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Acquisitions, Partnerships, and Pivots: Getting In On the Buy Now Pay Later Revolution

Acquisitions, Partnerships, and Pivots: Getting In On the Buy Now Pay Later Revolution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, List series

From partnership to acquisition, the Buy Now Pay Later revolution shows few signs, if any, of abating any time soon.

Apple, one of the Big Tech companies that has been aggressive in its expansion into fintech and financial services, recently announced that it is teaming up with BNPL company Affirm Holdings to offer new, interest-free financing options for qualifying Apple customers in Canada. The new program enables consumers to finance iPhone purchases over a 24-month period and iPad and Mac purchases over a 12-month period, both with 0% APR.

The new initiative comes a month after Apple announced that it was teaming up with Goldman Sachs to help introduce its own Buy Now Pay Later service – ostensibly to rival companies like the aforementioned Affirm. The offering will reportedly be called Apple Pay Later.

And filed in the “if you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em” folder is the news from London, U.K.-based Buy Now Pay Later company Zilch. The firm agreed this week to acquire San Francisco, California-based debt funding platform Neptune Financial as part of setting up shop in the U.S. “We’ve been exploring growth options in the U.S. for some time and following the additional funding,” Zilch founder and CEO Philip Belamant said. “Now was the perfect time to take another meaningful step towards our U.S. launch.”

Zilch’s acquisition news comes less than a month after the company secured $110 million as part of an extension of its Series B round. One of the first Buy Now Pay Later firms in the U.K. (founded in 2018), Zilch enables consumers to pay for purchases using their virtual Zilch card by splitting their transaction into four, interest-free payments over a six week period. The company has raised more than $200 million and boasts 150,000 new sign-ups a month for its BNPL services.

One of the more interesting pivots in the BNPL space of late was an internal one as Canada’s Scotiabank announced that it will convert its credit card repayments into BNPL plans. The new arrangement will give cardholders the ability to pay off their debt balances in fixed installments over three-, six-, or 12-month periods.

“Our customers told us that they’re looking for more options to help them manage their finances,” Scotiabank SVP for Credit Cards and Lending Brett Mooney explained. “This new credit card feature offers our customers more flexibility in how they pay for purchases, in addition to the convenience, rewards and lifestyle benefits that our credit cards already provide.”

The new service is called Scotia SelectPay and can be accessed via the Scotia mobile banking app as well as online. Purchases of more than $100 are eligible for the new financing option, which requires no additional credit check or application.

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RightCapital Launches Dynamic Retirement Spending Strategies

RightCapital Launches Dynamic Retirement Spending Strategies
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, RightCapital

Financial planning software company RightCapital unveiled new dynamic retirement spending strategies on its platform this week. The new offering gives investors the ability to better plan their finances once their working days are done.

“The industry has been using a rather simple retirement expense approach in the financial planning process for many years,” RightCapital CEO Shuang Chen said. “The ability to offer multiple options for retirement spending within our comprehensive planning tool is a significant step forward.”

Traditionally, financial planners have relied on an inflation-adjusted retirement spending model which focuses on a single input – the rising cost of living – to anticipate an increase in retirement spending each year. One criticism of this approach is that it does not account for changes in an individual’s portfolio that might significantly affect how much they are able to spend in retirement. RightCapital’s new offering factors in changes in portfolio value, reducing retirement spending projections when the portfolio loses value and giving investors the option to spend more in retirement should their portfolio significantly increase in value. The two dynamic strategies – referred to as guardrail and floor and ceiling – enable retirement spending to adjust in sync with portfolio performance and investment strategy parameters rather than being limited to tracking the rate of inflation.

Dynamic strategies such as those now available on the RightCapital platform more accurately reflect how individuals respond to changes in their investments in the real world. As Michael Kitces, Chief Financial Planning Nerd for Kitces.com and Head of Planning Strategy for Buckingham Wealth Partners explained, “as advisors, we cannot eliminate the uncertainty of markets themselves, but tools like RightCapital’s dynamic spending can help eliminate the uncertainty for clients of what they’d have to do in response to those market events, facilitating better client conversations about how to keep their retirement on track.”

Other features of RightCapital’s dynamic retirement spending strategies include the ability to customize spending levels by age, anticipating a higher level of spending early in the investor’s retirement life and tapering off as the investor ages. The strategies can also incorporate changes in healthcare expenditures over the course of the investor’s retirement, as well.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut, RightCapital demonstrated its technology most recently at FinovateSpring in 2019. At the conference, the RightCapital team demonstrated the company’s API/Enterprise solution, which gives financial advisors the ability to offer their clients access to custom applications ranging from PFM to account aggregation to secure document sharing. In June, RightCapital announced that it would “enhance (its) integration” with partner Riskalyze, a specialist in risk alignment and portfolio analytics. Also that month, RightCapital and a coalition of fintechs including fellow Finovate alum Betterment launched the RIA Tech Suite to provide financial advisors with services and tools to automate back-office operations.

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Banking-as-a-Service Innovator NYMBUS Secures $3 Million in New Funding

Banking-as-a-Service Innovator NYMBUS Secures $3 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, NYMBUS

In a round led by OFG Ventures – a subsidiary of OFG Bancorp – bank technology solution provider NYMBUS has secured $3 million in new funding.

“Our mission has remained steadfast to help financial institutions of any size succeed with impactful, intentional innovation,” Nymbus CEO and Chairman Jeffery Kendall said. “OFG Ventures’ investment is an added vote-of-confidence to the value our strategy brings to an industry widely in need of immediate and sustainable business growth opportunities.”

Most recently demonstrating its technology two years ago at FinovateFall, banking-as-a-service innovator Nymbus provides financial institutions with both the technical and operational tools necessary to digitally transform their businesses. The company’s solutions – ranging from its flagship SmartCore, SmartDigital, and SmartPayments offerings to its full-service, standalone digital banking alternative SmartLaunch – give banks, credit unions, and other financial services-based companies greater ability to streamline processes and offer new digital services – without requiring a major core conversion or significant additional human resources.

This week’s investment is only the latest infusion of capital the Miami Beach, Florida-based fintech has received this year. The company picked up $15 million in funding from private equity firm Financial Services Capital this spring and, in February, Nymbus announced a $53 million Series C round led by Insight Partners. The company’s total funding now stands at more than $121 million, according to Crunchbase.

Nymbus has been one of the busier banking-as-a-service innovators of late, partnering with a variety of fintechs and financial institutions in the past year. These partnerships have included collaborations with fellow Finovate alums like Plaid and Segmint, credit unions and challenger banks like VyStar CU and PeoplesBank’s ZYNLO Bank, as well as with innovators in open finance and cryptocurrencies like Red Hat and NYDIG. The company also launched a new credit union service organization (CUSO) in March, Nymbus CUSO, to help credit unions take better advantage of fintech offerings that can enable them to create new revenue opportunities and boost engagement with their members.

“Our CUSO signifies a commitment to credit unions by providing strategic partnerships and flexible technology that will create sustainable growth and loyal members,” Kendall said when the new organization was introduced earlier this year. “For those wanting to innovate, Nymbus CUSO moves past traditional vendor thinking to create supportive structures for credit unions ready to grow and reach new niche markets.”

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FintechOS Raises $10 Million to Help Banks Deliver on Financial Inclusion

FintechOS Raises $10 Million to Help Banks Deliver on Financial Inclusion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Fintech OS, Funding

London-based financial services technology provider FintechOS secured $10 million in funding from the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group. The investment is part of the company’s $60 million Series B round, announced in April, and will support FintechOS’ goals of promoting financial inclusion by helping FIs expand access to financial services to un- and underbanked communities.

Many fintechs talk the financial inclusion talk. But even those companies committed to serving overlooked individuals and communities, often discover that actually “walking the walk” on financial inclusion can be more difficult than it seems at first. Speaking to this conundrum, FintechOS co-founder and CEO Teodor Blidarus said, “today financial technology is too often an inhibitor rather than an enabler of inclusion. Financial institutions both large and small simply don’t have the right tools at the right price point to meet market demands.” Blidarus highlighted enabling technologies like low-code, but lamented that these solutions remain under-utilized. “And this impacts those at the bottom of the (financial) pyramid most acutely,” he added.

For financial institutions eager to undergo digital transformation, FintechOS offers an alternative to what it calls “painful rip-and-replace” approaches to the transformation journey. Instead, FintechOS provides a low-code, plug and play strategy that enables banks and insurance firms to take advantage of digital end-to-end services, automated processes, and personalized, customer-centric solutions “in weeks, not months.”

FintechOS made its Finovate debut in 2018, demonstrating its platform at FinovateEurope in London. More recently, the company released its Configuration Management update, which boosts FintechOS’ scalability and helps pave the way for full Git integration. Git is a change-tracking software that helps developers collaborate during the source code writing process. The technology enables distributed teams to write code, test new functionalities, and securely deploy new versions.

“Configuration Management will make life easier for developers and streamline the wider operation of the FintechOS platform,” Blidarus explained. He added that full Git integration “will help our clients self-serve and customize their enterprise-grade solutions based on our technology.”

Recognized last month as the 2021 Microsoft Romania Partner of the Year, FintechOS includes Reliance Bank, Raiffeisen Bank, Societe General, and Vienna Insurance Group among its more than 40 partners around the world. This spring, the company’s founders, who hail from Romania, became the first Romanians to join Endeavor’s global community supporting “high-impact entrepreneurs.”

“For the Romanian entrepreneurial ecosystem, the selection of FintechOS in the Endeavor Network is a confirmation of the value and the huge development potential of Romanian companies in a truly global setting,” Endeavor Romania board chair Marius Stefan said. “We are eager to discover together other innovative companies and other entrepreneurs as focused and enthusiastic as (co-founders) Teodor and Sergiu (Negut) and enhance their development with the help of Endeavor.”

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CuneXus Inks Pact with Origence to Streamline Digital Lending

CuneXus Inks Pact with Origence to Streamline Digital Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, CUneXus, CUneXus Solutions, Daily news

A strategic partnership between digital lending solution provider CuneXus and lending technology company Origence will give more than 1,100 credit unions the ability to offer their members access to personalized, pre-approved financing offers.

“We are focused on changing the way credit unions interact with their members, and this means tearing down old, and painful banking experiences” CuneXus co-founder and President Dave Buerger said. “We’re empowering people with unrivaled transparency and convenience, and this partnership with Origence makes that easily accessible to many more credit unions and consumers. Together we can provide the modern seamless lending experience that members deserve, one that equips them for financial excellence.”

The partnership allows credit unions to access CuneXus’ digital storefront, which leverages a proactive, “Perpetual Approval” approach that continuously analyzes hundreds of internal and external data points to ensure that qualified borrowers can get personalized loan offers, while simultaneously helping keep the credit union “top of mind” whenever one of its members has expressed an interest in securing financing. The methodology exchanges the typical credit application process for an ongoing automated credit approval that make the financing process less complicated for credit union members.

VP of Strategic Alliances at Origence, Aleks Bogoeski, said that the partnership with CuneXus comes at an opportune moment as consumer behavior and spending begins to rebound in the wake of COVID-19. “Our partnership with CuneXus provides a timely opportunity for credit unions to implement a dynamic digital experience that further simplifies the lending process, as member spending returns to a normal, post-pandemic pace,” Bogoeski said. “We are happy to have partnered with CuneXus to bring this service to our credit unions.”

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Santa Rosa, California, CuneXus made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014. In the years since, the company has grown to serve more than 145 of the biggest lenders in the U.S. with its digital storefront, helping these institutions increase wallet share, generate branch revenue, and grow non-interest income. CuneXus clients represent more than $400 billion in combined assets and serve 20 million customers and members.

CuneXus was acquired by CUNA Mutual Group in the fall of last year. Announcing the move, CUNA Mutual president and CEO Robert N. Trunzo highlighted CuneXus’ “growth trajectory” – as well as its expertise and products – as features that would enhance CUNA Mutual Group’s opportunity for growth. “We are continuing our journey into a more diverse, digital-first world,” Trunzo said. “Our company is committed to using technology to enhance consumers’ access to financial solutions that work for them and create a more equitable financial system and society. This is a top priority for all of our core businesses.”

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Behalf Raises $100 Million Debt Facility for B2B BNPL Offering

Behalf Raises $100 Million Debt Facility for B2B BNPL Offering
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Blend, Daily news, Funding

Now more small businesses can get in on the Buy Now Pay Later game just like retail consumers.

Courtesy of a new $100 million debt facility, small business financing company Behalf will be able to make its In-Purchase Financing offering available to a broader range of B2B merchants and their small business customers. In-Purchase Financing gives B2B merchants the same sort of Buy Now Pay Later benefits that retail consumers enjoy, and includes a range of features designed especially to meet the needs of B2B commerce. The facility was provided by funds managed by Ares Management Corporation.

Behalf also announced $19 million in new venture financing led by MissionOG, Viola Growth, Viola Credit, and Vintage Investment Partners. Migdal Insurance and La Maison Partners also participated in the round. Behalf’s total funding now stands at more than $250 million.

Describing the B2B e-commerce market as more than ready for transformation, Behalf CEO Rob Rosenblatt said that in-purchase financing gives merchants the opportunity to source new revenues. The offering also gives small and medium-sized businesses access to an affordable financing alternative.

“Even as the U.S. economy is improving, SMBs continue to seek financial assistance to purchase critical supplies, inventory and equipment,” Rosenblatt explained. “Oftentimes they lack the requisite spend capacity on their personal or business credit cards. By offering In-Purchase Financing with flexible terms, B2B merchants can increase average order size by as much as 50-80 percent while reducing their risk, improving cash flow and driving operational efficiencies,” he said.

Among the features included in Behalf’s In-Purchase Financing solution are:

  • Seamless checkout to improve CX and customer loyalty
  • Easy integration with existing point-of-sale systems
  • Advanced underwriting and scoring models to handle the complexity and risk of SME lending

The solution scales to enable merchants to serve a range of business customers, from small to large, and supports financing for transactions of “significantly greater” average order value relative to consumer financing options.

“We think there is a great market opportunity for a B2B offering targeting the more complex, real-time financing needs of SMBs,” Ares Credit Group Partner Jeffrey Kramer said. “We are excited to provide a debt facility that will help support the company to achieve its growth objectives.”

Founded in 2011, Behalf made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall three years later. Since then, the company has enabled its B2B merchant partners to achieve an 83% increase in Average Order Value (AOV), an 80% gain in purchase frequency, and 44% growth in sales revenue.

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StackSource Brings Innovation to Commercial Real Estate Lending

StackSource Brings Innovation to Commercial Real Estate Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Daily news

Fintech’s innovations in the real estate market for homebuyers have prompted the emergence of an entire new kind of fintech company, the mortgagetech, that specializes in leveraging technology to improve the homebuying experience for all parties involved.

Less discussed are the ways that technology is helping those involved in the commercial end of the real estate market do their jobs better and more efficiently. To this end, we caught up with Tim Milazzo, co-founder and CEO of StackSource, a company that connects borrowers and lenders seeking commercial real estate financing.

Headquartered in New York City and founded in 2015, StackSource recently made fintech headlines with the appointment of commercial real estate industry veteran Richard Caldwell as EVP – Head of Originations. We talked with Milazzo via email about his company, how it serves the CRE industry, and the importance of blending technical innovation with human experience and talent.

What problem does your technology solve and who does it solve it for? 

Tim Milazzo: StackSource simplifies the process of finding the best commercial mortgage for a given property investment by tracking the loan programs of hundreds of active lenders and offering borrowers a transparent experience.

Commercial mortgage brokerage has traditionally been a local, relationship-driven game. If you’re buying a home in 2021, you can know your rate and get pre-approved for a mortgage in minutes. But in commercial real estate, finding the right financing is only unlocked by developing relationships with the right set of lenders based on dozens of variables from the property’s asset type, location, income, and physical characteristics, as well as the borrower’s track record, financial strength, and business plan. We’ve streamlined that process of finding and connecting with suitable lenders to boost the investors’ financial returns with the right debt.

What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge? 

Milazzo: My first exposure to commercial real estate was through family ties. My father was a successful commercial real estate broker in New York City, so I’d hear stories about office building negotiations at the dinner table growing up. While I went to college to study Finance, I interned at a large real estate firm, where I was known as the smart spreadsheet kid that sat in the corner. Honestly, I didn’t come away with a big interest in the industry at that time; my eye was on big tech companies. I went on to work in advertising technology, first with Google and later with Facebook. I came back to commercial real estate because I found an area where online technology could deliver a superior value proposition: helping investors find the best financing for a commercial property investment without the need to track hundreds of lenders’ programs themselves.

What do you think is the most misunderstood aspect of investing in commercial real estate? 

Milazzo: Many old-school brokers are quick to point out that commercial real estate is a “relationship business.” And that’s true. But what’s missed is the fact that it’s also an information business. If you can leverage the correct information, you can scale beyond your local relationships in the capital markets, which is a significant advantage.

You recently launched a new Chrome browser extension to make the discovery process easier. Can you tell us more about this feature?

Milazzo: We’ve been delivering competitive financing quotes to real estate investor clients for a couple of years now. Still, we wanted to go the extra mile in the name of transparency and efficiency. We came up with a tool that draws on our pool of loan quote data to allow real estate investors to apply financing quotes to any commercial property listing across the web and analyze potential investment opportunities. Sourcing acquisition opportunities is a competitive process, and this tool can add speed and accuracy to acquisition analysis. It’s completely free and open, with no obligation to use our financing service.

One interesting aspect of StackSource is how you combine a technology platform with a fleet of experienced industry veterans. How do you see the balance between enabling technologies and “the human touch”? 

Milazzo: The commercial mortgage space is not nearly as commoditized as residential mortgages. Even in the most “simple” commercial mortgage lending scenarios, where we can go as far as automating an instant soft quote, these are major financial investments, and borrowers want the guidance of an experienced Capital Advisor from submission to close.

How did COVID-19 impact your business and customers?

Milazzo: We doubled our market share in 2020 as many investors were looking for answers on how to secure the best financing for their real estate investment properties. People were staying home, and our online process is easy to access from anywhere, which was especially attractive. At the same time, funding from many local banks was pulled back in response to the pandemic. We even saw many traditional financing sources get distracted by things like issuing PPP loans, while we kept our focus on the long-term and stayed exclusively focused on commercial real estate.

What can we expect from StackSource over the balance of 2021? 

Milazzo: We just raised our first proper fundraising round for the company in Q2, allowing us to push the limits of how efficient the commercial mortgage origination process can become. Think automated quotes on specific qualified properties and integrating additional data sources seamlessly into the investment and financing process.

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CreditRich Founder Angel Rich to Take Financial Literacy to the Next Level

CreditRich Founder Angel Rich to Take Financial Literacy to the Next Level
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Diversity in Fintech, Partnership Outlook

Not all partnerships in fintech involve companies. In fact, one of the most interesting partnerships in fintech in recent days might be a union between people – not an alliance among corporations.

Angel Rich, who made history this spring as the first African-American woman to secure an institutional partnership with one of the Big Three major credit bureaus, announced her engagement to Karl Jones, Director of Corporate Partnerships at ansrsource, this week. “What’s better than one future Black billionaire?” Rich asked on her LinkedIn page by way of sharing the engagement news. “Two. Thanks for all of your love and support on our engagement. Karl Jones and I are very excited to make an impact with our union.”

Rich’s company, WealthyLife, launched its AI-powered fintech app, CreditRich in April, collaborating with Finovate/FinDEVr alum Experian. The app enables individuals to use their spare change or “round ups” to pay for bills and other expenses. CreditRich promotes financial wellness by allowing users to prioritize debt payments – or to use the app’s algorithm to find and pay first those bills that have the most impact on the user’s credit score. Users can make one-time deposits to accelerate any debt repayment, as well as make contributions to a family member’s account to enable them to pay down debt and improve their credit score. The CreditRich app is currently available on the Android operating system, with an iOS expected soon.

“It makes sense to put financial literacy, intelligent billpay, and credit management together on a smartphone to help people increase their credit scores faster and easier,” Rich said late last year on the news that actor, singer, and songwriter Naturi Naughton had joined WealthyLife as Chief Branding Officer. “I don’t want people to experience the same hurdles I did after graduating from college with $180,000 of debt.”

Also the founder of Black Tech Matters, an organization dedicated to promoting ethnic diversity in STEM, Rich said she is looking forward to collaborating with Jones to advance financial education technology solutions. ansrsource, where Jones is Director of Corporate Partnerships, specializes in helping companies leverage digital technology to enhance their training and development strategies. The Dallas, Texas-based company’s clients range from 42,000-student Arizona State University to construction manufacturing firm Hilti.

As BlackNews.com noted, the union between financial literacy and digital education represented by Rich and Jones also represents a union of rivals. Rich is an alum of the famous HBCU (historically black college/university) Hampton University in Virginia. Jones is a graduate of the equally-legendary HBCU Howard University in Washington, D.C.

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B2B Payments Innovator Paystand Secures $50 Million in Series C Funding

B2B Payments Innovator Paystand Secures $50 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, PayStand

In a round led by new investor NewView Capital, blockchain-based commercial payments innovator Paystand has raised $50 million in funding. The company leverages the cloud and the Ethereum blockchain to power its Paystand Bank Network, a no-fee, digital B2B payment system used by more than 250,000 companies to make payments.

“With this new funding, Paystand is uniquely positioned to bring the benefits of blockchain to commercial payments so businesses can be more agile and competitive in the post-pandemic landscape,” Paystand CEO Jeremy Almond said. “Our vision is to create an open financial infrastructure that delivers a self-driving money experience for businesses and provides radically better economics for the industry itself.”

The investment takes Paystand’s total capital to more than $78 million. Also participating in this week’s financing were SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund, King River Capital, Industrious Ventures, and Transform Capital. As part of the investment, NewView Capital’s Jazmin Medina will join Paystand’s board of directors.

Paystand’s innovation is to automate the entire cash lifecycle to enable businesses to enhance the overall customer experience with seamless, B2B payment options. The company’s technology helps businesses accelerate time-to-cash, lower DSO (daily sales outstanding) by 60% or more, as well as reduce fraud and chargebacks thanks to real-time fund verification. And instead of charging businesses a percentage on each transaction, Paystand’s business model relies on subscriptions which the company says allows businesses to scale their payments operations without having to worry about dramatically increased fee-per-transaction expenses.

An alum of our developers conference, FinDEVr, Paystand was among the many fintechs who was able to turn the crisis of the global pandemic into an opportunity to support businesses that suddenly found themselves sprinting toward digital transformation. In a blog post discussing the challenges facing businesses during this time, Almond noted that while many companies had already migrated to the cloud for their “systems of record” (i.e., CRM, ERP, etc.), the “critical component” and “last mile” of digital transformation – revenue – was left underaddressed.

“Finance teams found themselves forced to return to the office at the height of COVID-19 outbreaks just to pick up checks and deal with cash flow,” Almond wrote, “something that clearly exposed the backwards nature of the legacy payment system.”

In May, Paystand inked a partnership with cloud business management solution provider Sage to enable a “Venmo for Businesses” like service via Paystand’s B2B payment network. The following month, the Scotts Valley, California-based fintech launched its Smart Lockbox, a digital-first alternative to traditional lockbox services. Smart Lockbox enhances the ability of businesses to transition away from paper-based payments to faster, less expensive, digital options, and makes migration easy with a seamless, one-click process.

“Smart Lockbox is the key tool that helps companies seamlessly bring their mission-critical revenue into the digital age,” Almond said when the solution was announced. “In a post-pandemic world, everything looks very different. COVID supercharged the push for digital transformation across the board for businesses, and there’s no question that this shift is here to stay. Now, with Smart Lockbox, finance teams can turn their biggest headaches into a newfound source of power.”

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AuthenticID Scores $100 Million in New Funding

AuthenticID Scores $100 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, authenticID, Daily news, Funding

AuthenticID, an identity proofing solution provider for the enterprise, has raised $100 million in funding from Long Ridge Partners. The investment will help the company continue to bring innovative identity proofing solutions to its customers in financial services, telecommunications, government, and other sectors.

“Our platform is relied upon by a majority of the U.S. wireless carriers and various identity platform to securely establish identity,” AuthenticID CEO Jeff S. Jani said. “Our differentiator is the significant ROI we deliver to customers, from stopping more fraud to converting more sales than our digital identity competitors. Our mission is to improve the security for all of our collective identities.”

Union Square Advisors, a boutique technology-focused investment bank, served as AuthenticID’s financial advisor in the transaction.

AuthenticID gives businesses the ability to conduct document-centric identity verification with a high degree of accuracy and fast processing times. The 100% automated solution helps companies increase conversion rates and eliminate fraud at a time when businesses are seeing a surge in the volume of customers who need to be digitally onboarded in order to use their services. AuthenticID leverages machine learning algorithms, AI-powered neural networks, and state-of-the-art computer vision to determine when photos and faces do not match, whether identification documents are fraudulent, and if either the name or face being analyzed has been associated with suspicious activity in the past.

Founded in 2001 by Blair Cohen, AuthenticID made its Finovate debut two years later at FinovateSpring. In the years since, AuthenticID has brought its technology to ten companies in the Fortune 100, three of the top U.S. banks, two of the top three credit reporting agencies, and three of the top five telecommunications companies in the U.S., as well as several international banks and companies around the world. Earlier this month, the company announced that it had reached a new milestone with the launch of its new enterprise-grade SaaS system that can process nearly 35 million identity proofing transactions in a day and more than one billion in a single month.

“AuthenticID has built a market-leading computer vision system to meet the ever-growing requirements of this market,” AuthenticID Chief Technology Officer Richard Huber Jr. said when the milestone was announced. “Our system sets a new standard for reliably and accurately verifying anyone’s identity from anywhere in the world.”

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India and Nigeria Consider CBDCs as Study Shows Strong Consumer Enthusiasm and Trust

India and Nigeria Consider CBDCs as Study Shows Strong Consumer Enthusiasm and Trust
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global

Two of their respective regions’ most powerful economies are moving closer to the issuance of Central Bank Digital Currencies or CBDCs. In India, Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Shri T. Rabi Sanker said that the bank is working toward a “phased implementation strategy” that would further the country’s multi-year effort to transition its citizens away from cash. India’s efforts to remove cash from the economy, including innovations like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and the RuPay network have become increasingly accepted by Indian citizens. But both, as far as Sanker are concerned, face challenges from the persistence of cash and the promise of CBDCs.

With regard to the latter, Sanker has encouraged observers to envision a UPI system based on CBDCs rather than bank balances. In such a framework, there would be no need for interbank settlement and payment systems worldwide could benefit from greater cost efficiencies and faster, even real-time, transaction settlement. As far as the persistence of cash is concerned, small value transactions still make up most cash purchases in the country. But even here Sanker believes that with certain guarantees like transaction anonymity, CBDCs could be efficiently used for these transactions, as well.

Meanwhile in Africa, Rakiya Mohammed, Formation Technology Director for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) told an audience recently that the country will launch its CBDC pilot on the first of October. The project, called Giant, has been in development since 2017 and runs on the open source blockchain Hyperledger fabric. The bank hopes that a CBDC will help support macro and growth management – as well as cross-border trade – and facilitate financial inclusion. Mohammed reportedly cited FOMO – fear of missing out – as one reason why the CBN could not risk sitting on the sidelines while other central banks around the world launched CBDC-related projects and initiatives.

The demand for CBDCs remains an open question to some degree. But proponents of the technology can take heart in a recent study conducted by European deep tech company Guardtime. The firm took a look at opinions toward CBDCs in ten countries including countries in Europe and Asia, as well as in the United States and the UAE. The study revealed that a majority of adults (64%) said that they would be likely to use a digital currency offered by their country’s central bank, with 33% saying they would be “very likely” to use a CBDC. Only 10% of respondents said they would “never” use a CBDC. The CBDC favorable position maintained a healthy lead over CBDC rejection both when it came to converting savings to CBDCs (59% support versus 11% “never”) and being paid in CBDCs (57% support versus 12% “never”).

Summing up the positive results for CBDCs suggested by the study, Guardtime Head of Strategy Luukas Ilves observed, “it is fascinating to see that 64% of people would be willing to use CBDCs – even though they have not been launched yet – and are happy to support and trust Central Banks to ensure digital currencies are delivered.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

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Currencycloud Valued at $963 Million On News of Visa Acquisition

Currencycloud Valued at $963 Million On News of Visa Acquisition
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Acquisition, Alumni News, Currency Cloud, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, VISA

Global payments platform Currencycloud is the latest fintech to catch the eye of Visa, which announced this week that it has agreed to acquire the London-based fintech in a deal that values the company at $963 million (GBP 700 million). The acquisition announcement noted that the pact builds on a partnership that extends back to 2019 and bolsters Visa’s foreign exchange capabilities, enabling them to better serve FIs, fintechs, and other partners, as well as help them explore new use cases and payment flows.

“At Currencycloud, we’ve always strived to deliver a better tomorrow for all, from the smallest start-up to the global multi-nationals,” Currencycloud CEO Mike Laven said. “Re-imagining how money flows around the global economy just got more exciting as we join Visa.” Laven added that bringing Currencycloud’s expertise in fintech to Visa’s network will “enable us to deliver greater customer value to the businesses moving money across borders.”

Currencycloud will continue to operate out of its London, U.K. headquarters and its current management team will remain intact.

The acquisition news comes just a few weeks after the Currencycloud announced a partnership with Global Processing Services (GPS) to expand access to cross-border payments. The collaboration will give fintechs the ability to enhance their current product offerings with products like multi-currency digital wallets and services like point-of-sale foreign exchange.

“For Fintechs, building a multi-currency solution requires a huge effort across multiple functional and regulatory domains,” Currencycloud co-founder and VP of Partnerships & Enterprise Stephen Lemon explained when the collaboration was announced in June. “By working with Currencycloud and GPS, fintechs can reduce the complexity involved and get to market much more quickly for a fraction of the cost of self-building, while vastly reducing ongoing operational risk and overhead.”

A Finovate alum for more than six years, Currencycloud most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage in 2018, where the company presented its Global Collections product. Since then, Currencycloud has grown into a platform whose APIs have enabled processing of more than $100 billion in transactions for companies ranging from neobanks to financial services corporations. Currencycloud currently supports nearly 500 bank and fintech customers, reaching more than 180 countries.

Photo by Brixiv from Pexels

 

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