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PayPal and Fiserv Tighten Ties for Faster Checkout

PayPal and Fiserv Tighten Ties for Faster Checkout
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Fiserv, PayPal
  • Fiserv is tapping PayPal to help its merchant clients offer faster checkouts through PayPal’s Fastlane.
  • Fastlane recognizes returning customers via email, allowing them to autofill payment details and complete purchases in as little as one click.
  • PayPal estimates Fastlane users convert more than 80% of the time, with a 50% higher conversion rate and a 32% faster checkout process compared to non-users.

After first partnering more than a decade ago, PayPal and Fiserv have furthered their partnership to help Fiserv’s merchant clients leverage PayPal to offer shoppers a faster checkout experience.

Specificaly, Fiserv will allow its merchant clients to connect to PayPal’s Fastlane, which will ultimately help speed up guest checkout flows in the U.S. Fiserv joins BigCommerce, Bold, Adobe, and Salesforce, which also offer PayPal’s Fastlane.

“We’re excited to deepen our collaboration with Fiserv and extend our innovative products and solutions to a broader audience,” said PayPal Executive Vice President and General Manager Large Enterprise and Merchant Platform Group Frank Keller. “This partnership reinforces our commitment to driving excellence in checkout convenience by partnering with leading payment service providers and e-commerce platforms.”

Fastlane, which PayPal first launched in January and then made generally available earlier this month, recognizes customers early in the checkout process by their email. After customers receive a one-time passcode sent via email, Fastlane allows shoppers to access their saved information by autofilling the fields in the checkout flow. Once verified, customers can complete their purchase in as little as one click. If Fastlane does not recognize a shopper by their email, it allows them to create a Fastlane profile by opting in during their purchase process, enabling faster transactions in the future.

Because the tool does not require users to fill out forms or remember passwords, PayPal estimates that guest shoppers using Fastlane convert more than 80% of the time, have up to 50% higher conversion rates compared to non-Fastlane users, and reduce the time to checkout by 32%.

“Fiserv is committed to simplifying the complexities of commerce, creating value for our clients by making it simple for businesses to enable new, engaging experiences for their customer base,” said Fiserv Head of Merchant Solutions Jennifer LaClair. “Our expanded partnership with PayPal supports our mission to enhance client value by providing simple, cutting-edge solutions to our clients that elevate and accelerate the commerce experience.”

Photo by David Rado

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Numeral Teams Up with HSBC Innovation Banking UK to Boost Embedded Payments

Numeral Teams Up with HSBC Innovation Banking UK to Boost Embedded Payments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Numeral, Qover
  • Paris-based paytech Numeral announced a collaboration with HSBC Innovation Banking UK.
  • The partnership will enable customers of both companies to embed HSBC Innovation Banking UK’s payment and account services via Numeral’s APIs.
  • Numeral made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in London.

French fintech Numeral is collaborating with HSBC Innovation Banking UK to enable clients of both companies to embed HSBC Innovation Banking UK’s payment and account services via Numeral’s APIs. Among the first companies to embrace this new offering is insurtech and fellow Finovate alum Qover, which will leverage the technology to enhance its claim payout operations.

“Innovative companies, for which payments are core to their products, often struggle to find banking partners that understand their unique needs,” Numeral CEO and Co-founder Édouard Mandon said. “This is why we are thrilled to collaborate with HSBC Innovation Banking UK to bring together our unique expertise and offer joint customers an out-of-the-box integration.”

The integration of Numeral’s platform with HSBC Innovation Banking UK’s cash management infrastructure will enable partnering fintechs, insurtechs, and marketplaces to send and receive UK Bacs, CHAPS and FPS payments, as well as SEPA and SWIFT payments. The integration will also facilitate access to HSBC Innovation Banking UK account balances and transactions in real-time. Qover has leveraged the technology as part of an initiative to streamline its end-to-end claim processing, specifically with regards to claim payouts.

“When claims are paid, customers benefit from the safety net that an insurance policy provides,” Qover Chief Customer Officer Ed Ackerman explained. “At Qover, we see the claims journey as the moment of truth for customers. We, therefore, decided to fundamentally reshape the claim experience, leveraging AI at key stages such as claim submission and review.” Integrating with HSBC Innovation Banking UK via Numeral’s API, Ackerman said, enables Qover to automatically initiate claim payouts upon approval and track payouts in real time. “Customers receive their payouts much faster and Qover’s operations have been streamlined,” he said.

HSBC Innovation Banking UK was formed in the summer of 2023, combining the innovation expertise and services of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) UK (now HSBC Innovation Bank) with HSBC innovation teams in the U.S., Israel, and Hong Kong. HSBC UK bought SVB UK after parent company Silicon Valley Bank was shut down last year. With more than 650 employees, HSBC Innovation Banking UK serves businesses from early-stage growth stage startups to late-stage public and private corporations with investment banking, private banking, and asset management services.

Making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2018, Qover offers an embedded insurance orchestration platform that provides coverage for more than four million customers across 32 European countries. The company’s technology enables any business to embed insurance as a native component or as an add-on to their core offering. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Belgium, Qover announced its entry into the Irish automobile insurance market in July and, in June, launched its AI-powered embedded insurance solution, which accelerates the claim settlement process.

Founded in 2021, Numeral made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. At the conference, the company showed how its API platform enhances payment operations for financial institutions by automating bank payment processing. This year, Numeral forged partnerships with BNP Paribas in June, and with current account provider Deblock in April. The company introduced its support for Swift payments in February.

Photo by Nil Castellví on Unsplash

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Shift4 to Acquire Gift Card and Loyalty Company Givex

Shift4 to Acquire Gift Card and Loyalty Company Givex
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Shift4 is acquiring gift card and loyalty solutions Givex for an undisclosed amount.
  • The deal will expand Shift4’s client base by 130,000+ locations across 100+ countries.
  • The acquisition is expected to close in Q4 2024, and follows Shift4’s recent acquisitions of Revel Systems and Vectron Systems.

Payments processing technology company Shift4 announced plans to acquire gift card and loyalty solutions company Givex. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Givex was founded in 1999 to help businesses launch and manage gift card and e-gift solutions, loyalty programs, point-of-sale (POS) systems, and more. The company’s clients include Nike, Marriott, 7/11, Wendy’s, Best Western, Texas Roadhouse, and others.

Founded in 1994, Shift4 offers a range of in-person and online payments solutions, including physical point-of-sale, mobile ordering, and contactless payment solutions. The Pennsylvania-based company also offers fraud prevention and business intelligence tools, as well as a gift card platform to help clients manage, sell, and redeem gift cards. “By combining Shift4’s end-to-end payment solution with our value-added engagement services, we can deliver an unparalleled package to both of our customer bases,” said Givex CEO Don Gray.

Once it is finalized, today’s deal will offer Shift4 an additional 130,000+ client locations across more than 100 countries where Givex’s solutions are implemented.

“Givex has a considerable footprint around the world which will dramatically increase Shift4’s overall customer base,” said Shift4 President Taylor Lauber. “At the same time, their gift card and loyalty solutions are second to none and will add significant value for our current customers, creating stickier relationships and enhancing our overall value proposition. Similar to other deals we have recently completed, this acquisition aligns perfectly with how we like to deploy capital – adding blue-chip merchants at a low customer acquisition cost while delivering additional benefits to our customer base.”

As the -as-a-service economy in fintech picks up, companies have been increasingly integrating digital gift cards into their existing apps apps, making them more accessible and easier to manage. The rise of e-gift cards has also been fueled by the post-2020 increase in online shopping, with consumers opting for digital solutions that can be easily redeemed at a wide range of retailers, both online and in-store. Financial services platforms also leverage gift cards to promote customer engagement with personalized rewards and loyalty programs that drive consumer spending.

Moving forward, as firms continue to leverage consumer data we will likely see further data-driven marketing and personalization efforts that will allow companies to tailor gift card offerings to consumer preferences and enhance the user experience.

The deal, which is subject to closing conditions, is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.

Shift4 has made a total of 14 acquisitions, including Revel Systems and Vectron Systems earlier this summer. The company went public in 2020 under the ticker symbol FOUR on the New York Stock Exchange and has a current market capitalization of $7 billion.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood

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CPI Card Group Teams Up with Rippleshot for Fraud Prevention

CPI Card Group Teams Up with Rippleshot for Fraud Prevention
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Rippleshot
  • Fraud prevention company Rippleshot has forged a strategic alliance with paytech CPI Card Group.
  • CPI Card Group will leverage Rippleshot’s AI, machine learning automation, and predictive analytics to prevent credit and debit card fraud.
  • Chicago-based Rippleshot made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014 and returned later that year to demo its technology at FinovateFall.

A strategic alliance between payment technology company CPI Card Group and fraud prevention specialist Rippleshot will help the paytech proactively defend itself against card fraud.

Headquartered in Littleton, Colorado, CPI Card Group offers a range of credit, debit, and prepaid solutions, as well as complimentary digital solutions and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) instant issuance. The company’s partnership with Rippleshot will enable its customers to take advantage of the fraud prevention firm’s technology that leverages AI, machine learning automation, and predictive analytics to identify and stop credit and debit card fraud.

“Our partnership with CPI furthers our commitment to collaborating and helping financial institutions better protect their revenue and their account holders,” Rippleshot Co-Founder and CEO Canh Tran said. “Keeping up with evolving fraud trends is complex, labor intensive, and impossible to tackle alone. We’re excited to team up with CPI and their partners to help financial institutions proactively transform fraud prevention with a data-driven fraud management approach.”

Rippleshot’s fraud analytics platform spots fraud patterns and creates intelligence and rules to proactively identify emerging fraud risks and stop fraud incidents before they take place. With the backing of an expansive data consortium of 5,000+ financial institutions, the platform also enables banks and financial institutions to block merchants deemed “high risk” and limit the potential damage from major data breaches.

Rippleshot clients using the platform on a consistent basis have experienced a decrease in fraud activity of up to 35% a year. These clients have also identified 10x more compromised incidents compared to average network alerts. Thanks to Rippleshot’s risk score-based reissuance strategies, the fraud prevention process does not create additional friction for the client; institutions report 5x less disruption to customers’ transactions with Rippleshot’s technology.

“Rippleshot is a technology-forward solutions provider with a human-centric approach to decreasing fraud,” CPI Card Group VP of Business Development and Digital Solutions, Rob Dixon, said. “Through this partnership, our customers will be able to reduce costs associated with fraud loss, chargebacks, and manual monitoring while increasing profits and retaining top-of-wallet status with their cardholders.”

Founded in 1982 as Colorado Plasticard, CPI Card Group today is the largest manufacturer of credit, debit, and prepaid cards. The company went public in 2015, trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker PMTS, and has a market capitalization of $303 million. CPI Card Group began the year with the appointment of its new President and CEO John Lowe.

Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and founded in 2012, Rippleshot made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014. The company returned later that year to demo its fraud prevention technology at FinovateFall in New York.

Photo by Bhargava Marripati

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HDFC Bank Turns to Zeta to Power its Credit Line on UPI Offerings

HDFC Bank Turns to Zeta to Power its Credit Line on UPI Offerings
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Zeta
  • Next-generation banking technology company Zeta has partnered with India’s HDFC Bank to power its Credit Line on UPI (CLOU) solutions.
  • The bank will leverage Zeta’s Digital Credit as a Service technology, which enables banks to manage a credit product from origination through processing without requiring multiple integrations.
  • Zeta won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at our all-digital fintech conference in 2020.

Banking technology provider Zeta has inked a partnership with India’s HDFC Bank to power its new Credit Line on UPI (CLOU) solutions. Announced by India’s National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) in 2023, the CLOU scheme will make it easier for individuals to access credit and help banks leverage the UPI ecosystem to reach a significantly wider audience. HDFC’s partnership with Zeta will enable the bank to use the CLOU scheme to launch a range of new credit products by connecting pre-approved credit lines to the UPI user base.

Zeta Co-Founder, Global CTO, and CEO APAC Ramki Gaddipati referred to CLOU as “a credit superhighway.” He added, “Our solution is architected to leverage its innovative capabilities across the entire credit distribution lifecycle spanning underwriting, origination, distribution, usage, repayments, collections, and more.” Gaddipati emphasized that Zeta’s solution was built to fit the new technology, saying it would deliver a “UPI-first, mobile-first, and cloud-native credit products ecosystem.”

HDFC’s CLOU offerings will be powered by Zeta’s Digital Credit as a Service (DCaaS) solution. Unveiled earlier this year in India, Zeta’s technology enables banks to manage a credit product from origination to processing–as well as rewards, customer services, and more–without having to integrate multiple software packages and services. DCaaS also provides specific product blueprints to streamline the development of different types of credit lines on UPI products.

The technology was developed as Zeta recognized that the growing popularity of UPI was putting a strain on core banking systems–and that this strain could impact credit lines on UPI, as well. The company believes that CLOU will become a $1 trillion opportunity for banks by 2030.

The CLOU announcement is only the latest achievement of the partnership between Zeta and HDFC Bank. This spring, the bank announced that its PayZapp mobile app–developed in partnership with Zeta–had won the Celent Model Bank Award 2024. The app notched more than seven million customers since its launch in March 2023, and is among the top-rated apps in the Finance section on Indian app stores.

“We are glad to develop the Credit Line on UPI offering with Zeta enabling our customers to enjoy the benefits of an affordability program combined with the ease of doing a UPI transaction,” HDFC Bank Sr. EVP Rajanish Prabhu said.

HDFC Bank offers a wide range of banking products and solutions, including consumer, commercial, private, and investment banking; investment, asset, and wealth management; insurance; credit cards; and more. As India’s leading private sector bank, the Mumbai-based institution is the 10th largest bank by market capitalization ($145 billion), and the 16th largest employer in India.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Zeta won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at our all-digital conference in 2020. The company returned the following year to demo its modern, cloud-native, omni stack banking platform at FinovateFall 2021. Zeta achieved unicorn status that year courtesy of a $250 million round led by SoftBank.

Photo by Mitchell Ng Liang an on Unsplash

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Spend Management Platform Coupa Unveils a Slew of New Features

Spend Management Platform Coupa Unveils a Slew of New Features
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Coupa announced a handful of AI-powered product enhancements this week.
  • The updates will help Coupa clients leverage their data to simplify workflows, save time, and improve collaboration.
  • The updates will go live next month for select Coupa clients.

Spend management platform Coupa announced its new product enhancements this week. The California-based company recently unveiled more than a dozen innovations that it says will help companies create efficiencies, improve productivity, and free up their employees to work on more important tasks.

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. Since launch, Coupa has created an AI-driven platform that helps businesses leverage their data by extracting insights, simplifying workflows, and improving collaboration without requiring new code or change management. 

“Our goal to be a margin multiplier for every business large and small worldwide requires a relentless focus on co-innovation with our customers. As market dynamics continue to shift and operating capital becomes more limited, companies are searching for more ways to drive profitable, sustainable growth. Coupa’s leading total spend management platform underpinned by our community-generated AI gives customers predictive insights, prescriptive decisions, and automated actions needed to drive smarter and more profitable decisions,” said Fang Chang, Chief Product Officer, Coupa. “By replacing archaic processes with Coupa’s AI-driven solutions, businesses will run more efficiently, grow more effectively, and operate more confidently.”

The four major enhancements the company unveiled include:

  • Coupa Navi, which aims to increase productivity by helping customers find document status and approvals faster, accelerate requests, and access Navi’s knowledge base for instant answers to questions.
  • Contract Intelligence, which provides customers with risk-informed clause recommendations that can help reduce exposure to potential issues. The tool also offers generative AI-generated legal agreement summaries.
  • The Coupa Advantage Marketplace, which offers businesses quick access to goods from a range of suppliers. Coupa’s marketplace offers pre-negotiated rates and financial benefits and helps teams identify savings opportunities and improve visibility into their spending.
  • Service Maestro helps customers create, view, and manage contingent worker records and assignments.

The updates will be available to select customers starting in September.

“Our September release, and each of our product releases, drives the Coupa platform forward so our customers can reach their ambitious goals,” said Chang. “We continue to invest in new and powerful AI use cases, which gives our customers a disproportionate advantage to achieving top-line growth and bottom-line performance gains.”

Coupa went public in 2016 and was acquired by Thoma Bravo for $8 billion in 2022. Earlier this month, Coupa partnered with communications platform RingCentral, which deployed Coupa to improve its spend and business operations. 

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich

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Themis and Sei Leverage AI to Enhance Marketing Compliance for Banks

Themis and Sei Leverage AI to Enhance Marketing Compliance for Banks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Themis
  • Governance, risk, and compliance platform Themis has partnered with regulatory compliance company Sei.
  • The partnership integrates Sei’s marketing compliance engine into Themis’ platform to enable financial institutions to maintain marketing compliance across all channels.
  • Themis won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. Neepa Patel is founder and CEO.

A partnership between regtech Themis and AI-powered regulatory compliance company Sei will provide financial institutions and fintechs with new tools to manage their marketing compliance operations. Integrating Sei’s marketing compliance engine into Themis’ platform will help institutions remain compliant across multiple marketing channels.

Sei’s technology leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to convert regulations into actionable code. This can be used by compliance and risk teams to automate a variety of complex tasks. The integration of Sei’s AI agents into Themis’ platform will enable companies to screen partner websites and social media, automate the review of marketing content before it is shared with the public, and identify potential compliance issues.

Financial institutions and fintechs will benefit from access to advanced AI models that detect compliance issues across text, image, audio, and video. Sei’s AI agents support multiple languages, and are enabled with contextual understanding to ensure that only the most relevant issues are flagged.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Themis, the leading GRC platform for banks and fintechs, to offer Sei’s Marketing Compliance AI agent,” Sei founder Pranay Shetty said. “Together, we aim to improve consumer protection and help companies navigate an increasingly complex regulatory environment.”

Backed by Y Combinator and PayPal, Sei offers AI agents that work with risk and compliance teams to boost their efficiency, impact, and ability to scale. Founded in 2023 by Ramkumar Venkataraman, the New York-based company serves customers across three continents with solutions for marketing, customer support, and communications compliance, and regulatory change management.

Headquartered in New York and founded in 2021 by CEO Neepa Patel, Themis made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. The company won Best of Show for its demo of its GRC solution that serves as a one-stop shop for compliance. In addition to managing internal compliance workflows, Themis’ GRC solution can also be used to help banks and other financial institutions accelerate their partnerships with fintechs by examining their compliance controls in real-time.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

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InvoiceASAP Teams Up with Adyen to Offer Instant Payouts

InvoiceASAP Teams Up with Adyen to Offer Instant Payouts
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, invoiceASAP
  • InvoiceASAP has partnered with global payments platform Adyen to facilitate instant access to deposited funds.
  • The partnership combines InvoiceASAP’s Invoice to Pay solution with Adyen’s Instant Payouts and Cash Out functionality to enable businesses to better manage cash flow.
  • Oakland, California-based InvoiceASAP made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2013.

A partnership between invoicing and payments solutions provider InvoiceASAP and business payments platform Adyen will enable InvoiceASAP to offer its users instant access to deposited funds. This is a critical issue for InvoiceASAP’s small- and medium-sized business customers, who often require quick and ready access to capital to better manage their expenses.

“InvoiceASAP is building the most advanced Invoice-to-Pay solution,” company CEO Paul Hoeper said. “Adyen gives us access to the most advanced payment products and tools, including FedNow for Instant Deposits. We are fully focused on providing the fastest velocity of bank deposits for our over 23,000 merchants. By combining Adyen’s Instant Payouts and new Cash Out functionality, we can provide our users with unmatched velocity.”

InvoiceASAP will take advantage of Adyen’s global solution – Adyen for Platforms. The offering enables users to sign up, sell, and get paid through a single solution. The company will also leverage Adyen’s Cash Out feature to provide its users with instant access to pending funds, without having to wait multiple days.

“Our partnership with InvoiceASAP underscores Adyen’s commitment to continued innovation,” Adyen North America President Davi Strazza said. “Our FedNow certification allows for instantly-available deposits and cash advances, enabling InvoiceASAP users to better manage cash flow, scale operations, and invest in the tools they need to thrive.”

With customers ranging from Microsoft and Meta to Uber and H&M, Adyen provides end-to-end payments capabilities, data-driven insights, and financial products to businesses around the world. Headquartered in Amsterdam, Adyen processed more than €970 billion in payment volume in 2023. This month, in addition to its partnership with InvoiceASAP, Adyen announced a collaboration with PayPal to offer its Fastlane product on the Adyen platform. Also in August, Adyen reported that it has extended its partnership with BMW and expanded its operations in India. The publicly traded firm has a market capitalization of $45 billion.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Oakland, California, InvoiceASAP made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2013. In the years since then, the company has grown into a major, fully-integrated mobile invoicing solution provider with more than 400,000 customers in 120+ countries. InvoiceASAP enables merchants to generate and pay invoices on the go using either a smartphone or a tablet. The company’s technology connects with major accounting platforms, including QuickBooks and Xero, to ensure compatibility with the merchant’s accounting software.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

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LenderLogix Integrates with Truv to Enhance the Borrower Applicant Verification Process

LenderLogix Integrates with Truv to Enhance the Borrower Applicant Verification Process
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Truv
  • Consumer-permissioned data platform Truv announced an integration with mortgage point-of-sale (POS) and automation software provider LenderLogix.
  • The integration will enable mortgage lenders to more easily verify income and employment data from mortgage applicants.
  • Truv was founded in 2020 and made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022.

Making it easier for lenders to access the data they need in order to provide credit to worthy borrowers is one of the key promises of open finance. A new integration between consumer-permissioned data platform Truv and mortgage point-of-sale (POS) software provider LenderLogix will leverage open finance to enable lenders to more easily and accurately verify income and employment information from mortgage applicants. The integration will enable mortgage lenders to access Truv’s platform via LenderLogix’s point-of-sale system LiteSpeed to secure direct-to-source income and employment verification.

“With the integration of Truv’s verification capabilities and LiteSpeed, lenders can now enjoy a streamlined workflow that reduces administrative tasks and frees up resources for improved customer service,” LenderLogix Co-Founder and CEO Patrick O’Brien said. “This powerful combination eliminates the need for third-party verification services, leading to significant cost savings and lower overall loan processing expenses. Additionally, the automation speeds up loan approvals, allowing lenders to close loans faster and optimize their operational throughput.”

Lenders will benefit from Truv’s coverage of 96% of the U.S. workforce and the immediate access to data through LenderLogix’s LiteSpeed. This will accelerate the mortgage application process by removing manual document collection and by being able to access more data-rich, complete loan files at the point of application. For borrowers, the partnership will provide an application process that is faster and more straightforward, with fewer touchpoints.

“Our integration with LenderLogix marks a significant advancement in our mission to revolutionize the mortgage origination process,” Truv CEO Kirill Klokov said. “By combining our strengths, we are providing mortgage lenders with the tools they need to deliver exceptional service to their clients while improving operational efficiency.”

Founded in 2020, Truv made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demonstrated its income and employment verification and direct deposit switch technology. The company’s income and employment verification solution delivers verified identity, income, and employment data points within 60 seconds. Truv credits its direct deposit switch solution for enabling institutions to increase direct deposits by up to 65%.

This spring, Truv teamed up with digital mortgage automation solutions provider Floify and with point-of-sale (POS) mortgage lending platform – and fellow Finovate alum – BeSmartee. Truv has raised more than $28 million in funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins and NYCA.

Are you an innovative fintech with new technology that’s ready for prime time? Join us in New York next month for FinovateFall and take advantage of the opportunity to showcase your solution before an audience of 2,000+ decision-makers.

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PayQuicker Teams Up with Thunes to Boost e-Wallet Payout Capabilities

PayQuicker Teams Up with Thunes to Boost e-Wallet Payout Capabilities
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, PayQuicker, Thunes

International payouts orchestration company, PayQuicker, has forged a partnership with cross-border payment infrastructure firm Thunes to expand its e-Wallet payout capabilities around the world.

The integration is designed to better serve the growing demand for diverse and flexible payout methods. This demand is especially acute in emerging markets, where access to traditional banking is limited and tools like e-Wallets play a major role in helping individuals manage finances and make payments. McKinsey estimates that up to 60% of those in emerging markets prefer to use e-Wallets instead of traditional banks.

Integrating enhanced e-Wallet capabilities into its global payouts solutions mix will help PayQuicker fulfill its objective of providing faster, easier payouts around the world. The company said that it will offer access to more than 120 e-Wallets in key emerging markets, courtesy of the new partnership. Among the e-Wallets that will be accessible are popular e-Wallets such as the Philippines’ GCash, China’s Alipay, and both Orange Money and M-Pesa of Africa.

“Digital wallets are transforming the way people manage their finances, especially in regions where traditional banking infrastructure is lacking,” PayQuicker CEO Paul Beldham said. “By teaming up with Thunes, we’re further enabling millions of people around the world to receive their funds faster and more securely, providing the flexibility of a bank alternative. This not only empowers individuals to better manage their day-to-day finances but also supports the economic growth of emerging markets by facilitating more reliable transactions.”

Headquartered in Rochester, New York, PayQuicker made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demoed its Payouts OS solution, which packages the company’s payments technology into a payouts payment orchestration platform that intelligently determines and facilitates the fastest, most cost-effective payouts across 200+ countries in 40+ currencies.

Thunes was formed in 2019 when Finovate alum TransferTo rebranded as two separate businesses: one, Thunes, focusing on cross-border payments and the other, DT One, focusing on mobile top-up and rewards. Earlier this month, Thunes announced a partnership with Alipay+ to enable merchants in Paris to accept payments from 15 international e-Wallets and mobile partnerships. In July, Thunes added cross-border payment service provider LianLian Global to its global network.

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Gridspace Unveils Emotional Intelligence Capabilities for Virtual Voice Agent Grace

Gridspace Unveils Emotional Intelligence Capabilities for Virtual Voice Agent Grace
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Gridspace
  • Conversational AI technology company Gridspace announced new emotional intelligence capabilities for its virtual voice agent Grace.
  • The update enables Grace to respond more swiftly and empathetically, and enhances the agent’s ability to express its own emotional states.
  • Gridspace made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.

Voice technology and AI software innovator Gridspace unveiled new emotional intelligence capabilities for its virtual voice agent Grace. The new capabilities enable Gridspace’s voice agent for business to respond faster and more empathetically to the speaker’s emotions. The enhancements also improve Grace’s ability to express its emotional states.

“Grace’s new emotional intelligence capabilities make voice calls with Grace even more natural,” Gridspace CEO Evan Macmillan said. “We are excited to further advance customer satisfaction with voice agents and make it even easier for businesses to deploy them.”

Bringing emotional intelligence capabilities to voice agents is a major advance in spoken dialog systems, according to Gridspace. Because so many contact center interactions involve customers experiencing frustration, being able to respond appropriately is paramount. Grace’s enhancements will enable the voice agent to manage more complex interactions with greater nuance, and also act as a buffer for high-volume contact centers. To this point, human agents working with Grace have reported not only being able to spend more time on complex calls, but also are experiencing less stress, lower burnout rates, greater productivity, and higher job satisfaction.

Founded in 2012, Gridspace made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. The California-based company was created through a collaboration between SRI Speech Labs – the entity behind Siri – and a diverse team of designers and engineers. Gridspace has been innovating in fields such as high-performance voice telephony, automated speech recognition (ASR), hyper-realistic TTS (text-to-speech), low-latency spoken dialog systems, as well as tools and solutions to help institutions deploy and manage conversational AI.

Gridspace has raised more than $27 million in funding and includes Private Investors and USAA among its investors.

Photo by Vlado Paunovic

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SigFig Brings AI to its Financial Advisor Collaboration Platform Engage

SigFig Brings AI to its Financial Advisor Collaboration Platform Engage
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SigFig
  • Wealth management solutions and technology company SigFig has added a number of new capabilities to its financial advisor collaboration platform, Engage.
  • The new capabilities include a range of AI-powered tools and solutions to enhance client engagement and boost efficiency for advisors and their teams.
  • San Francisco-based SigFig has been a Finovate alum since its FinovateFall debut in 2011.

Digital wealth management solutions and technology provider SigFig announced a range of new capabilities for its financial advisor collaboration platform, Engage. These new capabilities include AI-powered tools and solutions that boost the effectiveness of advisors and their teams. SigFig also has added enhanced core integrations with leading industry systems to promote greater efficiency. Together, the new functionalities enhance the digital experiences available via the platform and deepen client engagement.

“AI has the ability to dramatically increase financial advisor productivity and effectiveness,” SigFig founder and CEO Mike Sha said. “We know that advisors need to be able to focus on fostering impactful relationships with their clients, truly understanding their pain points and goals. Engage acts as a hub to drive richer, more personalized client experiences, taking care of those time-consuming, but necessary, administrative tasks, so advisors can do exactly that.”

The new AI capabilities include AI-powered smart tips, including in-meeting prompts and customized recommendations based on real-time conversation analysis. Engage will now also feature proactive surfacing of the right content, tools, paperwork, and workflows, all based on an analysis of real-time discussions. Other new AI-driven additions include automated transcripts, meeting summaries, and post-meeting notes.

Streamlining integration with systems from Salesforce, Docusign, Microsoft, and Google is another major platform enhancement announced by the company late last week. The CRM integration, for example, creates a bi-directional data synch that enables advisors to view client data on the Engage platform as well as sync meeting notes, client details, meetings, and other tasks into Salesforce. This not only helps advisors provide more personalized advice, but also helps advisors accelerate the sales process as well as client conversions.

SigFig made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2011. In the years since then, the company has grown into a comprehensive digital wealth solutions business with nearly 1.5 million customers and 6,000+ advisors on its platform. The firm, founded in 2006 and headquartered in San Francisco, counts financial institutions such as UBS, Wells Fargo, and Scotiabank among its partners.

Are you an innovative fintech with new technology that’s ready for prime time? Join us in New York next month for FinovateFall and take advantage of the opportunity to showcase your solution before an audience of 2,000+ decision-makers.

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

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