Feedzai Acquires Demyst to Enhance Data Orchestration

Feedzai Acquires Demyst to Enhance Data Orchestration
  • Feedzai is acquiring Demyst to unify its AI-powered risk management with external data orchestration, enabling faster, smarter fraud detection and compliance decisions.
  • The integration of Demyst’s Zonic platform will help financial institutions streamline onboarding, enhance fraud prediction, and reduce friction in real-time risk operations.
  • As demand grows for dynamic, real-time data in financial services, this deal will enable Feedzai to offer a more comprehensive risk intelligence platform.

Risk management provider Feedzai is acquiring data-as-a-service (DaaS) platform Demyst this week. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Feedzai will use Demyst to unify its risk management solutions with external data orchestration to offer faster, smarter fraud detection.

“There is no shortage of data in our industry—the trick is how to access the right data as quickly as possible so that you can accelerate risk decisions with the fewest consumer friction points,” said Feedzai CEO and Co-founder Nuno Sebastiao. “Demyst is a first mover and leader in accessing necessary data—internal or external—at the critical moment for any part of the user journey. Paired with Feedzai’s market-leading AI, this ensures every data point is fully utilized to drive smarter and faster decisions. More broadly, this acquisition marks a pivotal moment in continuing Feedzai’s evolution from a data consumer to a data provider.”

Feedzai aims to leverage Demyst’s Zonic data workflow orchestration platform, intellectual property, and sophisticated data-integration capabilities to unify data orchestration and risk management into a single platform. Together, the two companies will deliver a data orchestration platform with fraud prevention measures, enhanced account opening capabilities, contextual intelligence for fraud prediction and prevention, better customer experiences, improved risk insights, and operational efficiency.

Founded in 2011, Feedzai is a risk operations platform specializing in identity verification, fraud prevention, and financial crime detection. The company’s AI-powered solutions span KYC, AML, watchlist screening, and transaction fraud monitoring to help financial institutions stop fraud in real time without compromising the customer experience. Today, Feedzai protects over one billion consumers in more than 190 countries and safeguards over $8 billion in transactions annually.

“External data is the next frontier of business impact for financial institutions, yet it is notoriously complex, involving a labyrinth of sources for KYC/AML, identity, fraud, credit checks, and compliance,” said Demyst CEO Mark Hookey. “We’re thrilled to join Feedzai to bring AI and data together at scale for our customers. Together we are building the most advanced solution for customer onboarding, fraud prevention, and risk management.”

Hookey, along with other key members of the Demyst team, will remain with Feedzai.

Demyst was founded in 2010 as an external data platform that enables financial institutions to discover, evaluate, and deploy third-party data quickly and securely. By streamlining access to hundreds of curated data providers across categories like identity, income, business verification, and credit risk, Demyst helps banks and fintechs make smarter decisions faster, without the typical data integration friction.

The deal highlights a growing interest in data orchestration and AI-driven risk management. As financial services companies grapple with increasingly sophisticated fraud tactics and regulatory demands, the ability to access, integrate, and act on real-time data is becoming crucial, especially as the costs of accessing and analyzing the data are increasing. By combining Feedzai’s AI and risk operations platform with Demyst’s external data orchestration capabilities, the deal positions Feedzai to offer a more holistic, end-to-end risk intelligence solution.


Photo by Markus Spiske

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

This week marks Eid al-Fitr, the festival celebrating the end of Ramadan and the breaking of a month-long fast. Similarly, the close of this quarter feels like fintech is breaking its own fast, with Klarna filing its IPO prospectus, Rocket Companies announcing major acquisitions of Mr. Cooper and Redfin, and regulatory frameworks beginning to ease in the U.S. As we enter into the second quarter, here’s a look at this week’s fintech news as we leave the time of fasting behind. We’ll continue adding news to this post throughout the week, so stay tuned!

Digital banking

Border Bank chooses Jack Henry for technology modernization.

Y-12 Federal Credit Union upgrades ATM fleet to enhance self-service banking with NCR Atleos.

Lending

Financial services document automation and analysis company Ocrolus announces strategic partnership with digital consultancy Entech.

Finastra‘s cloud-based loan document preparation system LaserPro unveils enhanced features and sees further adoption by community-based financial institutions.

Business financial management

Tesorio launches AI agent that autonomously manages portal-based invoicing.

Enterprise spend management platform Mendel closes $35 million Series B round led by Base10 Partners with participation from PayPal Ventures.

Open Banking

Backbase now enables customers to integrate open banking compliance solutions from Salt Edge.

Mortgagetech

Rocket Companies agrees to acquire Mr. Cooper Group in an all-stock transaction for $9.4 billion.

Payments

Ingo Payments chooses card issuing platform Marqeta as its issuer processing partner.

SumUp and FreedomPay partner to enhance payment capabilities for retail and hospitality sector businesses.

Wise Platform teams up with Brazilian bank, Itaú Unibanco, to enable instant global currency transfers.

PayJunction integrates with Zapier to help businesses build custom payment workflow automations.

Payments and financial services technology provider Fiserv launched Clover, its point-of-sale system and software platform, in Australia.

Viamericas launches open payment network in the Philippines.

Fraud prevention

Fraud and risk platform DataVisor introduces its first Chief Operating Officer, Tony Kueh.

Highnote teams up with Feedzai to integrate AI-powered fraud prevention technology into its acquiring business.

Loyalty and rewards

Rewards and branded payments provider Blackhawk Network partners with consumer loyalty program company Exchange Solutions.

Crypto and Defi

Crypto payments firm MoonPay unveils new Recurring Buys feature to enable customers in the US to automate repeat cryptocurrency purchases.

Wealth management

Global wealth platform Arta Finance launches its intelligent suite of AI agents, Arta AI.


Photo by Thirdman

Backbase and Feedzai Integrate Financial Crime Prevention with Engagement Banking

Backbase and Feedzai Integrate Financial Crime Prevention with Engagement Banking
  • Engagement Banking company Backbase has announced a strategic partnership with financial intelligence solutions provider Feedzai.
  • The partnership will integrated Feedzai’s Digital Trust solutions with Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform.
  • Backbase most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall 2021. Feedzai made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2014 in London.

A newly announced strategic partnership between Backbase and Feedzai aims to bring advanced financial crime prevention technology to engagement banking. The integration of Feedzai’s Digital Trust solutions with Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform will empower financial institutions to fight fraud more effectively while preserving the customer experience.

Feedzai’s Digital Trust platform analyzes user behavior, device health, and potential threats in real-time. The cloud-based solution operates in the background, enabling financial institutions, financial services organizations, and fintechs to detect and counter online identity impersonation and manipulation attacks, while allowing legitimate users to conduct their activities unimpeded. Feedzai’s Digital Trust is effective against account takeover (ATO) attacks as well as new account fraud attempts during onboarding. It combines behavioral biometrics, behavioral analytics, advanced malware detection, and network and device assessment to provide active and preemptive defense against threats. The integration with Backbase’s engagement banking platform will provide banks with real-time, AI-powered, proactive fraud prevention, plus lower operational costs thanks to AI-powered risk assessment that minimizes false positives.

“By combining Backbase’s engagement banking expertise with Feedzai’s advanced security capabilities, we’re giving financial institutions the complete package — superior customer experience and intelligent fraud prevention in one integrated platform,” Backbase CEO and Founder Jouk Pleiter said. “Together, we’re setting a new standard for how banks can build trusted digital relationships with their customers.”

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Feedzai offers technology that leverages AI to help businesses fight fraud and financial crime. The company’s RiskOps platform uses machine learning and Big Data to detect and defend the world’s largest banks, payment providers, and merchants from malicious online actors. Founded in 2011 and now reaching 900 million people in 190 countries with its technology, Feedzai began 2025 by announcing a partnership with Credibanco to help the Colombian payment processing company strengthen its defenses against fraud.

“As the financial services industry evolves, security can no longer be an afterthought — it must be woven into the very fabric of the customer journey,” Feedzai CEO and Co-Founder Nuno Sebastiao said. “By partnering with Backbase, we’re empowering financial institutions to deliver a unified, seamless journey that not only protects customers from fraud but also ensures they feel valued, understood, and safe.”

Backbase has been a Finovate alum since 2009. The company has won Finovate’s Best of Show award four times, including back-to-back wins at FinovateEurope in 2017 and 2018. Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform is a composable solution that empowers banks to accelerate their digital transformations by progressively modernizing each step of the customer journey, including onboarding, servicing, lending, and investing.

Backbase’s partnership news comes a few weeks after it announced it was teaming up with Alliant Credit Union, a digital-only financial institution with $20 billion in assets and more than 900,000 members. The company also recently partnered with Nordic digital transformation consultancy Knowit. Founded in 2003, Backbase is headquartered in Amsterdam.


Photo by Liene Ratniece

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

The week begins with news of investment in insurtech, financial wellness, and risk management. We are also seeing a number of new partnerships in payments and fraud prevention. Check back here all week long at Finovate’s Fintech Rundown for updates on the latest fintech headlines.


Payments

FIS forges strategic partnership with payment network and Buy Now, pay later company Affirm.

Bluefin announces partnership with advanced payment terminal provider Datecs to enhance payment security.

Kivra and Trustly introduce a new generation of Autogiro to make automatic payments easier and more secure.

Trust Bank and TerraPay team up to launch payment solution for Bangladeshi students studying abroad.

StoneX and Fiserv partner to enhance cross-border payment capabilities for financial institutions.

Allied Payment Network signs 84 new financial institutions in 2024, representing an increase of 20% over 2023. 

Digital banking

Wells Fargo partners with Q2 to boost collaboration across commercial banking teams.

Alliant Credit Union turns to Backbase to enhance the digital experience for members.

Digital banking solutions provider Apiture and digital solutions company Omnicommander team up to help banks and credit unions better communicate with their customers and members.

Gold Coast Federal Credit Union enlists Tyfone to accelerate digital transformation.

Crypto / Defi

Ripple partners with currency exchange provider Unicâmbio to bring crypto-enabled cross-border payments to Portugal.

Insurtech

Australian digital-first insurance broking firm UpCover secures $19 million in Series A funding.

Via its brand Polly, European digital insurance broker CLARK launches its first fully digital underwriting solution in the UK.

Financial wellness

Malaysia-based Earned Wage Access (EWA) solutions provider Payd raises $400,000 in seed extension funding.

Mortgage and savings software provider finova launches its mobile-first onboarding app.

Risk management

Financial risk management software provider Validus Risk Management locks in $45 million in growth equity funding.

Risk intelligence platform SRA Watchtower acquires Lumio Insight.

Fraud prevention

Financial software and technology company CSI partners with Mitek Systems to launch its proprietary check fraud detection solution for NuPoint customers.

Backbase and Feedzai team up to integrate advanced security capabilities into Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform.

Regtech and compliance

Sardine AI raises $70 million to make fraud and compliance teams more productive.

Investing / wealth management

Halal investment research platform Musaffa launches new equity crowdfunding round.

Brightwave integrates Quartr’s global database of first-party information from public companies with its document analysis capabilities.

Datalign secures $9 million Seed funding to accelerate AI-powered financial advisory solutions.

Lending and credit

Finastra launches Assist.AI, an AI-powered assistant to enhance the trade finance operations within its Trade Innovation solution.

Eltropy partners with MeridianLink to help advance digital lending for credit unions and community banks.

Mortgagetech and real estate

Agora launches major expansion in Australia.


Photo by Scott Duygun

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

This week brings May Day, a day to celebrate the halfway point between spring and summer, and in the world of fintech, there are also exciting developments to mark the start of a new month. Check back for real-time updates on how the fintech landscape evolves this week.

Youth Banking

SCE Credit Union partners with Los Angeles County on youth access banking program.

Credit Unions

UniWyo Credit Union taps Jack Henry to help with merger with Reliant Federal Credit Union.

Digital Banking

Core banking platform provider Finxact and SaaS core modernization and transformation solution provider for banks Zafin announced a new collaboration.

Expense Management

Financial management superapp for expenses and corporate cards Expensify unveils its New Expensify platform geared toward the global self-employed market.

Payments

Fintech infrastructure solution for branded customer wallets, Ansa, secures $14 million in Series A funding.

TreviPay unveils new self-financing option and enhanced payment application features for B2B net terms program.

Stripe decouples payments from the rest of its products stack.

Till Financial partners with EF Educational Tours and EF Explore America to facilitate cashless payments for traveling students.

FastSpring and EBANX partner to expand Pix payments for digital products in Brazil.

DailyPay to offer earned wage access to small businesses nationwide.

Airwallex to provide faster international payments for BILL.

Kojo expands fintech offering to modernize the payment process for contractors.

Fortech selects Shift4 technology to streamline payments at alternative-fuel service stations across Europe.

Lending

Xplor Technologies launches new financial solution for small businesses.

Cross River marks $200+ million in commercial real estate loan originations in the first quarter of 2024.

Blend Labs lands $150 million investment.

Fraud Prevention

Anti-fraud and financial crime software company Feedzai introduces new Chief Financial Officer David Larson.

Featurespace joins The Knoble, an alliance of financial service professionals, law enforcement, regulators, and NGOs committed to fighting financial crime.

Quavo Fraud & Disputes releases QFD Version 24.01 to reduce assignment volumes and enhance automation.

FinScan launches AI solution for sanctions screening of financial instruments.

Wealth Management

Swedish investment platform SAVR secures investment from Incore Invest.

Financial digital platform FactSet unveils AI-powered portfolio commentary.

Treasury Management

Finastra teams up with OpenFin to enhance the user experience of Finastra Kondor, Finastra’s bank treasury management system

Business Banking

Baselayer raises $6.5 million in a Seed round to redefine business risk with AI risk engine. 


Photo by Social History Archive on Unsplash

Feedzai Powers Push Payment Fraud Prevention Solution for A2A Platform Form3

Feedzai Powers Push Payment Fraud Prevention Solution for A2A Platform Form3
  • Anti-fraud platform Feedzai has teamed up with account-to-account (A2A) platform Form3.
  • Courtesy of the partnership, Feedzai will power Form3’s new authorized push payment fraud (APP) fraud prevention solution.
  • Founded in 2011, Feedzai made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2014.

Anti-fraud and financial crime software company Feedzai will power the new authorized push payment fraud (APP fraud) prevention solution from account-to-account (A2A) platform Form3. Built with supervised machine learning, the new offering from Form3 takes advantage of collaborative intelligence to determine the risk of a payment in real-time by understanding the behavior of both the sender and the recipient.

The technology acknowledges that understanding the recipient of a payment is just as important as understanding the sender when it comes to preventing fraud, particularly APP fraud. This is because APP fraud involves fraudsters tricking legitimate accountholders into sending payments to illegitimate accounts owned or accessed by the fraudster.

Feedzai CPO Pedro Barata explained that both regulation and emergent fraud threats are driving innovation in the payment fraud space. Barata noted in particular new regulations later this year that will mandate reimbursement for victims of APP fraud. He underscored that this would provide additional incentive for banks to embrace new anti-fraud technologies. “By combining the expertise of Feedzai and Form3, we can drastically reduce the level of vulnerability in the payment process and give our customers the real-time intelligence that they need to stop fraudsters in their tracks.”

The innovations in fraud prevention are also being driven by positive developments in fintech like real-time payments. As more fraudsters see real-time payments as a potential way to target consumers, businesses need to respond with technologies and anti-fraud solutions that close security gaps and respond to emerging threats like APP fraud.

“The best way to tackle the rise of APP fraud is the use of collaborative intelligence and cutting edge technologies that allow the real-time identification of scams within the payment message,” Form3 CEO Mike Walters said.

A Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateEurope in 2014, Feedzai today counts 80% of the world’s Fortune 500 among its customers. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, Feedzai now has more than 600 employees, maintains 10 offices around the world, and supports operations in 190 countries. The risk management tool provider has raised more than $277 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Nuno Sebastiao is CEO.


Photo by Vlad Chețan

Finovate Global Hong Kong: A Roadmap to the Future of AI and DLT

Finovate Global Hong Kong: A Roadmap to the Future of AI and DLT

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) unveiled its Fintech Promotion Roadmap today. The goal of the document is to provide a strategic outlook for the coming year to promote fintech adoption and innovation across Hong Kong’s diverse financial services ecosystem.

The top takeaways? The Roadmap highlights three business verticals: wealthtech, insurtech, and greentech – as primary. The planning document also underscores both artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger technology (DLT) as a pair of enabling, if not revolutionary, technologies that will play a major role in future innovation in financial services.

Critically, the Roadmap shows the eagerness of the HKMA to take a proactive, hands-on approach to fintech adoption and innovation in Hong Kong. To this end, the HKMA has announced a range of initiatives it plans to adopt over the next 12 months. These efforts include a fintech knowledge hub; sponsored events, roundtable discussions, and dialogues to foster collaboration; as well as seminars and training sessions to provide cross-sectoral information exchange and the opportunity for continuous learning. The HKMA will also facilitate educational content creation, including use-case videos and research reports, to help broaden understanding of the opportunities of fintech adoption.

HKMA Deputy Chief Executive Arthur Yuen called the Roadmap “a beacon for the entire financial services industry.” He added, “We’re looking beyond banking, casting a wide net to encompass sectors like insurance, wealth management, and capital market activities. Through synergies with our financial regulators and continuous engagement with stakeholders, our vision is a resilient, inclusive fintech ecosystem for Hong Kong.”

Yuen said that the underpinning philosophy of the Roadmap is “collaboration”.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is the region’s central banking institution. Founded in 1993, the HKMA is the product of the merger between two agencies – the Office of the Exchange Fund and the Office of the Commissioner of Banking. A key enabler of innovation in fintech and financial services in the region, the HKMA developed and launched a Faster Payments System in 2018 and began offering virtual banking licenses in 2019. Eddie Yue Wai-man was appointed Chief Executive in that year; he is the third CEO in the HKMA’s 30-year history.


In more good news for the region, Hong Kong has a new fintech unicorn. Micro Connect, a fintech that facilitates institutional investments in Chinese micro- and small businesses, raised $458 million in funding earlier this month. The Series C round gives the startup $578 million in total capital raised, and a brand new valuation of $1.7 billion.

Micro Connect’s statement did not list the investors involved in the funding. However, according to Forbes Asia, Baillie Gifford – a Scottish investment company – as well as returning investors Sequoia China, Lenovo Capital, Vectr Fintech, and Dara Holdings, were among those who participated.

Micro Connect will use the capital to enhance the market structure of its Micro Connect Financial Asset Exchange (MCEX) platform. MCEX leverages blockchain technology to enable small businesses to access financing in return for an agreed-upon percentage of the business’s daily revenue over a specified period of time. The scheme helps growing businesses secure the capital they need without having to take on additional debt. MCEX is scheduled to go live in August.

Micro Connect has facilitated investment in more than 2,400 stores and 169 brands across China. Charles Li (Chairman) and Gary Zhang (CEO) founded the company in 2021.


Finovate has brought its international fintech conference to Hong Kong three times: in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Here are some of the local companies that demoed their technology live on stage at FinovateAsia in Hong Kong.

  • AApay Technology
  • Chekk
  • Peakford Electronics
  • Proximiti
  • Velotrade

That said, Finovate has been hosting fintech conferences for audiences in the region since 2012. Here are a few more Hong Kong-based Finovate alums that demoed at our FinovateAsia events in Singapore and online.

  • Advanced Merchant Payments
  • Matchi.Biz
  • Mobexo
  • Modtris

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


Photo by Nitin Sharma

Dock Taps Feedzai to Expand Fraud Prevention

Dock Taps Feedzai to Expand Fraud Prevention
  • Brazil-based Dock selected Feedzai to provide fraud prevention tools for its customers.
  • Dock will primarily leverage Feedzai’s RiskOps Platform, and will also use the company’s AML and behavioral biometrics tools.
  • Dock counts 70 million active accounts and powers over seven billion transactions each year.

Brazil-based payments technology player Dock announced this week it has selected risk management tool provider Feedzai to provide new fraud prevention tools for Dock customers.

Founded in 2014, Dock offers card issuing and core banking services to help organizations bring new card digital payments and banking services to their existing operations. The company’s microservices architecture can be tailored to suit a multitude of rules, and can operate in any country, currency and banking system. The company counts 70 million active accounts and powers over seven billion transactions each year.

By partnering with Feedzai, Dock is giving its clients access to Feedzai’s RiskOps Platform, a tool that helps uncover criminal activity by standardizing processes. Feedzai launched RiskOps in 2021 to tackle fraud, money laundering, compliance, and enhance risk policies. The platform’s Financial Intelligence Network (FIN) database contains over one trillion data points, sessions, and profiles of good and bad actors. Dock also plans to integrate Feedzai’s behavioral biometrics module as well as money laundering prevention tools to offer customers a view of risks in real-time.

“We are providing our customers with another cloud-first technology solution that delivers a personalized approach to cyber threat detection and assessment, based on machine learning models and supported by Dock’s expertise,” said Dock Risk Director Armando Junior. “This partnership is aligned with our Latin American expansion strategy. The new feature makes it possible for us to understand even better the needs of our customers throughout the region.”

Feedzai was founded in 2011. The company offers tools ranging from KYC, AML, watchlist screening, transaction fraud monitoring, and more to help companies fight fraud in more than 190 countries. In 2021, Feedzai was valued at more than one billion dollars after receiving a $200 million funding round that boosted its total funding to $277 million. There is no word on an updated valuation.


Photo by Leigh Patrick

Novobanco Taps Feedzai for Risk-Ops platform

Novobanco Taps Feedzai for Risk-Ops platform
Novobanco Taps Feedzai for Risk-Ops platform
  • Feedzai has partnered with Novobanco to offer the bank’s clients protection from financial crime.
  • Novobanco wil leverage the Digital Trust (DT) and Transaction Fraud for Banking (TFB) solutions within Feedzai’s Risk-Ops.
  • Novobanco anticipates the new technology will enhance trust, optimize customer engagement, and ultimately boost customer satisfaction.

Feedzai inked a partnership with Portuguese bank Novobanco this week. The risk management and fraud prevention company has agreed to protect the bank’s clients from financial crimes while not detracting from the customer experience.

Specifically, Novobanco will leverage the Digital Trust (DT) and Transaction Fraud for Banking (TFB) solutions within Feedzai’s Risk-Ops, a platform that helps firms protect users from financial crime. The tool is embedded into firms’ existing workflows to help uncover hidden criminal activity while not disrupting the customer experience.

“The Digital Trust and Transaction Fraud for Banking solutions which are part of our RiskOps platform will empower Novobanco to further enhance its fantastic service whilst providing the highest level of financial security for its customers,” said Feedzai Global Head of Sales Nuno Pires.

With 1.5 million clients and $47.8 billion (€43.8 billion) in assets, Novobank is the 4th largest bank in its domestic market. The bank maintains a customer-centric culture by offering an omnichannel customer experience and transparent, simple products.

Novobanco anticipates that DT and TFB will enhance trust, optimize customer engagement, and ultimately boost customer satisfaction. Combined, the two solutions will help Novobank analyze and understand customer behavior, flag security threats, and block fraud attempts in real time.

Also based in Portugal, Feedzai was founded in 2011. The company’s solutions help fight fraud in more than 190 countries. In 2021, Feedzai was valued at more than one billion dollars after receiving a $200 million funding round that boosted its total funding to $277 million. There is no word on an updated valuation.


Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Feedzai Leverages AI to Launch New Tool that Stops Scams

Feedzai Leverages AI to Launch New Tool that Stops Scams
  • Feedzai unveiled ScamPrevent capabilities that will help banks protect their end customers from a variety of financial scams.
  • The new tools will be added to Feedzai’s RiskOps platform.
  • The Federal Trade Commission reports that between 2021 and 2023, losses from scams increased by 30% in the U.S.

Risk management and fraud prevention tool provider Feedzai is enhancing its RiskOps platform.

The Portugal-based company announced that its new ScamPrevent capabilities will be added to the RiskOps platform. The new tools aim to help banks protect their customers from a variety of financial scams.

“In this environment of faster payments and more sophisticated scams, banks should look at proactive strategies to protect their customers from financial crime,” said Feedzai CEO Nuno Sebastiao. “We believe that banks which embrace a comprehensive RiskOps approach will outperform in customer satisfaction and retention, while minimizing losses from financial crime.”

By improving its Feedzai AI engine, the company leverages its experience across multiple geographies and financial institutions to enable improved scam detection with fewer false positives.

ScamPrevent includes other customizable capabilities, as well. Firms can add bank-specific scam detection rules and thresholds, leverage features that help banks identify signals from pre-transaction patterns such as behavioral biometrics that indicate a customer could be a scam victim before they authorize the payment, add customizable scam classification, view performance metrics, and generate reports.

The Federal Trade Commission reports that between 2021 and 2023, losses from scams increased by 30% in the U.S. According to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), this percentage may be an underestimate, as only 7% of scams losses are reported across the globe.

“The human impact of scams is particularly high as scammers tend to target vulnerable groups – the elderly, the economically disadvantaged, immigrant communities, and youth,” said Feedzai Chief Product Officer Pedro Barata. “As it becomes faster and easier to make payments, there is a growing need for new solutions that enable scams to be detected and intercepted before any money moves. With our new ScamProtect™ features, Feedzai delivers the industry’s most comprehensive approach to scam prevention.”

Feedzai was founded in 2011 and helps companies fight fraud in more than 190 countries. The company has raised more than $277 million, having pulled in its largest round of $200 million in 2021 that valued Feedzai at more than one billion dollars.


Photo by Tara Winstead

Finovate Global U.K. Edition: Dynamic Planner Secures Investment from FPE Capital; Starling Bank Reaches Profitability

Finovate Global U.K. Edition: Dynamic Planner Secures Investment from FPE Capital; Starling Bank Reaches Profitability

Dynamic Planner, a risk-based financial planning firn based in the U.K., has secured what the company is calling a “significant investment” from private equity growth firm FPE Capital. Terms of the investment were not disclosed, but the additional funding is designed to help accelerate Dynamic Planner’s expansion plans in the U.K. and Europe.

Dynamic Planner CEO Ben Goss praised FPE Capital for not only for backing successful software companies in the past and helping them scale their businesses, but also for sharing values that Dynamic Planner holds dear. “They also share our vision for solving our industry’s major challenges through technology such as process digitization, customer experience, investing sustainably for future generations, and omni-channel financial planning in a post-pandemic world,” Goss said.

Making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in London earlier this year, Dynamic Planner offers a single platform that enables financial advisory firms to match clients with investment portfolios that meet their individual needs and goals. The company’s technology provides client profiling to ensure that client preferences are accurately assessed and reflected in the portfolio composition process. Dynamic Planner also offers whole-of-market fund research, cash flow modeling, and pre-populated reports to make it easier for advisors to provide holistic, compliant investment portfolio reviews and reports. Via its SaaS platform, Dynamic Planner serves nearly 40% of wealth advice firms in the U.K., and more than 150 asset managers representing $300 billion (£250 billion) in assets. The company is on pace to surpass $12 million (£10 million) in annual recurring license revenues in 2022.

In addition to making its first appearance on the Finovate stage earlier this year, Dynamic Planner also launched its Client Access solution. Unveiled in March, the new offering leverages psychometric risk and sustainability profiling to make remote financial advice more precise and engaging.

“While remote advice is here to stay, it can be a challenge for advisors to make the process engaging or easy to understand for clients, as well as build deep relationships which ultimately result in better outcomes,” Dynamic Planner Sales & Marketing Director Yasmina Siadatan explained. Siadatan called the new solution “a fundamental piece of the hybrid advice puzzle.”

Headquartered in Reading, Berkshire, Dynamic Planner was founded in 2003. The company was named “Adviser Technology Provider of the Year” at the Money Marketing Awards in 2021 and, that same year, won top honors as the “Leading Independent Planning Tool Provider” at the Schroders U.K. Platform Awards.


Speaking of fintech in the U.K., a hearty congratulations to Starling Bank, the pioneering U.K.-based digital bank launched in 2014 by CEO Anne Boden. The bank announced this week that it had achieved its first full year of profitability, delivering a pre-tax profit of $38.4 million (£32.1 million). The news represents a major milestone for the company, which produced a pre-tax loss of $37.7 million (£31.5 million) the previous year.

“With our first full year of profitability, we’ve placed ourselves firmly in a category of one,” Boden said in a statement. “As an innovative digital bank with a sustainable business model and a strong balance sheet, we are generating our own capital and we stand apart from both the old banks and other challengers.”

A fully-licensed and regulated bank, Starling Bank offers personal, business, joint, euro and dollar current accounts, as well as a card for youth. Headquartered in London and maintaining offices in Southampton, Cardiff, and Dublin, Starling Bank also offers a B2B banking-as-a-service and software-as-a-service proposition, leveraging the same proprietary technology Starling uses to power its own operations.

Earlier this month, Starling Bank unveiled its Bills Manager solution for small businesses. The new feature gives small businesses greater flexibility when making Direct Debit or standing orders by taking funds from money set aside in one of their available Savings Spaces rather than from the business’ main account. The solution helps small businesses streamline their finances by making budget forecasting and cost management easier. Bills Manager seamlessly integrates with popular accounting platforms such as Xero and FreeAgent – both of which are available via the Starling Marketplace – as well as with Starling’s own bookkeeping solution I.

“Our small business customers requested this feature, so we’ve delivered,” Starling Bank Chief Banking Officer Helen Bierton said. “Uptake of Bills Manager has been strong among our personal current account customers and we’re confident it will help hundreds of thousands of small businesses better manage their money, too.”

Check out our conversation with Starling’s Boden moments after she delivered her keynote address at FinovateSpring in May.


Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • Malaysia-based Bank Islam launched its cloud-native, digital banking offering, Be U.
  • Bangladesh’s BRAC Bank announced a partnership with TerraPay to enable faster cross-border payments.
  • Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia partnered with financial risk management platform Feedzai.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Sudan-based fintech Bloom secured $6.5 million in seed funding.
  • Israel’s Open-Finance.ai teamed up with FICO, combining open banking with real-time credit assessment to improve the originations process.
  • Saudi Arabia-based fintech FOODICS inked strategic partnership with Alinma Bank.

Central and Southern Asia


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Feedzai Raises $200 Million, Earns Unicorn Status with Billion Plus Valuation

Feedzai Raises $200 Million, Earns Unicorn Status with Billion Plus Valuation

Financial crime fighter Feedzai has secured a growth investment of $200 million. Product development, partner strategy, and global expansion are three Feedzai priorities that will be accelerated by the new investment.

The Series D round was led by KKR, and featured participation from existing investors Sapphire Ventures and Citi Ventures. The company’s total capital now stands north of $277 million, having most recently raised $50 million in a 2017 Series C round.

“This new investment delivers on our mission to keep commerce safe by further developing our single machine learning cloud platform for all four stages of the customer risk journey: prevention, detection, remediation, and compliance,” Feedzai CEO Nuno Sebastiao wrote on the company blog this week. “Focusing on the entirety of the risk lifecycle,” he added, “allows us to partner with financial services in a radically new way at every step of the journey.”

The funding also gives the risk management platform a valuation “well over $1 billion” the company noted in its funding announcement.

Partnered with some of the largest financial institutions in the world – including four of the five largest banks in North America, Feedzai leverages its risk management platform to monitor activity at companies with more than 800 million customers in 190 countries. The firm’s platform leverages machine learning and AI to help companies defend themselves from financial crimes including money laundering, detecting fraud in less than three milliseconds.

A Finovate alum since 2014, Feedzai unveiled its Feedzai Fairband solution earlier this month. Feedzai Fairband is an AutoML algorithm-based technology that automatically discovers less biased machine learning models while increasing model fairness by as much as 93% on average. Dubbed “the world’s most advanced AI fairness framework,” Feedzai Fairband enables financial institutions to accommodate their customers fairly and without the bias that even the most carefully-designed AI models may still hold.

“Feedzai Fairband is one of the biggest milestones in the financial services industry as it presents a low-cost, no-friction framework to address one of the biggest problems of our era – AI bias,” Feedzai Chief Scientist Dr. Pedro Bizrro said. “By creating the most advanced framework for AI fairness, Feedzai is allowing financial institutions to incorporate a critical piece of technology that addresses a problem under close public scrutiny with proven damaging effects across the globe. Building accurate and fairer models will be less challenging from now on.”

Named to Techround’s roster of the top 50 fintech companies in the U.K. in February, Feedzai highlighted the “skyrocketing” rise in fraud attacks in 2020 in its Financial Crime Report Q1, 2021, released earlier this month.

“2020 was a year of rapid growth in financial crime. Fraudsters tried to take advantage of the convergence between a fast-paced digital environment and a new wave of inexperienced consumers to perpetrate a multitude of attacks that created a significant uptick in fraud,” Jaime Ferreira, Senior Director of Global Data Science at Feedzai said in the report. “Financial institutions need to further invest in technologies to protect their customers while developing educational approaches. Robust technology and informed consumers are a powerful combination when fighting financial crime.”

Feedzai began the year with an announcement that Latin America’s largest investment bank, BTG Pactual, will implement Feedzai’s financial crime management technology.