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DigiShares Receives Grant from Polymesh Association to Support Tokenization of Securities

DigiShares Receives Grant from Polymesh Association to Support Tokenization of Securities
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DigiShares, Polymesh
  • Two Finovate newcomers – DigiShares and the Polymesh Network – have teamed up to promote the use of tokenization to create and manage securities.
  • The partnership comes in the form of a grant from the Polymesh Ecosystem Development Fund (EDF), a part of the not-for-profit Polymesh Association.
  • DigiShares is headquartered in Denmark and demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2021; Polymesh is based in Switzerland and demoed its technology a year later at FinovateSpring 2022.

Digishares, a Danish white-label platform for tokenizing real estate, is the first company to receive a grant from the Polymesh Ecosystem Development Fund (EDF). The EDF is a creation of the Polymesh Association, which is a part of Polymath, the company behind the Polymesh Network. The Polymesh Network is an institutional-grade, permissioned blockchain for regulated assets that was featured in Polymath’s Finovate debut last month at FinovateSpring.

With $10 million in funding, the EDF is designed to financially support companies and projects that can bring value to the Polymesh ecosystem. DigiShares received its grant for integrating Polymesh and expanding the Polymesh ecosystem to DigiShares’ network of clients and partners. Additionally, DigiShares will facilitate the migration of its clients’ current ERC-1400 assets from Ethereum to Polymesh. DigiShares has supported ERC-1400 on Ethereum since 2019 and been an early supporter of Polymesh, as well, having joined the company’s partnership ecosystem back in January of 2021. The integration announced this week will allow issuers to DigiShares’ tokenization platform to create and manage security tokens on Polymesh.

“Polymath has been a long and trusted partner of DigiShares and we are proud to soon support the Polymesh blockchain,” DigiShares CEO Claus Skaaning said. “We believe that Polymesh has long term potential to lead the security token space.”

The grant award announcement arrives weeks after the Polymesh Association introduced its Ecosystem Development Fund, which itself follows the listing of Polymesh’s native token POLYX on Huobi, one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world. The fund is a wager that financially backing businesses that can help promote wider adoption of Polymesh will prove an effective way to incentivize companies to build, integrate, and use the institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure.

“The Ecosystem Development Fund delivers two benefits to service providers,” Polymesh Association Head of Tokenization Graeme Moore said. “Successful applicants not only receive funding but they can also attract clients by adding a Polymesh integration to their roadmap.”

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Aalborg, Denmark, DigiShares made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateSpring 2021. At the event, the company demonstrated its white-label tokenization platform for real estate, which adds both automation and liquidity to the property market. The DigiShares platform digitizes and automates both the financing and the corporate management aspects of real estate projects. The platform also provides a bulletin board marketplace that leverages blockchain technology and peer-to-peer trading without counterparty risk.

Among Finovate’s newest alums, Polymath demonstrated its Polymath Token Studio at FinovateSpring last month in San Francisco. The Token Studio is an interface that enables the user to create, issue, and manage blockchain-based securities. “Thanks to blockchain and tokenization we can reduce the costs of creating, issuing, and managing securities by over 90%,” Moore explained from the Finovate stage in May. “Banks, custodians, transfer agents, broker-dealers and these other service providers can give their clients new and fresh experiences, and we can create new securities and new financial instruments that previously weren’t possible.”

Polymath and the Polymesh Network are based in Zug, Switzerland. Vince Kadar is Polymath CEO.

Photo by rovenimages.com

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Product Quality Innovator unitQ Unveils its Impact Analysis Tool

Product Quality Innovator unitQ Unveils its Impact Analysis Tool
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, unitQ
  • Less than a month after its FinovateSpring demo, unitQ has introduced its Impact Analysis tool.
  • The new offering helps businesses identify both important product quality issues in their app as well as the impact of fixing those issues.
  • Impact Analysis enables companies to improve their unitQ Scores, which enable businesses to accurately compare their app with rival apps in the same industry.

Product quality platform and Finovate newcomer unitQ recently launched its Impact Analysis tool. The new offering helps businesses recognize and address critical product quality issues and the impact of correcting them.

“With Impact Analysis, teams can learn what impacts fixing an issue might have on KPIs like 1-star reviews, support tickets, brand sentiment, and more – before taking action,” unitQ Product Manager Brett Caplan wrote on the company blog late last week.

UnitQ’s Impact Analysis tool works by automatically identifying user-generated issues that will have the greatest impact on product quality if fixed. These issues – which unitQ calls “Quality Monitors” – not only guide teams toward the most important product quality concerns, but also steer the team away from concerns that may seem significant, but may have a minimal or even adverse impact on an app’s unitQ Score, as well as its rating within its own marketplace (i.e., Apple App Store, Google Play Store, etc.).

The unitQ Score enables companies to compare their app’s quality — based on Apple App and Google Play stores rating and reviews – against that of other apps from the same industry. A companion assessment, the Internal unitQ Score includes everything evaluated in the unitQ Score, but also includes user feedback culled from social media such as Twitter and Reddit, as well as data from customer support and chatbot applications. The new Impact Analysis tool enables companies to see the impact of potential improvements and changes on both scores.

“A unitQ Score closer to 100 indicates a brand has few product quality issues overall,” Caplan explained. “It means that users enjoy the product, the experience is well-designed, easy to use, responsive – and is virtually free of bugs, broken flows, and operational mistakes. Higher scores equal better products, and more satisfied customers.”

The Impact Analysis tool is powered by the machine learning capabilities of the unitQ Monitor, which measures, analyzes, and visualizes the unstructured data of user feedback. The technology translates text from more than 70 languages, normalizes and removes personally-identifiable information (PII), enriches data with sentiment analysis, and appends with product metadata. By turning qualitative feedback into quantitative data, unitQ helps companies discover important insights that enable them to improve product quality.

Headquartered in Burlingame, California, unitQ most recently demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2022 in May. The company was co-founded by Christian Wiklund (CEO) and Niklas Lindstrom (CTO) in 2018. Among the company’s customers are firms such as Chime, Current, and fellow Finovate alums Klarna and Nubank.

Photo by Pixabay

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Autobooks Lands $50 Million in Funding to Boost Bank Distribution

Autobooks Lands $50 Million in Funding to Boost Bank Distribution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Autobooks, Daily news, Funding
  • Autobooks has received $50 million in a Series C funding round led by Macquarie Capital.
  • The investment more than doubles Autobooks’ total funding raised, boosting it to $98 million.
  • Autobooks won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateFall 2021.

Payment and accounting platform Autobooks raked in $50 million in a Series C round led by Macquarie Capital with additional support from new and existing investors Baird Capital, Commerce Ventures, Draper Triangle, MissionOG, and TD Bank. The investment more than doubles the Michigan-based company’s total raised, boosting that figure to $98 million.

Autobooks plans to use today’s funding to accelerate distribution into the U.S. banking market.

Autobooks serves more than 60,000 small businesses with a range of tools including digital payment acceptance, online invoicing, online enrollment, accounting, bookkeeping, financial reporting, billpay, and more. The company’s embedded receivables platform for small businesses enables digital invoices, payment acceptance, and automated accounting directly within their mobile banking suite.

To facilitate this, Autobooks integrates its tools with a range of digital banking providers, making its services available to over one third of the U.S. market. Companies that offer Autobooks’ invoicing and payment acceptance tools to their small business clients include Alkami, Bottomline, CSI, FIS, Jack Henry, NCR, and Q2.

In addition to helping small businesses, Autobooks also has the potential to benefit banks. TD Online Accounting, which is a whitelabeled version of Autobooks’ technology, has seen deposits from its 700+ small business clients increase 65%. Simultaneously, the firm has experienced a 2x increase in product usage.

“Businesses are increasingly looking for simple, bundled solutions to get paid and automate their back-office. If the bank can’t offer these services quickly, businesses will (and have) gone elsewhere,” said Autobooks Cofounder and CEO Steve Robert. “To maintain primacy, banks must optimize legacy merchant service programs to include digital payment acceptance tools that feature self-service onboarding. Autobooks makes this possible through our payment facilitation (payfac) model, which can be enabled within days by industry leading partners.”

Autobooks averages more than 10,000 monthly enrollments and has surpassed $40 billion in transaction volume. From 2021 to 2022, the company has experienced 5x revenue growth, 3x employee growth, and 6.5x bank partner growth. Autobooks won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateFall 2021.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

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Kofax Acquires e-Invoicing Network Tungsten

Kofax Acquires e-Invoicing Network Tungsten
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Kofax, Mergers & Acquisitions

  • Kofax is acquiring B2B e-invoicing network Tungsten.
  • The combined companies will offer clients a more holistic e-invoicing approach.
  • Financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.

Intelligent automation software platform Kofax has acquired B2B e-invoicing network Tungsten for an undisclosed amount. Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish anticipates the acquisition will “provide more comprehensive and higher value invoice processing and accounts payable automation solutions” to the company’s customers.

Founded in 2000, Tungsten facilitates invoice-to-pay processes by digitalizing invoices using automation. Headquartered in London, Tungsten enables suppliers to submit tax compliant e-invoices in 54 countries. The company processes invoices for 60% of the FTSE 100 and 68% of the Fortune 500. Last year, Tungsten processed transactions worth over $270 billion for clients including Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and the U.S. Federal Government.

When combined with Kofax’s invoice processing and AP automation portfolio, the combined companies will offer a more holistic e-invoicing approach to companies across the globe. The cloud-based offering will provide solutions for direct supplier onboarding, e-invoice exchange, interoperability, scanned and OCR paper invoices, machine readable PDF invoices, PDF data extraction, and payment processing.

“Finance procurement leaders are looking beyond traditional invoice OCR and workflow capabilities to modern e-invoicing, supplier management, and value-added services – accelerating how they pay and relate with suppliers,” said Tungsten CEO Paul Cooper. “A full technology suite from Kofax will bring efficiencies to how they work with their suppliers, compliantly invoice, and focus on leveraging data to drive insights while reducing cost.”

Kofax was originally founded in 1985 and leverages robotic process automation (RPA) to automate and enhance business’ workflow. The company’s SaaS solutions automate the processing of over 60 million invoices for more than 11,000 organizations around the world. Two years after Kofax went public in 2013, the company was delisted when it was acquired by Lexmark for $1 billion. In 2017, Kofax was once again acquired, this time by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Kofax itself has made a total of 12 acquisitions, including Tungsten.

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Anodot Helps Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier Implement Network Monitoring Solution

Anodot Helps Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier Implement Network Monitoring Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Anodot, Daily news
  • Business monitoring innovator Anodot and network telemetry and analytics solutions provider BENOCS teamed up to help Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier implement a new network monitoring solution.
  • The new solution will help companies monitor a wide range of business operations.
  • Anodot made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022 in March.

Virginia-based business monitoring company and Finovate newcomer Anodot has helped Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier implement a new and improved network monitoring solution. Deployed in partnership with Anodot and network telemetry and analytics solutions provider BENOCS, the new service monitors network data and recognizes changes in traffic behavior and flow. This helps ensure that only relevant anomaly alerts are issued and received, reducing cost and effort.

“Telco service providers must process an immense amount of data from multiple sources to ensure optimal service across their complex network environments,” Anodot CEO David Drai said. “By monitoring granular performance and fault data in real-time and providing automated insights, Anodot enables communications services providers to identify and resolve issues quicker. Alert noise will now be a thing of the past for Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier.”

Anodot offers a business monitoring platform that leverages machine learning to analyze and correlate key business parameters and provide real-time alerts and forecasts. The company reports that members of the Fortune 500 have used Anodot’s technology to reduce time-to-detection for revenue-critical issues by up to 80%. The platform monitors a wide range of business operations, including front end applications, UX, backend servers, APIs to vendors and providers, payment flows, balances, ledgers, investments, trades, and more.

“Having been a satisfied BENOCS customer for a number of years now, we decided it was time to take the next monitoring step,” Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier VP of Internet & Content Services Carsten Bruns said. “The integration of Anodot’s anomaly detection technology with BENOCS’ comprehensive Flow Analytics has already saved us valuable time in identifying irregularities and rectifying network issues.”

Founded in 2014, Anodot made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year, demonstrating its payments monitoring tool. In the months since then, the company has forged partnerships with telecommunications service provider Altice Portugal, connectivity company Vodafone New Zealand and, most recently, technology intelligence leader Snow Software. Anodot has raised more than $64 million in funding from investors including Alicorn, Redline Capital, and Intel Capital.

Photo by Brett Sayles

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Pure IT Credit Union Services Receives $6.8 Million in Funding to Help CUs Leverage Technology to Compete, Serve Members

Pure IT Credit Union Services Receives $6.8 Million in Funding to Help CUs Leverage Technology to Compete, Serve Members
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • CUSO Pure IT Credit Union Services received an investment of $6.8 million this week from a group of credit unions.
  • The funding will be used to help expand Pure IT’s ability to help credit unions leverage technology to compete with other financial institutions and to better serve their members.
  • The investment comes a few months after Pure IT announced an acquisition of Purity Technology.

Technology-based credit union service organization (CUSO) Pure IT Credit Union Services announced an investment of $6.8 million. The funding came from a coalition of seven credit unions – including Lone Star CU, Union Square CU, DEXSTA CU, People’s Trust CU, Linn Area CU, Ardent CU, and fellow CUSO Envisant.

“What bigger compliment can you have than your own clients investing in your,” Pure IT Credit Union Services co-founder and CEO Jack Smith said. He added that it was part of Pure IT’s mission to “help the industry achieve maturation and evolution to stay relevant and serve even more members.”

The new funding will be used to expand Pure IT’s work in helping credit unions leverage technology to compete for, and better serve, more members.

Headquartered in Texas, Pure IT Credit Services was founded in 2016. Formed initially as a partnership between a credit union and a collection of technology services professionals, the company has grown into a credit union IT services and consulting firm that helps assess a credit union’s IT environment, enabling its clients to focus on business strategy, operations, and serving their members.

Earlier this year, Pure IT Credit Services acquired Texas-based IT services company Purity Technology. The purchase will enable Pure IT to deliver more secure, “modern mobility services” to a greater number of credit unions

“(Purity’s technology) helps smaller institutions and mid-sized institutions that don’t have IT people or don’t have full-time IT resources or are thinking about using ‘Mom and Pop’ down the street for their IT support ” Smith said in an interview with CU Broadcast host Mike Lawson. “This gets them secure and compliant … ‘Mom and Pop’ aren’t going to know what a financial institution needs … (Purity) is a built-in, support service that actually solves that issue for a lot of (different sized) credit unions that don’t have that sophistication internally.”

Photo by Pixabay

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Voice Verification Solution Provider Illuma Labs Secures Investment from NYCUA and UsNet

Voice Verification Solution Provider Illuma Labs Secures Investment from NYCUA and UsNet
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Illuma Labs
  • Illuma Labs, maker of the Illuma Shield voice verification platform, raised new funding this week from NYCUA and UsNet.
  • The amount of the investment was not disclosed. The funding comes one year after Illuma Labs secured $2.5 million in funding from the Curql Fund.
  • This week’s funding comes one month after the company partnered with Posh Technologies to win the “Next Big Thing” award from NACUSO (National Association of Credit Union Service Organizations) and Co-Op Solutions.

Voice authentication innovator llluma Labs secured new funding this week. The company announced that the New York Credit Union Association (NYCUA) and its affiliate UsNet, have teamed up to invest in the Plano, Texas-based company and support further development of its flagship Illuma Shield voice verification solution.

The amount of the investment was not disclosed. The company raised $2.5 million in funding from the Curql Fund just over a year ago

A Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO), Illuma Labs considers credit unions to be its key customers, investors, and partners. The company’s Illuma Shield technology enables call centers to leverage passive voice authentication to improve the user experience, guard against fraudsters, and boost operational efficiency by reducing call handle times, hold times, and abandon rates. A cost-effective, easy to deploy, and simple to use solution for mid-size financial institution call centers, Illuma Shield analyzes the unique aspects of a speaker’s voice and their communication device to create an AudioPrint that can be used to verify identity on subsequent calls. The AudioPrint process happens in the background, during normal conversation, without requiring the speaker to answer security questions or recite passphrases.

“This technology uses state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Voice Biometrics to address three of the top concerns for credit unions today,” Illuma Shield founder and CEO Milind Borkar said. “The platform improves member experience by emulating the warm welcome of a brick-and-mortar visit while offering a very high level of protection against account takeovers. Cutting out the security Q&A process also creates operational efficiency by shortening call times. The infusion of investment from NYCUA and UsNet is highly valued since it helps us expand to serve even more credit unions.”

A Finovate alum since 2019, Illuma Labs announced a partnership with SCE Credit Union, a $1 billion institution with more than 60,000 members in Southern California and Southern Nevada, in May. Also that month, Illuma Labs and Posh Technologies collaborated to win the “Next Big Idea” award from NACUSO and Co-Op Solutions. The partnership combined the passive voice authentication of Illuma Labs’ Illuma Shield and Posh Technologies’ conversational AI IVR to help call centers cope with high call volume and talent shortages.

“Posh’s conversational AI and Illuma’s voice biometrics is a combination that makes sense,” Posh co-founder Karan Kashyap said. “As we do our parts as CUSOs to bring transformative technology to the credit union market, our partnership will enhance member security for credit unions while offering a streamlined authentication experience for the caller – a win-win. We look forward to a bright future with Illuma Labs.”

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

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Onfido Teams Up with Bank Millennium to Bring Innovations in Identity Verification to Customer Onboarding

Onfido Teams Up with Bank Millennium to Bring Innovations in Identity Verification to Customer Onboarding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Onfido
  • Identity verification company Onfido partnered with Bank Millennium Poland to bring automated identity verification to its onboarding process.
  • Bank Millennium Poland was named “Best Digital Bank in Poland” in 2021 by Global Finance Magazine.
  • Onfido also announced that it was joining the digital ID program launched by The Investing and Savings Alliance (TISA).

Identity verification and authentication innovator Onfido bookended the weekend with two appearances in the fintech headlines. The company announced that it has teamed up with Poland’s Bank Millennium to automate the identity verification component of the bank’s customer onboarding process.

“Poland is seeing fast acceleration of the digitization of financial service offerings, and we’re very happy to be partnering with one of the most innovative banks in the Central Eastern Europe region,” SVP of EMEA at Onfido Oliver Krebs said. “We pride ourselves on delivering access to online services that both detect and prevent fraudulent attempts while enabling the business to scale and meet regulatory requirements.”

The partnership will enable Bank Millennium to enhance its online customer journey with an onboarding process that is quicker, simpler, and easier for customers. New users will be able to sign up with Bank Millennium with just a photograph of their government-issued identification document (ID) and a selfie video. Onfido’s AI-powered identity verification technology first ensures that the ID is legitimate, and then matches the image on the ID with the image in the selfie video. This makes sure that the individual is the legitimate owner of the ID and is physically present. By leveraging Onfido’s technology, the institution will enable new customers to onboard with the bank from any location, at any time via a fully-compliant digital experience.

“We wanted to make our process even more user-friendly and accessible on most devices, and that is why we choose to work with Onfido,” Director of the Electronic Banking Department at Bank Millennium Halina Karpińska said. “We based the changes on a detailed analysis of our onboarding flow, we also looked at best market standards and, as always, we took into account the opinions of users. Now new customers finish the process already logged in to the application, with an active account that they can immediately use.”

Bank Milllennium Poland was founded in 1989 as Bank Inicjatyw Gospodarczych BIG SA. Part of the Millennium Group since 2003, the institution offers a wide range of banking solutions for private customers, SMEs, and enterprises alike. Last year, the bank was named Poland’s Best Digital Bank by Global Finance Magazine.

To start this week, Onfido announced that it has signed on to a digital ID program for financial services sponsored by The Investing and Savings Alliance (TISA). The program is designed to develop digital identities for consumers that will enable them to create and reuse identities when working with financial institutions. Already signed up for the program are a variety of companies including a handful of Finovate alums such as Signicat, Daon, and MoneyHub. Also involved in the digital identity plan are Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, and Barclays

“TISA’s vision to create a resuable digital ID that meets all relevant regulatory requirements, such as know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML), and also help consumers securely prove their identity to U.K. financial services is admirable,” Onfido Global Director of Public Policy Matthew Peake said in a statement.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in London, Onfido made its Finovate debut in 2018 at FinovateEurope. The company’s technology has helped firms deliver a 12x year-over-year improvement in fully-automated performance, as well as delivered 95% of its identity verification checks in less than 10 seconds and a 10x lower false acceptance rate.

This spring, Onfido announced a partnership with Tesco Bank. Co-founder Husayn Kassai is Onfido CEO.

Photo by Jade

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MoneyGram Launches Crypto-to-Cash Service

MoneyGram Launches Crypto-to-Cash Service
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MoneyGram
  • MoneyGram is rolling out a service that will enable users to buy cryptocurrency using cash, as well as allow them to withdraw their crypto holdings in cash, at select MoneyGram locations.
  • The new capabilities are made possible via a partnership with Stellar Development Foundation.
  • The service is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Kenya, and the Philippines.

While Western Union is taking payments digital, its competitor MoneyGram is bringing them into crypto. MoneyGram announced today it has begun to roll out a service that will enable cash users to access cryptocurrency via participating MoneyGram locations.

The new service is the result of a partnership between MoneyGram and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the organization behind open-source public blockchain Stellar that allows money to be tokenized and transferred globally. MoneyGram and SDF originally partnered in October of last year, when the two piloted the functionality that enabled digital wallet holders to deposit cash into their digital wallets at MoneyGram locations, send payments internationally via Stellar, and exchange Stellar for cash currency.

The functionality of exchanging cash to cryptocurrency and back to cash again aims to offer unbanked populations access to the digital economy. The fund transfer capabilities don’t require a bank account or a credit card. Consumers that hold a digital wallet with Vibrant or LOBSTR can visit a participating MoneyGram location to load their digital wallets using cash or to cash out their digital currency holdings into cash. MoneyGram expects to collaborate with more digital wallets in the future.

To incentivize adoption of the crypto in/out feature among its 150 million customers, MoneyGram is not charging a fee for the service for the first year.

“A much-needed solution to the cash-to-crypto on/off-ramp problem is here,” said Stellar Development Foundation CEO and Executive Director Denelle Dixon. “Today, almost 2 billion people rely on cash for their livelihood, with no options to access the digital economy. At the same time, a persistent pain point for crypto-native users is off-ramping cryptocurrency quickly and reliably. The groundbreaking nature of this service is how it solves problems for a range of users with varying needs around the world.”

The service is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Kenya, and the Philippines. By the end of this month, global cash-in functionality will be available in seven more countries and cash-out functionality will be available globally (where permitted by law).

MoneyGram, an 82-year-old fintech, was acquired by private equity investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners in a $1.8 billion deal earlier this year. Alex Holmes is chairman and CEO.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION

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ICICI Bank Partners with ZestMoney to Add BNPL Feature

ICICI Bank Partners with ZestMoney to Add BNPL Feature
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • ICICI Bank is integrating ZestMoney’s EMI (Equated Monthly Installments) BNPL network into its Cardless EMI product.
  • Customers can use ZestMoney’s BNPL capabilities to make purchases of up to $12,900 (Rs. 10 lakh).
  • This BNPL tool is currently live for ICICI clients making purchases online and will be available at physical retail locations “soon.”

Another day, another onslaught of BNPL news. Following this week’s chatter on Apple Pay Later and Zopa’s entrance into the BNPL market, ICICI Bank in India announced a partnership with Equated Monthly Installments (EMI) BNPL network ZestMoney.

The tie-up will enable ICICI Bank to expand its Cardless EMI product that facilitates purchases at participating physical retail and e-commerce platforms. When using ZestMoney’s BNPL capabilities, ICICI customers can use cardless credit to make purchases of up to $12,900 (Rs. 10 lakh) online or in-store and pay for it in EMIs. ICICI customers can also use ZestMoney’s flagship Pay-in-3 offering that enables users to split their transaction into three EMIs without extra cost.

“With this partnership, millions of our pre-approved customers can shop from e-commerce platforms and retail merchants registered on ZestMoney by just using mobile phone and PAN,” said ICICI Bank Head of Unsecured Assets Sudipta Roy. “We believe this facility provides immense convenience and improves affordability of our customers, as they can purchase high-value products on EMIs in a secure, instant, and digital manner, without even carrying their cards or wallet.”

This BNPL tool is currently live for ICICI clients making purchases online at ZestMoney’s retailer network which includes Xiaomi, OnePlus, Sugar, Mamaearth, Decathlon, Boat, Yatra, Urban Ladder, Vijay Sales, Titan Eye Plus, and more. BNPL payments made at physical retail locations will be available “soon.”

Launched in 2020, ICICI Bank’s Cardless EMI feature is most popular for users between the ages of 25 to 35. The solution is most widely used in e-commerce shopping platforms, travel, education, insurance, healthcare & wellness, and fashion apparel.

Founded in 2015, ZestMoney enables its 17 million users to apply for a digital credit line within seconds. The company’s merchant network includes 10,000+ online retailers and 75,000 physical stores. In addition to winning Best use of AI/ML at last year’s FinovateAwards, ZestMoney was also selected as a 2020 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and was recognized as the second fastest-growing technology company by Deloitte India in 2021.

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

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Backbase Secures $128 Million Investment from Motive Partners

Backbase Secures $128 Million Investment from Motive Partners
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Backbase, Daily news, Funding
  • Backbase raised $128 million (€120 million) in growth equity funding this week.
  • The round was led by private equity firm Motive Partners, and gave the company a valuation of $2.6 billion (€2.5 billion).
  • Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform enables banks and credit unions to leverage a cloud-based platform to offer bank customers seamless digital experiences.

Engagement banking platform Backbase secured $128 million (€120 million) in growth equity funding from private equity firm Motive Partners. The investment gives the company, which made its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall 2021, a valuation of $2.6 billion (€2.5 billion). The funding also marks Backbase’s first-ever funding event since its founding in 2003.

“Today is a major milestone for more than 2,000 Backbasers and 150 customers around the world, to celebrate the incredible progress we made,” Backbase founder and CEO Jouk Pleiter said in a statement. “With this partnership, we’re even better equipped to drive our Engagement Banking vision to the next level.”

The investment from the “founder-friendly” firm will enable Backbase to commit more resources to its Engagement Banking solution, helping power the company’s mission to “re-architect” banking in a customer-focused way. Backbase’s technology gives banks and credit unions the ability to move away from disconnected, point and channel solutions. Instead, with Backbase’s cloud-based platform, financial institutions can build frictionless customer journeys across all stages of the customer lifecycle from onboarding and servicing to lending and expanding wallet share.

With more than 150 financial institutions around the world using its technology, Backbase gives banks and credit unions the ability to quickly digitize and transform their customer-facing operations to meet the expectations of increasingly digitally-savvy banking customers. At its most recent Finovate appearance last fall, Backbase demonstrated a customer onboarding solution that consolidated a customer’s finances via direct deposit, billl pay auto linking, and debit card account opening. The technology showed how financial institutions can get key insights into their customers and empower them to take more control over their financial lives.

“Backbase’s proven track record of entrepreneurship and organic growth will continue,” Jouk said. “Our formula is simple: focus on the needs of our customers and empower highly skilled teams to deliver. We’re changing a big industry, which is hard work. Having critical mass and market momentum allows us to stay laser-focused. Together we’re making it happen.”

Founded in 2003, three-time Finovate Best of Show winner Backbase maintains a global headquarters in Amsterdam.

Photo by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS

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SocietyOne Adds Digital Bank Accounts

SocietyOne Adds Digital Bank Accounts
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SocietyOne
  • Australia digital finance platform SocietyOne is adding new checking and savings accounts, SpendOne and SaveOne.
  • SocietyOne is leveraging Westpac’s banking-as-a-service platform to offer the new accounts.
  • Today’s news comes three months after SocietyOne was acquired by alternative lender MONEYME.

It’s 2022 and digital banking is in the air. P2P lending platform SocietyOne is among the many fintechs that have added checking and savings accounts to compete with this decade’s new crop of challenger banks.

The Australia-based company recently unveiled it has tapped its long-time investor Westpac to add these new checking and savings accounts, SpendOne and SaveOne. Westpac’s banking-as-a-service platform will fuel the new accounts, which will work in conjunction with SocietyOne’s fixed rate secured and unsecured personal loans, as well as its free credit score product.

SpendOne and SaveOne can be accessed via SocietyOne’s new mobile app, which offers customers visibility of their transactions and allows them to take out a SocietyOne loan, set up automatic repayments, and access their credit score.

Today’s news comes three months after SocietyOne was acquired by alternative lender MONEYME. According to the press release, the launch of SpendOne and SaveOne “is aimed to fast-track the MONEYME Group’s goal of becoming Australia’s largest non-bank credit provider.” Once the acquisition closed in March of this year, combining the companies significantly increased MONEYME’s customer base and created a $1.2 billion loan book.

“The launch strongly aligns with MONEYME’s diversification strategy and our focus on delivering leading digital-first experiences to empower Generation Now,” said MONEYME CEO and Managing Director Clayton Howes. “The SpendOne and SaveOne accounts are designed to automate good financial habits, giving customers more freedom, flexibility, and a one-stop shop to manage their money.”

Marketed as a transaction account, SpendOne will not charge transaction or account fees. The account comes with many of the features users would expect from a large bank, including a debit card, account-to-account transfer capabilities, and ATM cash withdrawals. Additionally, SpendOne has a round-up feature that lets customers opt to round up their everyday transactions to a select amount, sending the balance to their SaveOne account.

The SaveOne account comes with an interest rate of 1% per year. In addition to the roundup feature mentioned above, SaveOne also helps users save with an autosave option that allows a percentage of customers’ deposits to be automatically transferred to their SaveOne account.

“Adding these products creates a frictionless experience for SocietyOne customers, who can now monitor and manage everyday transactions, savings, SocietyOne personal loans, and their credit score, all in one app,” said MONEYME COO Jonathan Chan. “With easy oversight and automated features to help customers save more, it provides increased control over their finances.”

SocietyOne was founded in 2012. Since then, the company’s platform has matched investors’ funds with over 35,000 customers and, last January, surpassed $1 billion in lending. SocietyOne is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MONEYME, which is listed on the ASX under the ticker MME and has a market capitalization of $220 million.

Photo by Christina Morillo

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