary cardholder can view the card balance, control expenses, and set spending limits.
With the multi-currency card 2.0, cardholders can hold accounts in 20 currencies and can pay in more than 160 currencies. The tandem Conotoxia mobile app for iOS and Android enable users to view their transaction history, manage cards, and more. At the start of 2022, Conotoxia added Apple Pay as a payment option for cardholders, and contactless payments are also available with Google Pay, Fitbit Pay, and Garmin Pay.
Launched in 2014, Conotoxia offers foreign exchange and cryptocurrency trading, online payments, and online currency exchange in addition to its multi-currency cards. The company employs more than 250 people in its offices based in Poland, Illinois, and The Republic of Cyprus.
London-based regtech Sumsub has partnered with Paris-based money transfer company Tempo.
The partnership will help Tempo enhance its user identity verification operations and reduce fraud in line with French regulations.
Sumsub made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin, Germany.
London-based regtech Sumsub – which stands for Sum & Substance – has teamed up with Paris-based money transfer company Tempo. The partnership will enable the French fintech to leverage Sumsub’s technology to verify user identities and secure customer data in line with KYC and AML regulations. Tempo will benefit from access to a range of KYC services and the partnership already has enabled Tempo to meet AML compliance requirements as established by French regulators.
“We are glad to offer our all-in-one verification platform to global digital payments providers like Tempo, making money transfers more accessible to people worldwide,” Sumsub CEO and co-founder Andrew Sever said. “With Sumsub’s KYC. KYB, transaction monitoring and AML solutions, it’s easier for businesses to expand to international markets and increase their client base while staying fully compliant with regulations and ensuring bulletproof fraud protection.”
Sumsub made its Finovate debut two years ago at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin, Germany. At the conference, the company demoed its KYC/AML Checks and Risk Management Toolkit, which enables businesses to accelerate verification, and lower costs by as much as 6x, as well as detect and eliminate digital fraud. The company offers global coverage of more than 200 markets and combines best-in-class technology with human legal expertise to enable Sumsub to help companies in diverse regulatory regimes.
In a statement, Tempo France CEO Alla Zhedik highlighted the fact that Tempo is licensed by the Bank of France. “This imposes strict compliance obligations,” Zhedik said. “And that is where KYC plays a great role and is also why the joint project with Sumsub is so important for us.” Zhedik added that the partnership not only helped minimize fraud and money laundering risks, but also gives Tempo “access to the most advanced customer data processing solutions.”
With more than 2,000 customers in verticals ranging from fintech and digital assets to transportation and gaming, Sumsub claims to have achieved some of the highest conversion rates in the industry, reaching more than 91% in the U.S., and more than 95% in the U.K. The company said that is is able to verify users in less than 50 seconds on average.
Sumsub’s partnership news comes one month after the company announced that it was joining Brazilian fintech association, ABFintechs. Also in November, Sumsub reported that Markor Technology, provider of B2B and B2C technology solutions for iGaming operators, had selected Sumsub to provide enhanced verification and fraud protection.
Glia and Jack Henry announced a partnership this week that will integrate Glia’s Digital Customer Service into Jack Henry’s Banno digital banking platform.
The integration will enable a wider number of banks and credit unions to interact with their customers via digital channels such as voice and video banking.
Glia and Jack Henry are both Finovate alums. Jack Henry made its Finovate debut in 2010. Glia has won Best of Show at Finovate conferences six times.
A newly announced partnership between a pair Finovate alums will bring some of the latest innovations in digital customer service to more bank and credit union customers. Digital Customer Service specialist Glia announced this week that its technology is now available via Jack Henry’sBanno Digital Platform.
The integration will give financial institutions using the platform the ability to engage customers across all digital channels – from SMS and chat to voice and video banking. Glia’s acquisition of fellow Finovate alum Finn AI in June adds innovative virtual assistance technology to Glia’s offering – technology that will now be available to banks and credit unions on Jack Henry’s platform. The integration was facilitated by the Banno Digital Toolkit, which uses the same set of APIs upon which the Banno Digital Platform is built.
“Glia is making Digital Customer Service accessible to a growing number of banks and credit unions, empowering them with powerful tools to digitalize and transform customer service,” Glia SVP of Alliances Steve Kaish said. “Our integration with Jack Henry accelerates that mission, allowing more institutions to facilitate digital-first engagements within the digital domain.”
A six-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Glia most recently demoed its Digital Customer Service technology at FinovateSpring last year. At the conference, Glia showed how its latest innovation automatically connects customer inbound calls to the customer’s associated online browsing sessions to give customer service representatives context when handling the customer query. This helps improve the quality of the session, making it easy for the representative to collaborate online with the caller via features like co-browsing, screensharing, and one- or two-way video. This, according to Kaish, will help “community institutions create competitive advantage” versus their national and international rivals.
Founded in 2012, Glia is headquartered in New York City. Daniel Michaeli is CEO and co-founder.
With more than 9,000 customers in the U.S., Jack Henry offers banks and credit unions an ecosystem of innovative financial services solutions, as well as the ability to integrate with leading fintechs. Headquartered in Monett, Missouri, and founded in 1976, the company made its Finovate debut in 2010 and has since grown into a major technology and payment services company with $1.7 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021. Jack Henry is a publicly traded entity on the Nasdaq under the ticker “JKHY,” and has a market capitalization of $13 billion.
A Finovate alum since 2010, Jack Henry & Associates was featured in Computerworld’s “Best Places to Work in IT” list for 2023. This week, the company announced that it was adding automated policy management technology to its Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Suite. David Foss is President and CEO.
ING Germany has tapped Paysafe’s cash arm, viafintech, to offer its users cash deposit and withdrawal services.
Using ING Germany’s Banking to Go app, customers can deposit and withdrawal cash at more than 12,500 participating brick-and-mortar stores.
Withdrawals are free, but customers will be charged a 1.5% fee on the total amount they deposit.
Global payments platform Paysafeannounced today that its cash arm, viafintech, has partnered with ING Germany. Under the agreement, ING Germany will leverage viafintech for its cash deposit and withdrawal features.
viafintech’s technology will enable ING Germany to offer its nine-plus million customers to access a new feature, ING Cash, in its Banking to Go app. The tool will empower users to make cash deposits or withdrawals from their current account at participating brick-and-mortar retailers.
Here’s how it works: a customer decides how much they want to withdraw or deposit, and the app generates a barcode that they can scan at a participating brick-and-mortar store. Currently, ING Germany has more than 12,500 participating stores in Germany, including Rewe, Penny, Rossmann, and dm drogerie Markt.
Users are not required to make a minimum purchase at the retail locations. And while it is free for them to withdrawal funds, ING Germany charges a 1.5% fee on the total amount they deposit.
viafintech was founded in 2011 and was acquired by Paysafe in 2021. The company’s API offers organizations access to its payment infrastructure that enables cash withdrawals and deposits, bill payments, credit payouts, cashless payment methods, prepaid solutions, and gift cards.
Paysafe is a legacy player in the fintech space, having launched in 1996. The U.K.-based company offers payment processing, digital wallet, and online cash solutions connecting businesses and consumers across 100 payment types in over 40 currencies around the world. Last year, Paysafe processed $120 billion in transactions. The company is publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PSFE and has a market capitalization of $824 million.
Insurtech company Oyster received $3.6 million in seed funding.
The round was led by New Stack Ventures.
Oyster was founded in 2021 by Blend, Stripe, and Strategy& alumni Vic Yeh, Jon Patel, and Nikhil Kansal.
Insurtech company Oysterreceived $3.6 million in funding this week. The Seed Round was led by New Stack Ventures with contributions from Global Founders Capital, Conversion Capital, Cambrian Ventures, SNR VC, Kearny Jackson, Valia Ventures, Interlace Ventures, V1 VC, and a group of angel investors.
Oyster a new take on insurance. It provides merchants an embedded insurance tool to integrate into their point-of-sale that offers customers insurance for a good or service they are about to purchase. Oyster will use today’s investment to fuel its point-of-sale insurance platform and add more merchant partners. The company’s list of merchant partners currently includes Bulls Bikes, Jewels by Grace, Zooz Bikes, Bario Neal, Area 13 Ebikes, and The New Wheel.
“You can buy a $5,000 ebike or engagement ring online in just a few clicks and get it delivered the next day. Want to get insurance for that purchase? Good luck! It’s an offline process that can take many days and lots of paperwork,” said Cambrian Ventures Founding Partner Rex Salisbury. “Oyster is offering embedded insurance for high growth ecommerce categories to allow consumers to seamlessly insure some of their most important possessions at point of sale in a few minutes. It’s a huge opportunity to move personal insurance into the digital age.”
Oyster differentiates itself by offering affordable insurance rates for products including bikes, ebikes, jewelry, phones, collectibles, and electronics. The company provides full coverage from theft, loss, and accidental damage– and many policies offer a zero dollar deductible.
The company was founded in 2021 by Blend, Stripe, and Strategy& alumni Vic Yeh, Jon Patel, and Nikhil Kansal. The team recognized the insurance market as one of the last financial sectors to be disrupted by the technological innovations of the past two decades. “The insurance industry is still in the early innings of digital transformation,” the company said in a blog post announcement. “As such, we’re accelerating the speed of innovation in order to provide the best-in-class products and services to our customers and partners.”
A pair of Finovate alums — Salt Edge and ebankIT – have teamed up to help financial institutions leverage open banking to provide more services to customers.
The partnership will enable ebankIT’s bank and credit union clients to access accounts from more than 5,000 financial institutions.
Salt Edge is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ebankIT is based in Porto, Portugal.
A newly announced partnership between Finovate alums ebankIT and Salt Edge will help financial services companies in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere to maximize the opportunity of open banking. The partnership will enable ebankIT to empower banks and credit unions to access accounts from more than 5,000 banks. At the same time, working with Salt Edge – an ISO 27001 certified company licensed as an AISP under PSD2 – will ensure that open banking compliance requirements across regions will be fulfilled.
“At ebankIT, we understand that Open Banking is the way forward when it comes to humanizing the digital banking experience for millions of end-users worldwide,” ebankIT Head of Sales HQ and Partnerships Pedro Leite said. “That’s why we believe that this partnership with Salt Edge will bring great benefits to our ecosystem of financial institutions.”
With its Omnichannel Digital Banking Platform, ebankIT helps financial institutions to make digital transformations, regardless of their size. Currently licensed to FIs in 11 countries, ebankIT’s platform enables banks and credit unions to offer customer experiences across all modern digital channels, from online and mobile to wearables and the metaverse. A Best of Show winner at FinovateFall in 2019, the Portugal-based company most recently demonstrated its technology this spring at FinovateEurope.
In addition to its partnership with Salt Edge, ebankIT has teamed up with other Finovate alums in 2022. In October, the company announced that it was working with multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner MX to integrate MX’s Insights and Personal Financial Management (PFM) tools into its digital banking platform. Earlier this year, ebankIT announced a collaboration with another multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Horizn. This pact is designed to help financial institutions smoothly launch new ebankIT platform deployments for both front-line employees and customers.
Salt Edge, which demoed its technology at a part of FinovateEurope in 2018 and 2019, was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company offers both an open banking gateway – to help companies access account information, conduct payment initiation, and leverage data enrichment to turn raw data into actionable insights – as well as a PSD2 compliance hub. Salt Edge’s compliance hub provides a full-stack compliance solution for banks and electronic money institutions, strong, mobile customer authentication, and TPP verification.
“As two cutting-edge tech players pursuing to revolutionize the financial world, we strive to create innovative solutions that will improve financial services for both institutions and consumers,” Salt Edge Chief Growth Officer Alina Beleuta said. “By teaming up, we can double our forces to bring innovations to the financial landscape through seamless open banking solutions.”
Thoma Bravo has acquired business spend management software company Coupa for $8 billion.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2023.
The acquisition follows rumors that Vista Equity Partners had planned to acquire Coupa earlier this year.
Private equity firm Thoma Bravoannounced this week it is scooping up business spend management software company Coupa for a total of $8 billion. The all-cash transaction will make Coupa a privately held company and is expected to close in the first half of next year.
Coupa was founded in 2006 to offer businesses spend management solutions that help them view and control their indirect spending. Some of the company’s business spend management tools include e-invoicing, travel and expense management, spend analysis, treasury management, and more. Coupa went public in 2016 and has a current market capitalization of $5.98 billion.
“For more than a decade, we’ve been building an incredible Business Spend Management Community and have proudly cemented our position as the market-leading platform in our category. We’re looking forward to partnering with Thoma Bravo and accelerating our vision to digitally transform the Office of the CFO,” said Coupa Chairman and CEO Rob Bernshteyn. “While our ownership may change, our values do not. Every one of us at Coupa will continue to put our customers at the center of everything we do and help them maximize the value of every dollar they spend.”
Today’s report follows last month’s rumors that Texas-based private equity firm Vista Equity Partners planned to purchase Coupa. Vista Equity Partners is not only a well-known investor in the fintech space, it has also made a handful of large acquisitions in the fintech space in the past few years, having acquired tax compliance firm Avalara earlier this year and cloud identity solutions provider Ping Identity in 2016.
Interestingly enough, Thoma Bravo acquired Ping Identity earlier this year for $2.8 billion after Vista Equity Partners exited its investment in the company. Thoma Bravo takes a buy-and-build approach in which it acquires similar companies and consolidates them to create synergies and develop companies with greater scale, scope, and broader service offerings. Among Thoma Bravo’s other investments in the fintech space are Bottomline Technologies, Digital Insight, SailPoint, Ellie Mae, and Kofax.
Regarding the company’s Coupa purchase, Thoma Bravo Managing Partner Holden Spaht said, “Coupa has created and led the large and growing Business Spend Management category. We’ve followed the company’s success for many years and have been impressed by its consistent track record of delivering high levels of value for its global customer base. We look forward to partnering with Rob and the rest of the management team to keep investing in the company’s product strategy while driving growth both organically and through M&A.”
Commonwealth Bank of Australia Launches Tech Hub in Brisbane
Over the summer, Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) unveiled its latest technology hub in Melbourne. This week, we learned that the financial institution’s hub-building game is still strong, with word that that CBA has established another technology hub, this time in the city of Brisbane.
The goal of the new hub, located in Brisbane’s central business district, is to help build the technology community in Queensland writ large. The bank is collaborating with The University of Queensland (UQ), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and TAFE Queensland to enable students and graduates to participate in CBA’s Tech Associates and Graduate programs. The new hub will also create job opportunities for technology professionals including engineers, cyber specialists, and data scientists.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia Chief Information Officer Brendan Hopper pointed to COVID era trends as one reason why CBA has become especially interested in Queensland. “The COVID pandemic saw many of our technology professionals choose to relocate to Queensland to pursue a change of lifestyle,” Hopper explained. “By having the tech hub in Brisbane, our people based there will still have access to major technology employers like DBA and can make an impact in their work without having to relocate interstate.”
The technology hub in Brisbane is the third such opportunity CBA has launched this year. In February, the bank opened a technology hub in Adelaide.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a multi-national institution with operations in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., and the U.K. The financial institution, one of the four biggest banks in Australia (along with National Australia Bank (NAB), ANZ, and Westpac) was founded in 1911 by the Australian government and privatized in 1996. CBA had more than one trillion in total assets as of 2020.
ANZ’s Digital Bank Reaches 100,000 Customer Milestone
Speaking of Australia’s big banks, ANZ announced this week that its digital bank, ANZ Plus, has reached 100,000 customers, and more than two billion in deposits.
“New features, better security, along with a suite of tools and coaches to help people save more, combined with competitive rates are driving more people to ANZ Plus than ever before,” ANZ Managing Director of Design and Delivery Peter Dalton said. “(It) is the fastest growing new digital bank in Australia.”
Launched in March, ANZ Plus offers accountholders an everyday account that tracks spending, and a savings account with features to help users reach their financial goals. ANZ Plus offers 3.5% interest on savings for ANZ Save balances under $250,000; and charges neither monthly account fees nor withdrawal fees at major Australian bank ATMs. Additionally, ANZ Plus customers can schedule one-on-one sessions with a financial coach to help them uncover ways that they can enhance their financial wellness, including tips on spending less and saving more.
“We are continually adding new features to improve customer experience,” Dalton said, “and have begun piloting our digital home loan product with staff.”
Other features available on ANZ Plus include biometric logins for iOS users, as well as dynamic CVV, BPAY, pay to PayID, and the ability to join with an international passport.
ANZ – which stands for the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd – is the second biggest bank in Australia by assets. Headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, ANZ was founded in 1970 as part of the largest bank merger in Australian history at the time. In the decades since then, ANZ has grown into a multinational banking and financial services entity with more than 51,000 workers, nine million customers worldwide, and more than one trillion in assets.
Australian Regulators Take AMEX to Court
While Australian banks are expanding opportunities for technology professionals and creating new resources for financial technology users, Australian regulators are cracking down on what they believe represents bad behavior on the part of one of financial services’ biggest players.
We learned this week that the Australia Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is alleging that a pair of credit cards issued by the local unit of American Express and co-branded with retailer David Jones did not provide adequate explanations about how the cards actually work.
Specifically, regulators have filed a lawsuit claiming that customers were confused about whether they had applied for a loyalty card or a credit card. Further, the lawsuit charges that American Express did not limit distribution to customers that were exclusively interested in cards that enabled them to earn points and receive other benefits. Regulators assert that AMEX was aware of the issue as early as February, but failed to act until July.
“Product providers must monitor and review whether consumers are receiving products consistent with their needs and cannot bring a ‘set and forget mindset’ to product governance,” ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said in a statement. “It is critical that providers respond to poor outcomes they identify by making changes.”
As of this time, neither AMEX nor the company that owns the David Jones department store chain have commented on the lawsuit.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
Tencent’s financial division, Tencent Financial Technology unveiled a new cross-border payments business, Tenpay Global.
Tonga Development Bank partnered with Europe-based payments platform BPC.
Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia launched a new digital offering, Rize.
Sub-Saharan Africa
South African fintech Ukheshe secured new funding from DPI and Fireball Capital.
In a bid to boost digital payments, the Central Bank of Nigeria put a limit of $45 on daily ATM withdrawals.
Finclusion, a credit-based neobank based in the Republic of Mauritius, raised $2 million in equity financing and rebranded officially to “Fin.”
Central and Eastern Europe
Ukraine will be the first country to benefit from the new cross-border payments partnership forged between Mastercard and Paysend.
Deutsche Bank announced a partnership with NVIDIA to encourage the use of AI and machine learning in financial services.
German corporate financing platform FinCompare partnered with ING Germany.
Middle East and Northern Africa
A pair of Egypt-based fintechs – consumer financing platform One Finance and BNPL provider ADVA One – announced a partnership this week.
Saudi Araban fintech Tweeq secured an e-money license from the kingdom’s central bank, SAMA.
bondIT, a fixed income investment technology company based in Israel and New York, raised $14 million in funding.
Central and Southern Asia
U.K.-based financial services platform Tide went live in India with its app and business account.
The State Bank of Pakistan announced that it is drafting legislation ahead of a planned CBDC launch in 2025.
SBM Bank India reported that it is pursuing funding to support the development of its BaaS platform.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Latin American cryptocurrency platform Bitso announced a partnership with remittance company Félix Pago to enable WhatsApp-based crypto-powered payments.
Brazil-based digital bank C6 partnered with Thought Machine for its core banking technology.
Argentine fintch Ualá to offer personal loans to customers in Mexico courtesy of a partnership with ABC Capital.
Fixed income technology innovator bondIT has raised $14 million in new funding.
The investment round was led by BNY Mellon and brings bondIT’s total equity capital to more than $32 million.
bondIT made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2016.
Credit analytics and fixed income technology company bondIT has raised $14 million in new funding. The strategic investment was led by BNY Mellon and featured the participation of existing investors, as well. BNY Mellon will join bondIT’s Board of Directors as part of the investment. Valuation information was not provided when the funding was announced but, according to Crunchbase, the funding brings bondIT’s total equity capital to more than $32 million.
“This investment will help us accelerate innovation and offer clients a unique holistic solution for fixed income investing,” bondIT founder and CEO Etai Ravid said. “As bond investors are keen to lock in higher yields, our versatile technology and data-driven approach can help them increase automation to improve efficiency and performance, and better mitigate risk.”
Headquartered in New York and Herzliya, Israel, bondIT provides front office investment technology. The company leverages data science, explainable AI, and other advanced technologies to enable its customers to build, analyze, and manage investment portfolios. bondIT’s technology helps its clients accomplish in minutes what previously took hours or even days. Predictive credit analytics enable bondIT customers to anticipate potential changes in corporate credit risk and take advantage of potential investment opportunities before they manifest themselves in the market
“Collaborating with bondIT will allow us to deliver innovative digital solutions for fixed income investors by enabling investment professionals to explore new investment options more easily through the use of AI, further expanding their portfolio optimization capabilities for clients,” BNY Mellon MD John Goodheart said.
bondIT’s relationship with BNY Mellon extends back to 2021, when bondIT participated in BNY Mellon’s startup accelerator program. In the months since then, bondIT added David Curtis as Partner and Head of Global Client Business, and teamed up with MEAG, the asset manager of Munich Re and ERGO. The MEAG partnership, announced almost exactly one year ago, will digitize MEAG’s credit risk workflows. The Munich, Germany-based company will also use bondIT’s Scorable Credit Analytics to enhance its own credit research processes. A component of bondIT’s fixed income technology solutions suite, Scorable Credit Analytics analyzes more than 250 data points a day and translates raw data from a wide variety of financial and market data sources to provide actionable insights for investors.
“Working with bondIT is another important step in driving technological progress across our organization,” MEAG CIO of Public Markets Prashant Sharma said. “We aim to continuously increase the quality and efficiency of our investment process, and technology plays a crucial part in this.”
The partnership enables AvidXchange to expand on the global payments capabilities it launched last month.
The partnership will help AvidXchange offer its U.S.-based clients an embedded payment experience, creating a more convenient payment process.
Payment automation solutions company AvidXchangeannounced this week it has selected international money transfer company Wise (formerly known as Transferwise) to expand its international payment capabilities.
“Partnering with Wise to provide our customers with best-in-class international payment capabilities was an easy decision because of their market-leading platform and seamless integration capabilities,” said AvidXchange Chief Growth Officer Dan Drees. “Together, we stand firm as leaders and remain dedicated to making our customers’ payments process more efficient regardless of country lines.”
AvidXchange launched its global payments last month to create an embedded cross-border payment solution for its middle market business clients and their suppliers. Piloting the launch is Oracle NetSuite. The company will enable its clients to access the tool using AvidXchange’s SuiteApp within NetSuite’s SuiteCloud platform.
AvidXchange offers a range of payment automation products, which include invoicing, electronic bill payment, accounts payable automation software, purchase order requisitions, and more. The company serves a range of industries, including real estate, construction, financial services, hospitality, healthcare, and more.
Today’s partnership with Wise helps AvidXchange offer its U.S.-based clients an embedded payment experience that creates a more convenient payment process. The integration enables users to pay both domestic and international suppliers, all within the AvidXchange platform. Wise also offers AvidXchange clients more visibility into fees, gains, and losses to help them better control costs and view cash flow.
“Current systems don’t allow businesses to easily send, spend, or receive money internationally,” said Wise Platform Head Steve Naude. “Through our collaboration with AvidXchange, Wise is helping businesses gain access to a faster, more cost-effective and seamless way to manage finances with domestic and international suppliers in multiple currencies and countries. With 50% of transfers sent instantly, always at the mid-market rate, AvidXchange customers can now have confidence knowing they are saving time and money with each transaction.”
With more than 50 bank and business clients, Wise is one of the best-known players in the international remittance market. The London-based company was founded in 2010 with a simple mission: money without borders.
AvidXchange was founded in 2000 and currently processes over $140 billion transactions annually across its network of more than 680,000 suppliers. Despite its long tenure in the space, AvidXchange has only been a public company for a little over a year. The company debuted on the NASDAQ in October of 2021 and currently has a market capitalization of $1.69 billion.
Wells Fargo launched a new digital banking platform, Vantage, for commercial, corporate, and investment banking.
Vantage leverages AI and machine learning to deliver more personalized recommendations and actionable insights based on clients’ unique needs.
The new offering comes as part of Wells Fargo’s digital transformation efforts, which include the launch of a new consumer mobile banking app earlier this year.
The new digital banking platform from Wells Fargo, called Vantage, is an upgrade of the bank’s Commercial Electronic Office, or CEO Portal. The new offering is designed to give Wells Fargo’s commercial, corporate, and investment banking clients a more personalized experience by leveraging AI and machine learning. Vantage uses both enabling technologies to provide recommendations and actionable insights based on the specific needs of clients, and refines and improves its capacity for personalization as clients use the technology.
“Our Commercial and Corporate clients’ banking needs evolve over time, which is why we’re delighted to launch Vantage, a digital banking platform that simplifies and personalizes their experience so that they can stay focused on what’s most important – growing and improving their businesses,” Wells Fargo’s Reetika Grewal said. Grewal is the head of Digital for Commercial Banking and Corporate & Investment Banking clients.
Wells Fargo’s launch of Vantage is being billed as part of the institution’s overall digital transformation efforts. These efforts include the introduction of a revamped consumer mobile app — featuring a virtual assistant called Fargo — announced in October and launched earlier this year. The new Fargo-enabled app is able to handle a variety of basic banking tasks, including billpay and sending money, as well as provide transaction details and budgeting advice. This week’s Vantage announcement also arrives in the wake of Wells Fargo’s launch of its automated, same-day loan solution, Flex Loan.
Wells Fargo has approximately 27 million active mobile banking users, trailing rivals Bank of America, with more than 32 million active mobile banking users, and JP Morgan Chase, with more than 44 million such customers, as of Q3 of last year. Further, Wells Fargo is growing its mobile banking customers at a slower pace compared to Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, according to company statements published by CNBC.com.
That said, customers appear to be happy with their Wells Fargo mobile banking experience. The bank’s app came in third place in the Touchpoint Group Engaged Customer Score (ECS) banking app performance rankings for banks in the U.S. – trailing Bank of America and top-rated Citi Bank, but ranking ahead of Chase. Touchpoint Group highlighted Wells Fargo’s app upgrade as a potential source of the app’s strong rating.
Challenger credit card X1 has raised $15 million, bringing its total funding to more than $60 million.
Along with today’s announcement, X1 is also unveiling a new in-app stock investing tool that will enable cardholders to purchase stocks using points.
X1 will use the funds to fuel growth and roll out new services for its members.
Challenger credit card X1 has raised $15 million this week. The funds bring the company’s Series B round to $40 million and elevate its total funds to more than $60 million. The investment was led by Soma Capital and included contributions from Brian Kelly (The Points Guy) and Kyle Vogt.
While the self-described smart credit card did not provide an exact valuation, the company said that today’s round increases X1’s total valuation by more than 50% over where it stood four months ago, when the company raised $25 million in Series B funding.
X1 will use the funds to fuel growth and roll out new services for its members. One such new feature is X1’s new investing platform that enables cardholders to buy stocks in the X1 app using their rewards points. X1 will guide investors by recommending stocks based on the cardholder’s spending habits, risk preferences, investment goals, income, and time horizon. The new capability will begin rolling out to select cardholders in the coming weeks.
The company said in the press release that it has future plans to expand the stock purchasing features “to compete with more traditional investment options.” Based on this, we can expect features common to Acorns and Robinhood such as spare change investing and automatic investment deposits.
For a card with no annual fee, X1’s rewards are hard to beat. The company offers cardholders 2x points on every dollar spent, 3x points on every dollar spent for the year if transactions exceed $15,000, and 4x points on each dollar for one month of purchases for each referral. X1 has paid out more than $10 million in rewards points since exiting its beta last October.
“With X1, we want to build an iconic and enduring consumer finance brand in an industry that’s long overdue for disruption,” said X1 CEO and Co-founder Deepak Rao. “We’re honored by the reception our card has continued to receive and to have raised this funding from Soma Capital, an early investor in more than 20 unicorns. With our innovative new investing platform, we’re excited to reimagine yet another sector in the consumer financial market.”
Outside of its rewards structure, X1 has other unique features that help differentiate itself in the crowded credit card market. The company has a stainless steel card and offers users virtual card numbers that they can set to expire on a specified date in order to avoid forgetting a subscription or a free trial period. The former automatically expires after one use, while the latter automatically expires 24 hours after it is activated.
