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Intelligent Compliance Innovator Txtsmarter Secures Series A Funding and Appoints New CEO

Intelligent Compliance Innovator Txtsmarter Secures Series A Funding and Appoints New CEO
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, txtsmarter
  • Compliance communications surveillance service txtsmarter has raised Series A funding. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.
  • The Silicon Valley, California-based company also announced a new CEO, Edward Green.
  • Founded in 2014, txtsmarter demoed its technology at FinovateSpring earlier this year.

Private messaging communications surveillance service txtsmarter is sharing some big news. First, the Silicon Valley, California-based company has closed a Series A funding round led by North Carolina-based investment bank and financial services company, Carolina Financial Group. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

Second, txtsmarter has appointed a new CEO, Edward Green, to lead the company in its next stage of growth. Formerly CEO of Ring Access and Basys Automation Systems, Green also has 26 years of direct venture capital experience. He replaces outgoing CEO Nuri Otus, who is no longer involved in the company’s operations.

Speaking about the fundraising, Green pointed to growing demands from companies to meet regulatory expectations as they relate to private messaging and communications. “Over the past couple of months, global regulatory agencies have focused on financial institutions, levying billions of dollars of fines for missing texts and WhatsApp messages,” Green explained. “txtsmarter’s unique solution empowers companies to achieve eComms compliance in near real-time across an ever-shifting landscape of communications channels.”

txtsmarter’s technology enables the capture, verification, encryption, and archiving of data from private messaging applications, platforms, and services. The company’s compliance communications surveillance service works with Apple iMessage, Android SMS/MMS, WhatsApp, and other messaging products. By making previously inaccessible data available in real-time – and recently adding the ability to access historical messaging data, as well – txtsmarter helps businesses meet compliance obligations and mitigate data leaks.

This spring, txtsmarter was awarded the 2022 Most Innovative Use of Alternative Data in Regulatory Compliance at the A-Team Innovation Awards. The company called the award a validation of the work its done in developing its intelligent compliance solution, as well as a reflection of the need for such a solution in the marketplace.

“With txtsmarter, there is no data loss, no apps to install, and no learning curve; it’s an elegant solution for the modern world of e-comms compliance surveillance for any company,” Hugh Cumberland, Managing Director, UK/EMEA, said. “We have all seen what big headlines can do to a company’s brand and reputation and have observed the FCA cracking down on firms to ensure all communications are recorded as required. txtsmarter mitigates communication data gaps to prevent sanctions and fines during the audit process. It’s as simple as that.”

Photo by Pixabay

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Hawk AI and Diebold Nixdorf Partner for New AML Surveillance and Fraud Prevention Solution

Hawk AI and Diebold Nixdorf Partner for New AML Surveillance and Fraud Prevention Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Diebold, Hawk:AI
  • New Finovate alum Hawk AI announced a collaboration with Diebold Nixdorf.
  • The partnership will facilitate the distribution and implementation of Hawk AI’s AML Surveillance and Fraud Prevention suite to banks.
  • Hawk AI made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring in San Francisco.

Hawk AI, a fraud-fighting and AML platform based in Germany, announced a new partnership with fellow Finovate alum Diebold Nixdorf. Together, the two companies will collaborate to distribute and implement Hawk AI’s AML Surveillance and Fraud Prevention suite in banks to enable them to combat financial crime more effectively. The initial focus on the collaboration will be in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and will make it easier for Diebold Nixdorf customers in particular to access Hawk AI’s financial crime fighting technology.

Hawk AI CEO and co-founder Tobias Schweiger said that the willingness of financial institutions to adopt technology like Hawk AI’s AML Surveillance and Fraud Prevention suite is due to both “operational considerations” as well as the demands of regulatory authorities, which are “starting to ask for answers to fast-changing financial crime trends which no longer can be addressed with old technology and too much labor.” Instead, Schweiger said, Hawk AI’s partnership with Diebold Nixdorf helps alleviate one of the critical problems to answering these regulatory queries; namely the challenge of implementing newer, better financial crime fighting technology. Schweiger credited Diebold Nixdorf for having the “strong know-how, and professional services capabilities” to make implementation easier and less risky for customers.

“We’re thrilled to work with Hawk AI, a pioneer in explainable AI-powered AML and modern fraud prevention,” Diebold Nixdorf Director Solutions DACH Walter Gries said. “While combating new fincrime techniques is urgently needed, financial institutions must ensure a transparent process where frontline workers, auditors, and regulators trust the results. Hawk AI’s systems provide this trust, and we look forward to bringing the technology to new financial institutions together.”

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Munich, Germany, Hawk AI made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring earlier this year. At the event, the company demoed its technology that combines AI with traditional, rule-based strategies to monitor financial transactions in real-time. When suspicious activity is observed, the platform sends alerts to financial crime specialists for further investigation. This helps limit the amount of false positives that can weigh-down the effectiveness of a financial crime solution and create unwanted friction for customers.

Hawk AI’s partnership with Diebold Nixdorf comes just one month after the German company reported that it was working with KYC and customer onboarding specialist Ondato. Announced last month, Hawk AI and Ondato have teamed up to offer an integrated KYC validation process that features AML transaction monitoring and behavioral analysis. Ondato CEO and co-founder Liudas Kanapienis highlighted this aspect of the partnership in his statement, noting that the collaboration will enable Ondato to “expand client onboarding and compliance management towards behavior monitoring.”

Also in August, Hawk AI teamed up with Aux, a credit union service organization (CUSO) that serves more than 200 credit unions in the U.S. The partnership will make it easier for credit unions to access Hawk AI’s financial fraud and AML solutions. Aux VP of Compliance Services Gaye DeCesare praised Hawk AI’s technology as “easier to use and more cost effective than other legacy products on the market today.” DeCesare also underscored the fact that HAWK AI’s technology is “enhanced with new features and functionality” on a regular basis.

Photo by PhotoMIX Company

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UBS Ditches Wealthfront After Agreeing to a $1.4 Billion Acquisition

UBS Ditches Wealthfront After Agreeing to a $1.4 Billion Acquisition
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Wealthfront
  • UBS and Wealthfront have mutually terminated a $1.4 billion acquisition announced earlier this year.
  • Despite the call-off, UBS has given Wealthfront $69.7 million in financing at a $1.4 billion valuation.
  • The termination of the deal comes after a significant decline in fintech valuations.

No matter the circumstances, breakups are always hard. Just ask financial services firm UBS and roboadvisor Wealthfront.

After agreeing to acquire Wealthfront in a deal valued at $1.4 billion in January, the two announced last week that the deal was off. Prior to last week, the acquisition was expected to close in the second half of this year. However, the two parties cited “unspecified regulatory concerns” as a reason for the deal collapse.

Purchasing Wealthfront, a roboadvisor headquartered in California, would have helped Switzerland-based UBS grow in the U.S. market and also would have offered access to Wealthfront’s digital wealth management tools and user-friendly technologies.

In January, Wealthfront had 470,000 clients and a total of $27 billion in assets under management. The company was founded in 2008 by Andy Rachleff and Dan Carroll as KaChing, and rebranded under the Wealthfront name in 2010. The company is known for it user-friendly, automated investing tools. Last year, Wealthfront added to its reputation by creating a Socially Responsible Investing Portfolio that is designed around sustainability, diversity, and equity.

“We are continuing to explore ways to work together in a partnership and UBS has given us $70 million in financing at a $1.4 billion valuation,” said Wealthfront Chief Executive Officer David Fortunato. “With this fresh round of funding under our belt along with the ability to begin self-funding the business, we are committed to building a lasting company that positively impacts the lives of our clients for decades to come.”

UBS has offered the new investment, which totals $69.7 million, via notes that can be converted into Wealthfront shares. “That protects other investors in Wealthfront from potentially having to mark down their stakes in the companies,” explained the Wall Street Journal

It is worth noting that the call-off of the acquisition comes after a significant decline in fintech valuations. If the deal was to have gone through, UBS would have likely overpaid for Wealthfront. It will be interesting to see if the Swiss bank will acquire a cheaper U.S.-based roboadvisor as a replacement now that valuations have decreased.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

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Identity Decisioning Platform Alloy Locks in $52 Million to Help Companies Fight Fraud

Identity Decisioning Platform Alloy Locks in $52 Million to Help Companies Fight Fraud
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alloy, Alumni News, Daily news, Funding
  • New York-based identity decisioning platform Alloy has raised $52 million in funding at a valuation of $1.55 billion.
  • Alloy will use the additional funding to help it respond to global demand in the wake of its recently announced international expansion.
  • Alloy made its Finovate debut at FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2016.

Alloy secured $52 million in new funding today. The identity decisioning platform for banks and fintechs announced that the investment, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Avenir Growth, gives the New York-based company a valuation of $1.55 billion. The capital will help Alloy respond to growing global demand for its fraud prevention solutions.

Existing investors Canapi Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Avid Ventures, and Felicis Ventures also participated in the funding. This week’s investment comes almost one year after the company raised $100 million at a valuation of $1.35 million.

“We feel incredibly lucky to have partners that not only understand the impact of our investments into our platform and in expanding globally but also proactively come to the table to support them,” Alloy co-founder and CEO Tommy Nicholas said when this week’s investment was announced. “With this newest investment we’ll be able to accelerate our growth and better address the global fraud challenges that companies are facing.”

Alloy demonstrated its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016. At the event, the company discussed how its technology enables businesses to build fully-customizable APIs for customer identification and compliance. In the years since then, Alloy has grown into a fraud-fighting unicorn with more than 300 companies using its API-based platform to automate identity decisions during the account origination process and monitor those decisions on an ongoing basis. Leveraging more than 160 data sources, Alloy enables institutions and companies to pull customer, credit bureau, and alternative data through a single point of integration to help them find and onboard good customers without increasing their exposure to potentially fraudulent activity.

Over the past 12 months, Alloy has experienced revenue gains of more than 2x. Processing more than a million decisions daily, Alloy includes Ally Bank, Ramp, and Evolve Bank & Trust among its customers. The company was named to the seventh annual Forbes Cloud 100 last month, a roster of the world’s top private cloud companies. In August, Alloy also announced that its fraud and risk decisioning platform is now officially available in 40 countries in North America, EMEA, Latin America, and APAC.

“We’ve identified a clear need in the global market for Alloy, particularly with the recent rise in fraud, fines for poor implementation of regulatory requirements, and the growth of embedded finance,” Alloy Head of Global Edwina Johnson said. “We’re excited to bring Alloy’s unique platform, and team, to companies operating worldwide.”

Photo by Scott Webb

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Fintech-as-a-Service Platform Solid Secures $63 Million in Series B Funding

Fintech-as-a-Service Platform Solid Secures $63 Million in Series B Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding, Solid, Wise
  • Fintech-as-a-service innovator Solid raised $63 million in Series B funding this week.
  • Solid offers a platform that enables businesses to build and scale embedded fintech products into their own solutions.
  • The company, which made its Finovate debut in 2019 as “Wise,” will use the investment to accelerate its expansion into “fintech-ready” verticals such as travel, health care, and the gig economy.

Fintech-as-a-service company Solid has raised $63 million in Series B funding. The company offers infrastructure to enable companies to launch and bring to scale embedded fintech solutions. The round was led by FTV Capital. Existing investor Headline also participated.

“We built the most comprehensive fintech infrastructure from the ground up, so others don’t have to,” Solid co-founder and CEO Arjun Thyagarajan said. “Now, any company can quickly spin up bank accounts, crypto wallets, send payments, and issue cards to their end users, right into their product experience, while Solid does the heavy lifting of building and maintaining compliant fintech infrastructure.”

Solid made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019 as “Wise.” At the conference, the company demonstrated its small business banking-in-a-box offering that included a checking account, payments, invoicing, cards, and point-of-sale solutions. The company rebranded as Solid last year as part of a pivot to highlight the modern banking platform they had used to launch their Wise business banking solution.

“We went from powering the Wise app to powering other products and ecosystems,” Thyagarajan and company co-founder and President Raghav Lal wrote at the Solid website last spring. “Along the way, we realized our brand and our positioning needed to change, too. And today, we are making the change and excited to share that Wise is now Solid.”

Solid will use the new capital to help fuel the company’s accelerated expansion into what it calls “fintech-ready” verticals like travel, construction, healthcare, and the gig economy. The company’s fully abstracted fintech-as-a-service platform gives developers the tools they need to easily embed fintech products into their offerings. Solid reports that fintech programs that build and launch on its platform own the experience and have little or no regulatory overhead. Solid’s technology also leverages modern APIs and a minimal-code approach to make integration easier. Companies that have used Solid’s platform include fellow Finovate alums like Paystand, as well as SaaS companies such as Everflow and emerging startups like Starlight.

Founded in 2018, Solid is headquartered in San Mateo, California. This week’s investment brings the company’s total funding to more than $80 million according to Crunchbase. Solid reported a 10x growth in revenues, customer base, and transactions processed last year. More than 100 fintech programs and $2 billion in transactions have been processed on the company’s infrastructure year to date.

Photo by David Bartus

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LexisNexis Risk Solutions Brings its Compliance Technology to Darlington Building Society

LexisNexis Risk Solutions Brings its Compliance Technology to Darlington Building Society
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Darlington Building Society has partnered with LexisNexis Risk Solutions to enhance its financial crime prevention strategy.
  • The U.K.-based financial institution will deploy LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ RiskNarrative platform which features integrations with more than 50 third party data sources.
  • Darlington Building Society was named Building Society of the Year in 2021 for its work with Finovate alum ieDigital.

U.K.-based Darlington Building Society has partnered with LexisNexis Risk Solutions to upgrade its financial crime prevention capabilities. The Society, founded more than 160 years ago, will deploy the company’s RiskNarrative platform, which will also enhance the Society’s online member portal and customer onboarding experiences.

Using a single API and integrations with more than 50 third party data sources, RiskNarrative gives companies the ability to better identify risk and detect fraudulent activity. The platform will enable Darlington Building Society to orchestrate document verification, PEP and sanctions monitoring, identity and address verification, and risk ratings of applications, as well as creating and managing internal watch lists.

“The partnership with LexisNexis Risk Solutions demonstrates the Society’s commitment to improving application processes for our members,” Darlington Building Society Chief Operating Officer Chris Hunter said. “The rollout of Digital ID&V, as part of the RiskNarrative implementation, is a step forward in simplifying customer account opening and reducing paper usage.”

Darlington Building Society will use technology from LexisNexis to digitize and streamline its onboarding journeys for both mortgage and savings applicants, Darling Building Society Chief Risk Officer David Bews added. Bews said the platform will also enable the Society to “future-proof” its financial crime prevention strategy, by helping the Society adjust its criteria to mitigate future risk as well as react to current threats.

Founded in 1856, Darlington Building Society supports nine branches across the North East, County Durham, and North Yorkshire. The Society offers savings accounts and mortgages, as well as service via its online banking resource, Darlingtononline. As a membership-owned and run mutual financial institution, Darlington Building Society turns its profits into lower mortgage rates, higher savings rates, and support for local charities. The company was named Building Society of the Year in 2021 for its work with U.K.-based digital experience platform provider – and Finovate alum – ieDigital.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions is an international data and analytics company dedicated primarily yo predictive insights and fraud prevention. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, the company serves customers in a wide range of industries including financial services and insurance, healthcare, government, and public safety.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions includes multiple Finovate alums among its recent acquisitions. The company purchased BehavioSec earlier this year, TruNarrative in 2021, Emailage in 2020 and ThreatMetrix in 2018.

Photo by JESHOOTS.com

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Truist Wealth Launches New RoboAdvisor, Truist Invest

Truist Wealth Launches New RoboAdvisor, Truist Invest
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Truist Wealth unveiled a pair of new investment solutions this week: a roboadvisor Truist Invest and a hybrid investment platform Truist Invest Pro.
  • Truist Invest provides a personalized investment portfolio based on the user’s goals, risk tolerance, and current investments. Truist Invest Pro adds access to a team of financial advisors.
  • Truist Wealth is a division of Truist Financial Corporation, a top ten U.S. with $545 billion in total assets.

Truist Wealth, a division of Truist Financial Corporation, announced the launch of two new investment solutions this week: roboadvisor Truist Invest and hybrid investment platform Truist Invest Pro, which blends automated investing with access to human financial advisors.

Both solutions were developed by a cross-functional team of designers, engineers, innovators, and product managers who co-created the new offerings in client journey rooms at the Truist Innovation and Technology Center. A combination of agile work strategies, direct client feedback, and iterative product design enabled the team to optimize both solutions ahead of their launch this year.

“Investors want digital solutions that are secure, intuitive to use, and able to help meet their needs whether they are a new or experienced investor,” Truist Wealth SVP of Digital Investing Kacy Howard said. “Truist Invest and Truist Invest Pro can help give clients control and confidence in their portfolio whether they choose a fully digital or hybrid solution to invest in their future.”

Truist Invest gives customers a tailored portfolio recommendation based on their goals, risk tolerance, and current investments. Truist Invest provides a daily portfolio analysis and supports both automated rebalancing and tax loss harvesting. A hybrid investment solution, Truist Invest Pro provides both the digital capabilities of Truist Invest as well as access to a team of financial advisors who can help customers build a personalized investment portfolio and provide ongoing investment advice. Accounts for both offerings can be opened with as little as $5,000. Truist Invest charges an annual fee of 0.50%, with Truist Invest Pro costing users 0.85%. Both fees are based on the assets under management, with a $90 per account annual minimum,

Truist Chief Wealth Officer Joseph M. Thompson put the new offerings in a broader context of the company’s goal of providing its customers with personalized service that maximizes the opportunity of digital technology in the investing space. “Digital investing solutions are an example of Truist’s T3 strategy which combines the client’s preferred level of personalized touch and innovative technology to create trust,” Thompson said. “Truist Invest and Truist Invest Pro provide simple and secure access to a portfolio that is purpose-built to help an investor achieve their goals and is backed by our investment expertise that can help individuals and families build better lives.”

A division of Truist Financial Corporation, Truist Wealth serves affluent, high, and ultra-high net worth individuals, families, and business owners in the U.S. and around the world. The firm’s services range from investing and retirement, trust and estate planning, and lending, to banking and risk management. Parent company Truist is a top 10 U.S. commercial bank with $545 billion in total assets, and 15 million clients across the U.S.. The bank recently announced the acquisition of Zaloni’s Arena platform, which will help Truist enhance its data governance, metadata management, advanced analytics, and AI/ML programs.

We spoke with Truist Financial’s Chief Retail & Small Business Banking Officer Dontá Wilson earlier this year at FinovateSpring about the pace of digital transformation in financial services and the importance of building a culture of innovation.

Photo courtesy of Meilleur Prêt

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Finastra Integrates FormFree into Mortgagebot Solution

Finastra Integrates FormFree into Mortgagebot Solution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finastra
  • Finastra is partnering with FormFree, a SaaS company that helps lenders assess consumers’ ability to pay.
  • Finastra will integrate FormFree’s AccountChek into its Mortgagebot solution to help lenders make faster underwriting decisions.
  • Mortgagebot was among the first companies to demo at a Finovate event, having won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2007.

With unpredictable housing markets and interest rates, banking software company Finastra is stepping in to remove a bit of the sting from the process of purchasing a new home. The company is partnering with FormFree, a SaaS company that helps banks assess consumers’ ability to pay (ATP).

Under the partnership, Finastra will leverage FormFree’s AccountChek, a data verification service that bundles asset, income, and employment verification to help lenders make better-informed decisions. Finastra will integrate AccountChek into its Mortgagebot solution to help lenders make faster loan decisions while mitigating risk.

“FormFree provided us with the perfect solution to help further streamline what is traditionally a very manual and labor-intensive task,” said Finastra VP of Mortgage and Origination Steve Hoke. “For both lenders and borrowers, this added verification capability to our lending solution will have a significant impact on the loan cycle, creating a more efficient, secure and inclusive process.”

AccountChek uses borrower-permissioned data from applicants’ assets, income, and employment information. AccountChek retrieves and formats the data into underwriter-friendly reports that offer transparency for better, faster credit decisioning with reduced fraud risk.

FormFree Founder and CEO Brent Chandler said that the partnership has the potential to help lenders increase access to homeownership. “Notably, the integration makes it easier for lenders to support the government sponsored enterprises’ verification initiatives that help expand access to homeownership and streamline processes without incurring additional risk,” said Chandler. “Combined, Finastra and FormFree’s technologies and shared vision for fair and inclusive access to home financing will help lenders deliver an elevated borrower experience.”

Finastra launched in 2017 as a merger between Misys and D+H. The latter acquired Mortgagebot in 2011 for $232 million. Mortgagebot was among the first companies to demo at a Finovate event, having won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2007.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

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Meniga Appoints New CEO

Meniga Appoints New CEO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Meniga
  • Meniga has appointed Simon Shorthose as its new CEO.
  • Shorthose will be replacing Meniga Co-founder Georg Ludviksson, who served as CEO for 14 years.
  • Shorthose has previously worked at fintech SaaS companies Kyriba and Mambu.

Digital banking company Meniga announced a change in leadership today. The Iceland-based company has appointed Simon Shorthose as its new CEO.

Shorthose comes to Meniga having previously worked at fintech SaaS companies Kyriba and Mambu, where he served as Executive Leader and Head of Global Sales, respectively. He has also been on the management team of two unicorn tech companies.

“It is a huge privilege to lead Meniga, and I am very excited about taking on the challenge of helping major banks build greater digital engagement and insights and financial coaching with their customers and helping drive enhanced targeted marketing,” said Shorthose. “Looking forward to the future, I remain focused on delivering the best service to our customers and taking Meniga through the next stage of growth. I’d also like to thank Georg for trusting me with this responsibility and for his remarkable leadership from the start.”

Shorthose said that Meniga is in a “prime position for growth” with the recent shift toward the cloud and modernization in banking technology. He also cited demand for improved mobile channels, deeper customer engagement, and enhanced loyalty.

Meniga Co-founder Georg Ludviksson, who served as the company’s CEO for 14 years, is stepping down but will remain a shareholder of the company. “After a most exciting and fulfilling 14 years, I am now passing the baton over to Simon. I’ve seen first-hand his strengths and feel confident that Meniga will thrive under his leadership,” said Ludviksson. “With his 20-year track record of proven results in tech on a global scale, I put my complete trust in Simon to continue our mission to help banks create an unrivaled digital banking experience and bring Meniga to new heights.”

Meniga was founded in 2009 and powers banking apps used by more than 100 million people in more than 30 countries. The company offers tools such as data management, PFM, and cashflow analysis; as well as cashback rewards, carbon footprint tracking, and market insights.

The company presented at FinovateEurope earlier this year. The demo showcased how Meniga leverages information on users’ carbon footprint to help banks provide customers with contextual recommendations on sustainable products and investments.

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Two from Down Under: Hello Clever Raises Seed Funding; Heritage Bank Launches International Payments Solution

Two from Down Under: Hello Clever Raises Seed Funding; Heritage Bank Launches International Payments Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Australia’s Heritage Bank teamed up with Convera to launch its new online international payments solution.
  • Convera was formerly known as Western Union Business Solutions (WUBS) and was acquired for $910 million in 2021 and subsequently established as a standalone company.
  • Hello Clever raised $3.1 million (A$4.5 million) in seed funding in a round led by Vectr Fintech Partners. The company enables shoppers to get real-time cash back from participating merchants.

A pair of fintech headlines out of Australia have caught our eye at mid-week. First up, Heritage Bank, a financial institution based in Queensland and serving customers across the country, announced the launch of its new online international payments offering, courtesy of a partnership with Convera. The new service will enable Heritage Bank customers to send and receive money to locations around the world directly from their online and mobile bank accounts. The service will be available 24 hours a day, regardless of where the banking customer lives, and operates in near real-time.

“With the explosion of online purchases now taking place across international marketplaces, our new international payments service provides a seamless facility for our members,” Heritage Bank CEO Peter Lock said. “This fantastic new service allows our members to send and receive money internationally, direct from our online and mobile banking system, in close to real time and around the clock no matter where they are.”

The new service is made possible thanks to a partnership with Convera, a payments technology solution provider known up until recently as Western Union Business Solutions (WUBS). Western Union sold WUBS to Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group for $910 million last year, and the company subsequently was set up as a standalone entity – Convera. Processing more than $110 billion in total payments volume in 2020 and more than $170 billion in 2021, WUBS represented 7% of Western Union’s revenues in 2021.

On its own, Convera is the largest non-bank fintech in the international B2B payments industry with capabilities in more than 140 currencies across 200+ countries and territories, and more than 60 international banking partners. The company also has more than 30,000 SMBs, financial and educational institutions, law firms, and NGOs among its customers.

“Our research forecasts that one-third of post-COVID economic recovery in Australia will come from modern, digital, deliverable services which is why we’re committed to supporting and implementing the digital transformation of financial institutions and providing the tools and solutions to do so,” Convera Regional Vice President and Head of APAC Sam Fitzpatrick said.

Second up: Hello Clever, an Australia-based fintech that gives consumer’s real-time cash back, has raised $3.1 million (A$4.5 million) in seed funding. The round was led by Vectr Fintech Partners and featured participation from CrossFund, Yolo Investments, Magnivia Ventures, Son Tech Ventures, Boston Ventures, and others.

“2022 has been an exciting year,” Hello Clever co-founder and CEO Caroline Tran wrote on the company’s blog this week. “We have been working diligently to launch our full suite of products and now we have achieved a significant milestone – being the first company to pioneer ‘Buy to Earn’ or a new category in payments that democratizes rewards in a different way.”

Hello Clever’s “buy-to-earn” ecosystem connects shoppers and businesses to make shopping and payments an easier, more seamless process for all involved. Offering itself as an alternative to Buy Now, Pay Later platforms, Hello Clever leverages open banking, fast payments, and AI to help consumers locate the best merchants for their shopping preferences and then provides cash back in real time when consumers shop at participating retailers. Hello Clever also gives consumers the ability to track their spending in real-time across bank accounts. The company’s real-time payment API is powered by the New Payments Platform (NPP), PayTo, and PayID.

“We want to introduce a new ecosystem that allows consumers to be financially healthier and our merchant partners to increase sales (and) reduce operating costs,” Tran wrote. “That’s why we are not a single product – it’s a ‘Clever way’ of executing payment strategies to achieve better business outcomes. From Hello Clever as a consumer facing app, we know have evolved into building Hello Clever Business, Hello Clever Business API, and Hello Clever Yield – which is our path into financial investing for Gen Zs.”

Founded in 2021, Hello Clever is headquartered in Surry Hills, New South Wales.

Photo by Ben Mack

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Clearpay Helps U.K. Square Merchants to Offer Buy Now, Pay Later

Clearpay Helps U.K. Square Merchants to Offer Buy Now, Pay Later
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Square is launching its first integration with ClearPay this week.
  • Square merchants in the U.K. can now leverage Clearpay (known as Afterpay outside of the U.K.) to offer a BNPL payment option to their customers making purchases both online and in-person.
  • The integration is the result of an acquisition between Square parent Block and Afterpay in January of this year for $29 billion.

Block’s Square is launching its first integration with ClearPay (also known as Afterpay) in the U.K. this week.

The move will make ClearPay’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) technology available clients making purchases at both in-person and online Square merchants. End customers will have the option to pay in four interest-free installments over the course of six weeks, while merchants will receive payment right away.

There is record demand for BNPL among U.K. consumers. The BNPL model is the region’s fastest growing online payment method. Last year, consumers spent $15 billion using BNPL on e-commerce purchases. This figure is expected to double by 2025.

“The integration across platforms furthers our goal to give sellers of all sizes omnichannel tools that help them to grow by meeting consumer shopping habits, whatever and wherever they are,” said Head of Square Alyssa Henry. “Clearpay provides our ecosystem with a new tool beyond an alternative payment method; it enables an omnichannel commerce solution that can offer true value to our sellers.”

Today’s news comes after Square’s parent company Block acquired Afterpay for $29 billion in January of this year. Outside of the U.K., Square has already seen positive results from its integration with Afterpay. The company reported that in the U.S. and Australia, the average transaction size among customers using Afterpay is three times greater than non-BNPL purchases. Across the globe, Square noted a 180% increase in new customers using Afterpay offered by Square sellers between February and March of this year.

Founded in 2009, Square is a fintech pioneer. The company was among the first to offer mobile point-of-sale payments. Today, Square offers a holistic merchant services platform and competes with some of the largest traditional players in the space, as well as newcomers including Stripe and PayPal. Earlier this year, Square teamed up with Apple to launch Tap to Pay on iPhone. The new service will offer sellers a solution to accept contactless payments with no additional hardware.

Photo by Uzunov Rostislav

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Point and Shoot: Rippleshot and Flashpoint Team Up to Fight Card Fraud

Point and Shoot: Rippleshot and Flashpoint Team Up to Fight Card Fraud
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Rippleshot
  • Fraud detection and prevention specialist Rippleshot announced a partnership with risk intelligence company Flashpoint to help fight payment card fraud.
  • The partnership will combine Rippleshot’s network of more than 4,500 FIs with Flashpoint’s fraud mitigation technology to help firms detect data breaches and fraudulent activity faster.
  • A 2022 Finovate Awards finalist, Rippleshot is based in Chicago, Illinois. The company made its Finovate debut in 2014.

Fraud detection and prevention solution provider Rippleshot has teamed up with risk intelligence firm Flashpoint to help financial institutions take more proactive steps to fight payment card fraud.

Rippleshot’s technology relies on a data consortium of more than 4,500 financial institutions – as well as AI/ML, automation, and data-driven strategies – to quickly detect data breaches and determine when and where the breach occurred. Combining Rippleshot’s compromised and high-risk merchant data and insights with Flashpoint’s payment and credit card fraud mitigation solution will enable financial institutions to upgrade their fraud prevention strategies.

“Flashpoint is a market leader in delivering intelligence that provides a detailed view into what cyber criminals in illicit communities are seeing,” Rippleshot CEO and co-founder Canh Tran said. “By pairing that with Rippleshot’s compromised and high-risk merchant data, this partnership will equip the industry with unparalleled financial intelligence to react much more quickly to instances of verified card fraud and proactively stop further damage from fraudsters.”

A Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateSpring in 2014, Rippleshot was named a finalist in the Best Back-Office/Core Services Solution category of the 2022 Finovate Awards for its collaboration with fellow Finovate alum Fiserv. The international financial services technology company embraced Rippleshot’s Card Risk Office Fraud Warning product, an early breach detection solution that enables FIs to spot potentially fraudulent activity 30 to 60 days before network alerts.

“Card fraud is a complex and ever-changing problem that demands a collaborative and proactive approach to tackle it effectively, so that cardholders can feel secure about the financial information they are using, storing, or transacting with,” Tran said when the partnership was announced. “We are excited to partner with Fiserv, a fintech leader that shares our passion and expertise when it comes to fraud-fighting technologies.”

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Rippleshot has raised $7.3 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company includes Method Capital , CMFG Ventures, and Wintrust Ventures among its investors.

Photo by Pankaj Biswas

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