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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
It’s the Monday after FinovateSpring, which means there are plenty of new ideas about the future of banking and fintech to talk about. Meanwhile, the news keeps flowing. Here are the top fintech news highlights from the week. We’ll continue to add more announcements as the week progresses.
AI tools
Nscalesecures $790 million in financing to support AI infrastructure buildout in Norway.
Experianlaunches its “Know Your Agent” service, Experian Agent Trust.
Global Payments unveils AI-first handheld built for the future of commerce.
Loyalty and rewards
UalettlaunchesUalett Rewards to give back to gig workers.
Digital banking
A pair of Finovate Best of Show winners—core banking platform 10x Banking and provider of deterministic AI for legacy system understanding Tweezr—announce a partnership to make core transformation easier.
Data and technology company Experian launched its Experian Express solution this week.
Experian Express is a self-service platform that will enable smaller lenders such as credit unions and community banks to credential, onboard, and access credit reports through a fully online, fully digital process.
Experian made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2011. The company’s North American headquarters is in Costa Mesa, California.
International data and technology company Experian introduced its Experian Express solution this week. The new offering is a self-service platform that enables credit unions, community banks, and smaller lenders to digitally credential, onboard, and pull credit reports quickly and efficiently via a 100% online process. Experian Express provides data on more than 245 million credit-active consumers, ensures 99.9% data freshness in North America, and offers understandable, human-readable reports.
Writing about the new offering on the Experian blog, Nathalie Stecko, Marketing Program Manager for the company’s commercial solutions, highlighted the challenges faced by smaller lenders when it comes to securing reliable credit-reporting solutions. “Many available options frequently require technical integration, such as full Application Programming Interface (API) implementation or enterprise-level approvals, creating barriers that small lenders cannot easily overcome,” Stecko explained. “Minimum volume requirements further intensify the challenge, forcing smaller creditors to pay disproportionately high costs for the limited number of reports they need.”
Experian Express serves US lenders with lower-volume credit report access needs. The platform streamlines access to high-quality credit data, providing smaller lenders with real-time credentialing through a guided, online application process. Clients can choose between two subscription plans tailored for common credit workflows: the Essentials plan, suited for manual credit review, compliance checks, and basic fraud risk mitigation; and the Pro plan, which includes all Essentials features plus enhanced identity verification during the account opening process. Experian Express uses VantageScore 4.0, blending trended credit data with machine learning. This provides a more dynamic view of consumer credit behavior over the most recent 24 months. Clients can also enhance risk mitigation with built-in fraud prevention solutions such as Experian’s Fraud Shield or PreciseID.
“Small lenders play a vital role in expanding consumer access to credit,” Experian Chief Product and Analytics Officer Molly Poppie said. “Driven by our commitment to financial inclusion, Experian Express brings digital onboarding to a traditionally manual process, giving lenders a faster, more efficient way to obtain the credit insights they need to confidently extend credit and support consumers across the communities they serve.”
With North American headquarters in Costa Mesa, California, and a corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, Experian leverages data, analytics, and software to help redefine lending practices, fight fraud, and promote financial wellness. The company operates in markets such as financial services, insurance, agrifinance, healthcare, and more. Listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker EXPN, Experian has 22,500 employees across 32 countries.
With St. Patrick’s Day at the beginning of the week and the first day of spring at the end, it feels as if we are truly leaving winter behind us. Cacti are blooming here in the desert southwest and the fintech news —from new offerings in wealth management to the latest innovations in agentic AI—is flowing. Be sure to check back here at Finovate’s Fintech Rundown all week long for updates.
Digital banking
BankDhofarlaunchesNeo Corporate Internet Banking (Neo CIB), its next-generation digital banking platform.
DNERO, a neobank that caters to Latino customers, readies for a March 24 launch.
Digital asset wealth management platform Abraannounces plans to go public via SPAC merger with New Providence Acquisition Corp at a valuation of $750 million.
Sokinlaunches stablecoin capabilities to provide hybrid finance platform unifying digital assets and fiat.
Agentic AI
Lithuanian fintech Chaseit.aiintroduces AI agents to automate loan servicing and call center communications.
Integrated financial management platform for freelancers and gig economy workers, Finom, launches its embedded interest account.
Iwocaintroduces free financial health resources, including its Credit Compass, for small businesses in the UK.
Lending and Credit
Experian launches its AI-powered Experian Virtual Assistant (EVA) to deliver real-time, personalized financial insights and recommendations on financial products such as credit cards, loans, and insurance.
Ocrolusaccelerates automated conditioning for mortgage lenders with full lifecycle management.
Back end technology
FMSI and Applipartner to help credit union branches drive member revenue.
Experian has acquired AtData, US data and intelligence company.
The deal adds AtData’s more than 10 billion global email addresses to strengthen Experian’s identity and fraud capabilities.
Experian expects that integrating AtData’s real-time email intelligence into its broader consumer data and analytics platforms will support its clients’ AI-driven decisioning strategy.
Data analytics and consumer credit reporting company Experianannounced a key acquisition today. The Ireland-based firm has acquired US data and intelligence company AtData for an undisclosed amount.
AtData was founded in 1999 as TowerData, then combined with FreshAddress in 2021, and rebranded to AtData a year later. The company offers email address technology that helps thousands of organizations take control of their first-party email data collection to fuel marketing and minimize fraud.
Experian expects the acquisition to expand its existing data and identity assets by adding more than 10 billion email addresses of people across the globe. The company will combine AtData’s real-time data signals with its consumer data, analytics, and decisioning platforms to better allow its clients to identify, authenticate, and engage their customers across multiple channels.
For Experian, the acquisition is about strengthening identity resolution at a time when real-time signals and AI-driven decisioning are becoming table stakes. “Differentiated data and real-time identity signals are the ultimate advantage and increasingly important in the age of AI,” said Experian North America CEO Jeff Softley. “AtData brings deep email intelligence into our platform and further fuels our AI strategy. This isn’t just about adding capabilities; it’s about creating an integrated, durable identity solution that helps our clients deliver better experiences at every stage of the customer journey.”
Beyond expanding Experian’s identity stack, the deal highlights how the company is positioning itself amid an unsettled open banking landscape. As Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act remains tied up in a legal and regulatory debate, and data-sharing standards continue to vary by institution and use case, financial services firms are seeking more resilient ways to identify, authenticate, and engage customers. By expanding its identity stack beyond traditional credit data to include real-time email intelligence, Experian is betting on first-party identity as foundational infrastructure for AI-driven decisioning even as open banking remains in flux.
The acquisition comes 15 years after the two companies first teamed up. For AtData, the deal represents a natural evolution of a long-standing relationship between the two companies. “Our goal has always been to help our customers optimize their first-party email data collection, accelerate their marketing performance, minimize the cost of fraud, and drive their data-oriented business strategies,” said Tom Burke, CEO of AtData. “Experian has consistently set the standard for using data to drive trusted outcomes for businesses and consumers. Joining Experian enables us to combine complementary strengths and deepen the intelligence capabilities that power confident, real-world decisions.”
Founded in 1980 and originally known for its consumer credit reporting, Experian has extensive access to data and has added fraud prevention offerings, identity theft protection, credit building tools, and a loan comparison marketplace. On the commercial side, Experian provides a range of services for small businesses, including business credit reporting, marketing products and services, debt collection tools, and more.
Experian is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker EXPN. The company has a market capitalization of $31.6 billion.
Global data, technology, and analytics company Experian announced that its commercial data is now available on its Ascend platform.
The news means that companies using Ascend will be able to access and analyze Experian’s full commercial data suite within a single platform.
Founded in 2006, Experian has been a Finovate alum since 2011. The company’s corporate headquarters is in Dublin, Ireland.
Data, technology, and analytics company Experian reported today that its commercial data is now available on its Ascend platform. The company’s cloud-based analytics and decisioning solution, Ascend, combines Experian’s data assets and advanced analytics tools. The newly announced integration will enable companies to access and analyze Experian’s full commercial data suite within a single platform. This alleviates the need for separate integrations as well as manual data pulls.
Experian UK&I Chief Product Officer, Business Information, David Gallihawk said that the enhanced offering will help customers using the Ascend platform keep pace with the “ever-growing number (of) lenders and new products entering the market.” Gallihawk added, “Experian Ascend helps lenders retain customers, identify new opportunities, launch new products, and leverage data to automate processes. Clients can have an even better view of their customers and businesses so they can make smarter, faster decisions—all within one integrated platform.”
The need for access to commercial data is clear; Experian data supported at least two-thirds of SME borrowing in the UK in 2024. Commercial data provides in-depth, granular information on the borrowing and repayment history of more than eight million businesses in the UK. Access to this data will give lenders, businesses, and other organizations a more holistic view of company performance, enabling them to make better, faster, and more accurate lending decisions. The integration will provide quick and easy access to more than six years of full-file commercial credit data, including Commercial CAIS, Risk Scores, and CATO—along with their own internal datasets. Users can access the data via the Experian Analytical Sandbox on the Ascend platform.
Founded in 1996 and established as a standalone public company in 2006, Experian has been a Finovate alum since 2011. Today, the company is a FTSE 100 firm that helps institutions improve lending and fight fraud with a unique combination of data, analytics, and software that enables them to secure deeper insights into their customers. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and boasting 25,000+ employees in 32 countries, Experian has more than 208 million customers on its free platforms alone. Along with fellow Finovate alums TransUnion and Equifax, Experian is one of the Big Three credit reporting agencies in the US. Of the three, it has the most extensive operations in the UK and Europe.
2026 begins in earnest today as the first full working week of the year gets underway. Be sure to check in with Finovate’s Fintech Rundown over the next few days to get you up and running with the latest in fintech news and announcements!
Universal Exchange (UEX) Bitgetopens its TradFi trading suite to all users.
TradeStationunveils the upcoming launch of TITAN X, its next generation of its flagship trading platform designed for active traders.
Crypto and DeFi
Telcoin, a digital asset bank that just won final charter approval from the Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance, launches its eUSD stablecoin.
Kast, a financial platform built on stablecoin rails, expands global payouts to 11 new local currencies including GBP, EUR, and CAD, as well as a multiple currencies in the Asia Pacific region.
Partnerships in payments and lending as well as new offerings in fraud prevention and self-directed investing are among the fintech news headlines as the week begins. With Thanksgiving around the corner, keep an eye out for companies looking to make their big announcements before the holiday week begins. You’ll find those announcements right here on Finovate’s Fintech Rundown!
Lending
Carrington Labsunveils Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to enable lenders to access the company’s credit risk model outputs directly within agentic flows.
Digital payments network for insurers, One Inc., announced that Mutual Benefit Group has implemented its ClaimPay platform to enhance outbound disbursements.
Investing
Bettermentlaunches self-directed investing tool, enabling retail investors to buy and sell stocks and ETFs without paying commissions.
Payments
Sageintroduces its Finance Intelligence Agent, an intelligence layer that routes natural languages questions to AI agents, coordinates, responses, and composes a final actionable answer.
SaaS analytics platform Torusteams up with Japan’s TIS Corporation to launch Profit Improvement Support Service for Card Issuers and Acquirers.
Spend management company Expensify launches its contextual AI expense agent; becomes official travel and expense management partner for NBA franchise Brooklyn Nets.
A holiday-shortened week begins with Independence Day in the US celebrated on Friday. Be sure to check with Finovate’s Fintech Rundown for the latest fintech news as the second half of 2025 gets underway in earnest!
Digital banking
Greece-based core banking vendor Natechraises $33 million in Series B funding.
Financial data network Plaid has been in the fintech headlines of late for its new partnership with data and technology company Experian, and for the launch of its Plaid Protect fraud prevention solution.
“Today we’re launching Plaid Protect: a real-time fraud intelligence system that helps detect and prevent fraud from the moment a user first interacts with your app or service,” Plaid Head of Fraud Alain Meier wrote on the company blog. “By drawing on fraud signals across a billion devices in the Plaid network, Protect goes beyond what any single company can see—surfacing fraud patterns that exist between linked bank accounts, connections to financial apps and services, and more.”
Plaid Protect is built on an adaptive, machine learning-powered risk engine that provides real-time risk scores and attributes that evolve as the user context changes—from initial contact during onboarding through account linking to ongoing user activity. Calling their fraud model Trust Index (Ti), Plaid’s first production model can access 10,000 high-signal attributes including cross-app patterns, device history, bank account risk signals, and more. The Trust Index leverages network intelligence, bank account risk, consortium feedback, and advanced identity intelligence, keying in on fraud signals that are difficult for criminals to manipulate or fake. Plaid reported that one of the solution’s early adopters found in testing that enhancing verification for just 5% of its users would have intercepted nearly 40% of first-party fraud.
Currently available in beta, Plaid Protect provides an intuitive dashboard that uses semantic search powered by natural language. This means that users can ask questions about the data in plain English (i.e., “all users who opened new accounts in the last 30 days”) instead of needing to use SQL or custom queries.
“With this new lens on fraud, companies can reduce fraud losses, dramatically improve conversion, and make smarter decisions from the very first user interaction and every step thereafter,” Meier wrote.
Plaid’s new product announcement comes days after the company reported that it had partnered with fellow Finovate alum, Experian. The two firms have entered into a strategic collaboration designed to help businesses access cashflow solutions and expand financial inclusion.
“This is just the beginning of what we believe will be a very powerful relationship with Plaid,” Group President Financial Services of Experian North America Scott Brown said. “Together, we’re helping to accelerate the adoption of cashflow insights to drive faster decisions, stronger portfolios, and new financial opportunities for consumers. We’re achieving this while delivering an experience that is transparent and provides consumers with control every step of the way.”
Courtesy of the collaboration, financial institutions can access Plaid’s secure connectivity capabilities—used by 50% of all US bank account holders—and Experian’s expertise in advanced credit analytics and decisioning from a single solution. Once a borrower agrees to share cashflow data from their bank account as part of the loan application process, Plaid’s consumer reporting agency generates a Consumer Report on their behalf. The report is delivered securely to Experian which analyzes the applicant’s data, produces a predictive Cashflow Score or set of Cashflow Attributes, and delivers it to the lender in near real time.
The report features up to two years of historical data and cashflow information from 12,000+ financial institutions. Experian reports that its Cashflow Score provides an increase of as much as 25% in predictive performance compared to scores that rely on more conventional credit data. The new offering will empower banks, credit unions, and consumer lenders to accelerate decision-making, make more accurate risk assessments, and improve borrower outcomes.
“Our work with Experian is about removing long-standing barriers, making it easier for lenders to access consumer-permissioned data and make better decisions,” Plaid Chief Operating Officer Eric Sager said. “Together, we’re building a more inclusive, intelligent, and competitive financial system.”
Founded in 2013 by Zach Perret and William Hockey and headquartered in San Francisco, Plaid introduced itself to Finovate audiences at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. In the years since, the company has grown into a major financial data network covering more than 12,000 financial institutions in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe. With partners including Venmo and fellow Finovate alums SoFi and Betterment, Plaid works with fintechs, Fortune 500 companies, and leading banks to enable their customers to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they count on every day.
With Father’s Day behind us and the first official day of summer ahead, we keeping our eye on the fintech headlines as the summer news slump approaches. Be sure to check in with Finovate’s Fintech Rundown all week long for the latest announcements in the industry.
GrailPayraises $6.7 million to make ACH payments more secure.
Fiserv and Early Warning Servicescollaborate on Paze to provide financial institutions and merchants of all sizes with a convenient digital checkout solution for consumers.
Empower Federal Credit Union tapsIlluma to launch voice authentication.
Lending
Baker Hillunveils enhancements to its platform to help financial institutions better manage commercial real estate, CECL compliance, AI-driven compliance, agricultural spreading and financial analysis.
Finastra’sFilogixboosts Gen AI capabilities to empower mortgage brokers.
Digital banking
Digital banking solution provider for small businesses, Autobooks, introducesAutobooks Capital, powered by Fundbox, integrating business lending directly within the Autobooks platform.
The dust is still settling in the wake of Circle’s “buzzy IPO” in the words of MarketWatch. We’ll see if the fintech headlines can keep up this week!
Digital banking
KAF Digital Bank goes live with Temenos SaaS to bring Islamic digital banking services to customers in Malaysia.
ABN AMRO’s payment app Tikkie has developed a full-service bank, BUUT, that caters to younger customers.
Digital bank N26unveils an updated version of its premium subscription, N26 Go.
Open banking solutions provider Salt Edgepartners with digital banking experience platform Plumery.
Farsightraises $16 million in funding, announces Series A to automate financial workflows and decision-making.
Fraud prevention and identity verification
FrankieOne launches new risk and compliance platform that offers fraud detection and identity verification.
Cybercrime consultancy We Fight Fraud partners with Salv to facilitate intelligence sharing between financial institutions in Europe.
Regtech iDenfyteams up with international hosting provider SpaceCore to bring optimized customer verification to global hosting.
The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the Bank of England (BoE) collaborate on testing to see if AI can spot fraudulent activity in retail payments data.
AML and CFT solutions provider AMLYZEonboards Advanzia Bank as part of its European expansion.
Veleraadds real-time account validation functionality to digital channels.
Legislation in California moves forward to give the state authority to seize unclaimed cryptocurrency assets held on exchanges after three years of inactivity.
The arrival of Daylight Savings Time in much of the West is yet another reminder that Spring is right around the corner. Here’s Finovate’s Fintech Rundown with some fintech news—including some funding and partnership news from a handful of long-time Finovate alums—to help you get caught up on the latest updates and announcements in our industry.
Worthsecures $25 million investment led by TTV Capital to drive major enterprise growth and expand workflow automation solutions.
Dwolla announces the general availability of its expanded integration with Plaid, allowing its clients to leverage Plaid’s instant account verification and real-time balance check and pay-by-bank payments.
