Finovate Debuts Archives - Page 6 of 11

Finovate Debuts: Touchpoints from Alpine Data Labs Turns Big Data into Predictive Analysis

By David Penn Posted on March 30, 2016
Categories: Alpine Data Labs, Finovate Debuts

The goal of Alpine Data Labs, Marketing Manager Sanjna Parulekar explained during a conversation at the conference, is not just technology that “tells you things about your data.” But instead is a platform that offers truly predictive analysis for customers in wealth management, credit/risk analysis, and financial media—among other verticals.

A specialist in enterprise software focused on advanced analytics, machine learning and big data platforms like Hadoop, Spark, and relational databases, Alpine Data Labs provides companies with the tools and collaborative environment they need to build analytic applications. “How can you actually make the power of big data and machine learning accessible to everybody in your organization so that it hits them in their everyday activities?” company co-founder and Chief Product Officer Steven Hillion asked from the Finovate stage last fall. “That’s what drives us.”

Pictured (left to right): Alpine Data’s Steven Hillion, co-founder and CPO, and Josh Lewis, VP, industry applications, demonstrating Alpine Touchpoints at FinovateFall 2015.

In its Finovate Debut, Alpine Data Labs introduced Alpine Touchpoints, a new layer to the company’s advanced analytics platform that allows everyday users to ask questions of their data and get answers “in the language of business, not the language of advanced analytics” as Hillion put it. Complex workflows leveraging machine learning and parallelized algorithms can be used to build tools like propensity models to help better match clients with products. Touchpoints allows the strategist then to build and test variations on these models and to deploy them automatically to the individual wealth manager via the Alpine platform—no APIs or data integrations required.

“And now we have this additional data point,” Hillion said, describing the newly updated dashboard of his sample wealth manager. ” But think about the power behind that column: “It’s using all the power of predictive analytics and big data machine learning to populate it. But in a way that is directly accessible to the wealth advisor,” he explained.

Stats:

Founded in 2011
Headquartered in San Francisco, California
Raised $32 million in funding
Joe Otto is CEO

How it works

We sat down with Alpine Data Labs Marketing Manager Sanjna Parulekar to learn a little bit more about the company and how is helping financial services businesses – and others – turn their Big Data into predictive analysis and information.

Finovate: What problem does Alpine Data Labs solve?

Parulekar: The goal of Alpine Data Labs is to build a broad analytics engine. The platform has many use-cases in financial services, such as wealth management. Alpine Touchpoints, which we are presenting at Finovate, helps wealth managers turn informational, largely historic data into actionable, predictive analytics.

The real problem is around the way wealth managers consume data. Much of it is historical data—birthdates, number of kids, income, etc.)—and not predictive. That’s our bread and butter—predictive analysis. Not just telling you things about your data.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Parulekar: Alpine Data currently serves more than 1,600 wealth advisers. We have large customers in Europe, and our mature verticals include financial services, retail, and telecom, where we are helping reduce churn. Healthcare is also a vertical. There is a mix of maturities.

The company is growing very fast right now, but more thoughtful growth than aggressive growth, per se.

Finovate: How does Alpine Data Labs solve the problem better?

Parulekar: In a noisy market like this, it is important to be different, not just say you are different. The technology is an easy install. We don’t move data around. We partner with organizations and help build use-cases.

Data scientists and wealth managers can interact on the platform. There is a user-friendly front end on a complex infrastructure. We want to avoid exposing wealth managers to the underlying data science. The platform provides an end-to-end process of model creation, allowing the user to tweak values in the data.

Finovate: What in their backgrounds gave Alpine’s co-founders the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Parulekar: What’s interesting is that many big data companies are led by people with backgrounds in academia. Steve Hillion has an enterprise data background. It’s important to have more than just a love of data science. You must be enterprise effective. Along with Joe Otto, Steve is a pioneer in predictive analysis.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Alpine Data Labs that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Parulekar: We unveiled Touchpoints this week, but we are making a formal announcement next week that will include a branding overhaul, new logo, etc.

Check out the demo video from Alpine Data Labs:

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Finovate Debuts: Valuto’s Open API Offers Multi-Currency Accounts

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 24, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, Valuto

In an increasingly global economy, Valuto’s multicurrency account helps small businesses send and receive payments in five different European currencies. Valuto integrates into systems such as SaaS accounting, ERP and invoicing systems, and other tools businesses already use daily. The multicurrency account leverages Valuto’s P2P currency exchange marketplace offering a foreign-exchange solution at a lower cost than banks.

Valuto believes financial services should be flawless. Since the biggest obstacles for consumers exist in international transfers and foreign exchange, they decided to tackle this market first. “We believe that businesses deserve the convenience of having their banking operations fully automated,” said Matthew Harris, director of strategy and partnerships.

Company facts:

110 employees
€3.2 billion in turnover in 2015 (€9.2 billion since being founded)
360,000+ registered users
Headquartered in Poznan, Poland
Founded in November 2009

Pictured left-to-right: Founder and CEO Michał Czekalski; Matthew Harris, international business development and partnerships; Lukasz Olek, founder and chief product officer onstage at FinovateEurope 2016.

In the company’s FinovateEurope 2016 demo, Valuto launched its open API, showing how to integrate a multicurrency account into an SaaS accounting system. Once the open API is integrated into an SMB’s existing platform, they can issue cross-border invoices to make and collect payments in multiple countries and currencies.

At FinovateEurope, we chatted with Matthew Harris, director of strategy and partnerships for Valuto, to get more insight:

Finovate: What problem does Valuto solve?

Harris: Valuto is an innovative solution that bypasses expensive intermediaries such as banks or FX brokers. It is a cost-effective service that facilitates everything from foreign exchange to sending and receiving transfers in local currencies across several European countries. Valuto provides its customers faster settlement times than those offered by the banks due to our network of client-safeguarded bank accounts situated throughout Europe. Finally, which is what we unveiled at Finovate Europe this year, the Valuto open API (makes it) possible to integrate Valuto functionalities into services such as desktop, SaaS accounting, e-invoicing, P2P investment marketplaces and B2B e-commerce sites.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Harris: At the moment our primary customers are SMEs and sole traders. Nevertheless, in recent months we have seen a significant uptake from individuals who have seen value in our service.

Finovate: How does Valuto solve the problem better?

Harris: Valuto users, especially SMEs and sole traders, can enjoy terms and conditions usually reserved for large corporate clients by the banks. When using Valuto, there are no middlemen, meaning Valuto customers can use our currency-exchange marketplace to exchange between one another, thus bypassing expensive spreads charged by the banks.

Moreover, Valuto cuts out the middlemen by offering domestic, localized payouts and pay-ins from our network of bank accounts. This is why Valuto transfers are transparent, predictable and inexpensive.

A typical cross-border transfer passes through several correspondent banks, each taking a percentage off the initial payment amount. This is why traditional cross-border transfers are complex, erratic and costly.

With Valuto, transfers are transparent, predictable and inexpensive.

Valuto to Valuto (V2V) is a unique transfer option available to Valuto customers. Everyone who has a Valuto account and sufficient balance can transfer funds to another Valuto customer. The transfer is completely free and will be visible on the recipient’s account within seconds.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.

Harris: My favorite implementation of Valuto would have to be the integration of the Valuto multicurrency payment account into an SaaS accounting solution in order to automate payments, collections and reconciliation. We will go live with our first integration March of this year.

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

Harris: Valuto is a brand new project, and was created by individuals with extensive proven track records of developing innovative financial services and products. Valuto’s co-founders, Michał Czekalski and Łukasz Olek, began their careers by establishing Internetowykantor.pl, one of the largest companies on the online currency-exchange market in Poland. Now they are introducing Valuto as a modern solution for clients across Europe.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Valuto that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Harris: In the upcoming months we will launch a new API function designed for P2P investment platforms. It’s a unique feature that will make us stand out from our competition on the market. We’ve seen a lot of fintech solutions aimed at the banks so we wanted to direct our next project to helping fellow fintech providers continue to disrupt the banking sector.

Finovate: Where do you see Valuto a year or two from now?

Harris: We see Valuto as a major player throughout Europe and several other major economies globally. Additionally, our customers can expect numerous new functionalities added to the multicurrency payment account, leading to our goal of creating a modern, connected bank similar to the internet of things. Apart from that, we expect Valuto to be integrated into everything from SaaS accounting platforms to P2P investment marketplaces and more.

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Finovate Debuts: OutsideIQ Heralds a Revolution in Due Diligence with DDIQ for Onboarding

By David Penn Posted on March 24, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, OutsideIQ

You say you wanna revolution in due diligence, but would love to see the plan?

OutsideIQ has leveraged its strengths in cognitive computing and natural language processing to deliver an automated due diligence solution, DDIQ. The technology uses web and deep web interrogation to produce individual and corporate due diligence reports quickly, potentially revealing information not readily available through more traditional techniques.

Since the technology was launched last March, Dan Adamson, CEO and founder of OutsideIQ, said from the Finovate stage that more than 30 financial institutions have adopted the technology—”including several leading global banks.” For their Finovate debut, OutsideIQ presented DDIQ for Onboarding. This implementation is designed make the onboarding process faster and less expensive compared to traditional methods. Moreover, in addition to enabling onboarding teams to “go deeper” in their investigations, DDIQ for Onboarding ensures that the process is “completely auditable to satisfy worldwide regulatory demands.”

Company Facts:

Founded in January 2010
Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dan Adamson is CEO

Pictured (left to right): OutsideIQ CEO Dan Adamson and COO Joe Oswald demonstrating DDIQ at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

Explaining the technological “magic” behind DDIQ, Adamson described “thousands of intelligent crawlers” now analyzing the risk.

They are going through publicly available, open web content such as social media sites, blogs. They are going through deep web content, such as regulatory sites. They are going through premium content, such as watch list providers and PEP (politically-exposed-person) list providers. Combining all that together.

“The more they learn about the risk, the better (able) they are to make a true assessment of that risk,” Adamson said. “The whole key here is efficiency for the researcher.”

———–

We spoke with OutsideIQ CEO Dan Adamson briefly during rehearsal day at FinovateEurope. After the conference we followed up with a few questions by email about his company and how DDIQ can help financial institutions and others improve their ability to conduct due diligence.

Finovate: What problem does OutsideIQ solve?

Dan Adamson: DDIQ creates automated due diligence reports with premium, open web and deep web sources using cognitive computing and search algorithms that emulate an investigator. These reports are otherwise expensive and time consuming to produce manually. These report can be used for client onboarding, vendor onboarding, investigations, remediations, account refreshes, and other activities that require research.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Adamson: DDIQ’s primary customers are financial institutions, Fortune 1000 corporate clients, leading consultancies, and insurance companies. These institutions use DDIQ for everything ranging from lighter KYC requirements, clearing alerts, sanctions screenings to deeper enhanced due diligence and investigations.

Finovate: How does DDIQ solve the problem better?

Adamson: Most technologies in this space are simply aggregators of content, while our system thoroughly scans and assesses sources for more accurate due diligence risk reporting. It learns about its subject, much like an investigator does, so it can assess if a piece of content is relevant and not just a keyword match.

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

Adamson: OutsideIQ’s staff of data scientists, big data professionals, and software engineers have developed DDIQ. This system has been trained by some of the world’s leading authorities on regulatory compliance and financial crimes at Exiger, a leading GRC services firm. (Note: Adamson is a former Microsoft search-technology strategist.)

Finovate: Where do you see OutsideIQ a year or two from now?

Adamson: Cutting-edge, automated technology is the only way to keep up with increasingly stringent regulatory requirements in an auditable, cost-efficient manner. We believe DDIQ will become the gold standard for clients’ automated due diligence research.

Check out OutsideIQ’s demo video from FinovateEurope 2016.

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Finovate Debuts: InvestGlass Built a Robo-advisor for Advisers

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 21, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, InvestGlass

In his demo at FinovateEurope 2016, InvestGlass founder and CEO Alexandre Gaillard stated, “We believe that, if bankers don’t go digital, they won’t be bankers tomorrow.” He diplomatically followed with, “This is an invitation to keep you in business.” InvestGlass works like a robo-advisor for financial professionals by providing technology to help them find suitable investments for clients.

Gaillard began working on the idea for InvestGlass after the collapse of Bear Stearns when he noticed the power the media has on people’s financial decisions. By focusing on the client rather than the product, the platform generates the right financial information to engage the right clients to help optimize their portfolio.

Company facts:

Privately owned
5 employees
Founded in 2014
Headquartered in Switzerland

CEO Alexandre Gaillard Presenting with CTO Sébastien Thevenaz at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

At FinovateEurope 2016, InvestGlass launched Leads, an artificial intelligence engine to help financial professionals save time by identifying which client to contact first, why they should call, and exactly what advice to provide based on trending financial products in their geographical area.

InvestGlass simplifies the process of balancing a client’s portfolio and provides templates to help create, tailor, and publish a PDF report to send to clients.

—-

In an interview with the company’s CEO, Alexandre Gaillard, we discussed the value that InvestGlass brings advisers. Gaillard is a French citizen and speaks English, French, and Mandarin. He is passionate about behavioral finance and has worked as a banker, adviser, and was once head of equity sales.

Finovate: What problem does InvestGlass solve?
Gaillard:

Account profitability
Client disintermediation
Real-time digital interactions
Appropriateness and suitability

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?
Gaillard: IFA, bankers, brokers, family offices, VC PE Sales

Finovate: How does InvestGlass solve the problem better?
Gaillard: Our subscription process is smooth as we are accessible from the internet SAAS and we onboard clients without paper. Once you’re onboard, we generate proactive lead and investment opportunities, and we publish tailored and white-labeled investment proposals. To subscribe from InvestGlass.com, you simply enter your credit card information to get a 14-day free trial. If you make money, then InvestGlass is a great deal.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.
Gaillard: Independent financial advisers flourishing in London and Zurich were looking for an out-of-the-box solution with CRM and market feeds. Integration took one week to connect with their custodian data. We have a simple promise: If they make more money in one week, then it’s a deal! InvestGlass offers a 14-day free trial for InvestGlass Professional starting at one license £550 per seat per month.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
Gaillard: As an ex-head of equity sales, I knew that delivering the right financial information at the right time was the best way to increase return on asset. It was not about performance but relevancy. My objective is to empower financial professionals with an automated selling tool to make sure that they will increase the return on relevancy!

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from InvestGlass that we can look forward to over the next few months?
Gaillard: In the coming months, InvestGlass will focus on retail banks and on more alliances with SAAS solution and feeds providers. Since Finovate, at least three feed providers or SAAS companies are calling us per week. Our objective is simple: partner and onboard on InvestGlass—bridge!

Finovate: Where do you see InvestGlass a year or two from now?
Gaillard: Everywhere, mostly banks. FinovateEurope in London has been a fantastic steppingstone to attract prospects.

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Finovate Debuts: SuiteBox Introduces Virtual Meeting Rooms for Financial Professionals

By David Penn Posted on March 17, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, FinovateEurope 2016, SuiteBox

SuiteBox provides professionals in financial services and other fields with the kind of multi-channel, interactive experience we’ve always wanted from the internet. With just a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, professionals can build and manage secure, virtual meeting rooms and use these private, virtual spaces for conference calls, document collaboration, screen sharing, embedded web forms, e-signatures and more. Everything in the session can be recorded in full or in part for future reference. The technology is available as both a standalone solution or via a fully integrated white-label API.

“SuiteBox does everything that you can do in a physical meeting and more,” said Ian Dunbar, country manager for SuiteBox Australia.

Company facts:

Founded in March 2013
Headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand
Richard Mannell is CEO

SuiteBox Australia Country Manager Ian Dunbar demonstrated his company’s technology at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

In his demonstration at FinovateEurope, Dunbar and his team showed a fully white-labeled virtual meeting space. He demonstrated a sample insurance transaction showing off the platform’s mutually accessible web forms, video conferencing, session recording, and e-signatures. “Importantly,” Dunbar added, “this virtual meeting room is now open and available to be used at any time. They can come back in. They can have a meeting. They could drop documents off for each other to have a look at. They could even leave a video message or a chat message.”

“Effectively that gives you a meeting space that can be used on an ongoing basis,” Dunbar explained. “You don’t have to be back actually having a physical meeting.”

We spoke with Ian Dunbar (circle photo), country manager, Australia, during rehearsal day at FinovateEurope. We followed up with a few questions about SuiteBox and how entrepreneurs and businesses can take advantage of the technology.

Finovate: What problem does SuiteBox solve?

Ian Dunbar: SuiteBox is solving one of the biggest challenges of professional services globally. How do you maintain and grow your client relationships, manage and close business and increase efficiency and profitability into your business. All when we are faced with time-poor clients, congested cities, and the need manage paper, post, scanning and signing of documents.

SuiteBox solves all of this by delivering everything you can do in a physical meeting and more, including video meetings, document sharing and collaboration, electronic signing and selective recording.

This is all delivered through the SuiteBox MeetingSpace, a secure private collaboration space that remains permanently open and accessible throughout the relationship life of the professional and their client.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Dunbar: Financial advisers, insurance providers, banks, mortgage brokers, stock brokers, educators; legal, pension fund, and real estate professionals.

Finovate: How does SuiteBox solve the problem better?

Dunbar: SuiteBox is the only tool globally that combines all the tools to close business and get the job done. SuiteBox eliminates the need to juggle video tools, e-signature tools and emails. SuiteBox is also the only tool that delivers a permanently open MeetingSpace, that allows the participants to enter and leave the space at their convenience, share and transact documents, and only meet via video when needed.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of SuiteBox.

Dunbar: SuiteBox has launched a highly integrated solution with Midwinter Financial Services’s AdviceOS adviser desktop in Australia. In this implementation, the Adviser has a seamless experience that allows:

the Adviser to schedule virtual meetings and launch SuiteBox from the AdviceOS desktop
the Adviser to white label SuiteBox to their own branded MeetingSpace
documents to be sourced from AdviceOS and saved directly back to the client record in AdviceOS
video records to be stored for future reference, and be easily accessible from the client record within AdviceOS.

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

Dunbar: SuiteBox’s founder and creative director is a world leader in data visualization and founder of several successful interactive media businesses including Terabyte Interactive, now recognized as the oldest multimedia company in the world.

Craig is expert at developing technology strategies to address opportunities. He pioneered the first online real-time 3D graphics for the America’s Cup as co-founder of Virtual Spectator. More recently, Craig established Futuretech that gave rise to One Room, the World’s leading funeral-streaming service.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from your company that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Dunbar: We will be integrating with a number of CRM systems, Advice Platforms and Wealth Platforms globally.

We will also be releasing enhancements to the secure MeetingSpace, that will allow participants to utilize the space completely autonomously of being in a meeting. Such as allowing a party to drop off a document, leave a video or chat message, and manage business at any time convenient to them.

Finovate: Where do you see your company a year or two from now?

Dunbar: SuiteBox has recently expanded into the South African market, opening an office in Johannesburg. Throughout 2016, we will expand into the United Kingdom, Europe and North America.

Check out the demo video from SuiteBox from FinovateEurope 2016.

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Finovate Debuts: VoicePIN Offers an Easy Biometric Login Solution

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 17, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, VoicePIN

While voice biometrics usage is small, it is gaining popularity as a second authentication factor and password replacement. VoicePIN’s easy-to-use voice-authentication system hopes to become the industry standard. CEO Łukasz Dyląg explains it, “Your voice is the most natural and convenient way of communication.”

Company facts:

Headquartered in Poland
Founded in 2011
Offers on-premise solution for enterprise customers
Offers a cloud-based API for smaller customers

CEO Łukasz Dyląg and Jakub Gałka, R&D director, demoed VoicePIN at FinovateEurope 2016.

At FinovateEurope 2016, the company launched VoicePIN, its multichannel, voice-biometrics solution for IVR, mobile app or website login, and for use during call-center service. VoicePIN offers three main advantages:

A better customer experience
Enhanced security
Multichannel access

We chatted with the company’s CEO Łukasz Dyląg (photo circle right) after the demo to discuss the company and future initiatives.

Finovate: What problem does VoicePIN solve?
VoicePIN solves one of today’s issues which is having too many passwords, logins and PIN numbers to remember. Customer experience is currently one of the biggest challenges for every company caring about its customers. We have designed VoicePIN for convenient multichannel user-authentication. Once the user registers his voiceprint, he is able to log in by voice into all available customer channels like a help line, IVR, website or mobile application.

Finovate: How does VoicePIN solve the problem better?
VoicePIN enhances the multichannel customer experience by giving the user a chance to use his voice to log in or authorize payments in every interaction field. Our simple API can even be integrated with IoT devices. Moreover, the enrollment process can be passive, so the voiceprint is generated from the previously collected recordings and the user doesn’t have to engage in this step. We have designed our system as really easy to integrate and install. No matter which deployment model the client chooses, he can integrate it on his own.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?
VoicePIN is available as an on-premise or SaaS model. On-premise is designed for banks, telcoms, insurance companies and state or self-government institutions, while our SaaS solution is an opportunity for web platforms, e-commerce, mobile applications or IoT devices to use the advantages of cloud-based voice biometrics.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.
We had the pleasure to deliver voice biometrics technology in the first such deployment in mobile banking in Europe. Our system operates in Smart Bank’s mobile application, available for both individual and business customers. Since the implementation, they can simply log into their accounts just by saying the set phrase.
The other impressive implementation covered 10,000,000 voiceprints in the Polish Ministry of Finance. This deployment was really challenging. Voice authentication was deployed to improve taxpayer service.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
We were ready for it as we knew our system works fine and meets the high-level security requirements. It is also scalable, so implementing the 10,000,000 voiceprints was not a problem at all.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from VoicePIN that we can look forward to over the next few months?
In the coming weeks we will launch VoicePIN as-a-service web platform. It will be the first off-the-shelf voice biometrics service available for smaller B2B enterprises. By this move we want voice biometrics to be no longer associated as severe, complicated, and difficult-to-use technology. Our easy-to-install API is designed to work fine in every customer interaction channel.

Finovate: Where do you see VoicePIN a year or two from now?
We would like to see a broad usability of voice biometrics as a simple, natural and convenient way of authentication and more. We believe that soon our system will work in the different areas such as Internet of Things, intelligent vehicles, houses and other fields where hands-free voice operation is very useful.

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Finovate Debuts: Innofis Enhances the UX for Banks and Customers

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 3, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, Innofis

Customers shouldn’t be the only ones enjoying a great user experience. That’s the driving factor behind Innofis, a company that furnishes a suite of digital banking tools providing a beautiful user experience for both bankers and their customers.

In 2012, the company saw an opportunity in offering digital banking services. The initial team, whose roots stem from banking, IT, and digital offerings, launched Innofis that same year. By the end of the year, they already had two customers, and they knew they were onto a great idea.

Company facts

Headquartered in Barcelona, Spain
Founded in 2012
Privately owned
80+ employees
€6M in revenue
>3 million digital end customers (retail and corporate)

The company’s back-end management tools make it simple for any bank employee to control banking campaigns across all channels. The company uses big data combined with contextual customer behavior to help banks extend relevant calls to action.

We caught up with the company’s CEO, David Moreno at FinovateEurope 2016 for an interview to learn more about Innofis.

Moreno, who has served as CEO of Innofis since 2012, started his career at a bank where he worked in retail and corporate banking, marketing, IT, and consulting. During his 11-year tenure, he saw and experienced many different functions of the bank.

Finovate: What problem does Innofis solve?
Moreno: Many banks are still in the process of either starting up their digital platform or looking for modules which complement their existing offer. Established banks are often struggling with legacy systems and little or no connection between the new digital channels and the more traditional ones. Innofis helps banks solve these issues by either implementing a complete digital platform or providing the missing parts with specific modules. Furthermore, banks face a challenge in keeping up with continuous market innovation, such as wearables, augmented reality and geolocation. Innofis keeps a tab on these developments and adds them to their digital service offering as they appear.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?
Moreno: Our clients are banks. We are working with some of the world’s largest banks and have millions of their customers using our digital platforms.

Innofis multi-channel interface

Finovate: How does Innofis solve the problem better?
Moreno: We do not necessarily propose a complete digital ‘reset’ for banks. We are mindful of the investments made and difficulty of infrastructure switching costs. Our modular approach is the ideal answer to this situation. We often actually reuse existing applications and provide an efficient combination between old and new.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.
Moreno: We did recently have the opportunity to help a bank in the Middle East start from scratch and implement our entire range of digital channels (mobile, tablets, desktop, wearables) together with our administration platform that allows to manage completely the channels and the way they interact with their clients . It was great to see these go live and see customer usage rates jump up right away.

Innofis administration dashboard

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
Moreno: I have many years of experience working in banks. I do not approach the constant financial innovation as a threat for banks, but rather an opportunity to adapt existing resources and provide better service for banking clients. I believe that my background, together with a strong technical team who made our platform a reality, have allowed us to position ourselves as a trusted advisor and provider for banks.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Innofis that we can look forward to over the next few months?
Moreno: We continue working on some ground-breaking modules that complement our platform. At FinovateEurope, we showed our approach of focusing on the UX for the people inside the bank who actually have to work with the systems. And the response has been tremendous. We believe banks understand now that a good customer-facing UX is a must. The real challenge now is to provide products that can actually be used easily and efficiently by the banks.

Innofis geofenced offer capability

Campaign dashbaord

Finovate: Where do you see Innofis a year or two from now?
Moreno: We are on a road of international expansion. We are experiencing increasing demand from Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and others and we are planning to build out our organization in order to keep delivering the quality of implementation that customers have come to expect from us.

Innofis CEO David Moreno, along with David Falk, demoed the company’s Omnichannel Predictive Banking at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

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Finovate Debuts: Designed for Women, Spiff Introduces its Social Savings Service

By David Penn Posted on March 3, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, FinovateEurope 2016, Spiff

Spiff is a straightforward concept: a “simple and fun” savings service designed with women in mind. Founder and CEO Carl Wessmann credits the women in his life for helping him understand the importance of savings, and he’s returned the favor with a new technology that, as he explains it, “helps connect money with what it can accomplish” for users and their loved ones.

Spiff is poised to take advantage of the disconnect between the rising economic power of women and the fact that women are still a disproportionately small portion of the world’s savers and investors.

Spiff CMO Kristin Juland Møller and CEO Carl Wessmann demonstrated their technology at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

“Our key demographic, women between 25 and 35, play an essential part in our mission to reduce wealth inequality,” said Spiff CMO Kristin Juland Møller. Noting that 1 in 4 millennial women are “already parents,” she pointed out that “by providing them with inspiration and savings tools they need, we will not only empower millions with good saving habits, but also empower future generations as they pass on their saving habits to their children.”

In Spiff’s Finovate debut, Møller showed three of Spiff’s key features:

Setting up a savings plan for oneself
Setting up a savings plan for a dependent
Sharing that savings plan with a relative, such as an aunt or grandparent

Møller presented the Spiff Dashboard, where she was able to choose between different types of savings plans (options included themes such as “Your Future,” “Your Kids,” and “Rainy Day”). The Savings Plan can be personalized with an image, as well as a description of the specific savings goal for the plan.

The user then chooses the amount of monthly savings to be automatically drawn from a connected account and set aside into either a savings account or a pre-selected investment fund. Choose a day of the month for the transaction and, after confirming the information, the savings plan is set.

“Saving is a family affair,” Møller said, showing next how a child’s savings plan built with Spiff could easily be shared with grandparents or other relatives via social media. “It’s something parents do for their kids, and grandparents do for their grandkids,” she said.

The stats

Founded in January 2015
Headquartered in Oslo, Norway
Carl Wessmann is CEO and founder
Raised $500,000 from investors in five countries

How it works

We sat down for a quick conversation with Møller during rehearsal day at FinovateEurope, and followed up with a few questions about Spiff, its focus on helping empower women financially, and what to look forward to from the company in 2016.

Finovate: What problem does Spiff solve?

Kristin Juland Møller: Spiff is a saving service, designed with women in mind. We want to empower women with smarter finance tools for saving, so we created a simple, social and fun savings app. Spiff connects money to what it can accomplish, for you and your loved ones. In simple, straightforward language.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Møller: Women 25-35.

Finovate: How does Spiff solve the problem better?

Møller: You need to build products that people love, not products that will only make you more profit. That means that you need to design products for key demographics, and we choose to focus on a key demographic that has been widely neglected from banks for the past hundred years. It’s time we shake it up.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of Spiff.

Møller: Saving is a family affair. Grandparents save for their grandkids, parents for their kids, friends save for trips together, and young couples save for their first home. Spiff is a social savings app that allows you to share saving plans, give savings as a gift, and reinvent the charm of saving together. We cheer you on, and celebrate when you reach your goals!

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

Møller: Our founders are strongly influenced by Nordic values, equality, and the universal notion that women and men are worth the same. Our one founder Calle has written a Facebook Note on why this is important in his life. Keyword: Women https://www.facebook.com/notes/carl-nicolai-wessmann/the-women-of-my-life/10153213470391190

Strong and independent women around us have taught us the value of kindness, fairness and empathy—and the importance of saving. Spiff is built on these values.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Spiff that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Møller: Testing has begun. And the early signs are that people love it. We are launching in Norway this year. Expansion will follow. We welcome everyone to join the Spiffy waitlist (www.getspiff.no), and be one of the first to try Spiff. We will also be part of one of the world’s best accelerators, TINC, in Silicon Valley.

Finovate: Where do you see Spiff a year or two from now?

Møller: We will have empowered one million women with smarter savings.

Check out Spiff’s demo video from FinovateEurope 2016.

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Finovate Debuts: Ledger’s Blue Smartcard Mitigates Phishing, Malware Attacks

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 29, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, FinovateEurope 2016, Ledger

Bitcoin is inherently difficult to protect and is not guarded from fraud, as many traditional accounts are. To navigate this issue, Ledger has designed hardware to help users preserve ownership of their digital blockchain assets.

The company began as the House of Bitcoin, a physical retail location in Paris where people exchange digital currency in person, learn about bitcoin, and share ideas with other startups (see below). Ledger was born from a merger of three different companies which had gathered at the space to collaborate.

The company’s flagship hardware product Ledger Nano helps individuals protect their bitcoins and make payments safely.

At FinovateEurope 2016, the company launched the Ledger Blue Smartcard (pictured below), an enterprise solution featuring a touch screen to serve as a second factor to validate transaction information before completing a settlement on the blockchain. The device mitigates phishing and malware attacks, which can occur due to inherently insecure computers, smartphones, or human negligence.

Ledger CEO and founder Eric Larchevêque says, “It is a hardware wallet, but we prefer to call it a personal security device because it can do a lot.” The device not only serves as a second factor for bitcoin transactions and interbank settlements, but also secures the movement of any assets held on the blockchain, including P2P stock trading, workflow certification for insurance management, and even process documentation for pharmaceutical clinical trials.

“It’s not about currency,” Larchevêque emphasizes, “but about what you can do with the blockchain.”

CEO Eric Larchevêque demoed Ledger Blue at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

Ledger Blue facts:

Employees: 16
Funding: €2.5M seed round in 2015
10,000 units sold of first device, Ledger Nano
Customers across 100 countries
HQ: Paris, France
Founded: January 2015

Eric Larchevêque demonstrated Ledger’s Blue Smartcard on stage at FinovateEurope in London (above). Larchevêque studied as an engineer of macro electronics at the ESIEE Paris, a French graduate school of engineering. Since 1996 he has been an entrepreneur and has founded, sold, and crashed about a dozen companies.

Finovate: What problem does Ledger solve?
Larchevêque: Ledger secures the last meter of the enterprise infrastructure by designing a new generation of hardware security devices enforcing strong authentication, data integrity and compliance. Use cases range from critical workflow security to trusted hardware for blockchain-based applications.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?
Larchevêque: Enterprises, banks, fintechs, insurers, asset managers, blockchain startups … Any company requiring a high level of compliance and security in their process. We are present on the European and North American market.

Finovate: How does Ledger solve the problem better?
Larchevêque: Ledger has a strong expertise in embedded hardware security and built its reputation on the blockchain market by designing a popular security solution sold in more than 100 countries.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.
Larchevêque: In compliance, necessity of proof lies with the company under scrutiny. Ledger designed a blockchain-based immutable audit trail giving full traceability of any process. Each step is permanently recorded in the blockchain through the signature of personal, secure hardware keys. As the audit trail is fully enforced through a decentralized system, this solution brings the highest possible trust level and prevents any possibility of tampering.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
Larchevêque: Ledger’s core engineers come from highly regarded hardware and security companies such as Oberthur, Gemalto or STMicroelectronics. Ledger is a full-stack company, with a rare expertise on secure elements (smart cards), and developed its own secure embedded operating system.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Ledger that we can look forward to over the next few months?
Larchevêque: Ledger will soon release a suite of FIDO-certified hardware dongles for strong authentication (with USB, NFC and BLE capabilities). It’ll allow enterprises to bring access security to the highest level for both laptop and mobile web apps and native applications.

Finovate: Where do you see Ledger a year or two from now?
Larchevêque: Ledger will be a global leader in trusted hardware for cybersecurity and blockchain-based applications.

Check out Ledger’s live demo video from FinovateEurope 2016:

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Finovate Debuts: SaleMove Brings the In-person Customer Experience Online

By David Penn Posted on January 27, 2016
Categories: Finovate Debuts, SaleMove

What if you could keep all the things you like about the in-person customer experience and leave out everything you don’t like?

That’s the goal of SaleMove, the company that has built a platform to enable businesses selling services, such as banking, mortgage, insurance, to provide an online user experience that exceeds the in-person version.

SaleMove Founder and CEO Daniel Michaeli demonstrated the SaleMove Engagement Platform and Omni Call at FinovateFall 2015.

With its Engagement Platform, which won Best of Show honors at FinovateFall 2015, SaleMove offers financial services companies and others the ability to provide an omnichannel experience. Whether using instant video, voice, co-browsing or a combination, the platform is an enterprise-caliber, FINRA- and SEC-compliant solution-increasing engagement.

Company facts:

Founded May 2012
Headquartered in New York City, with offices in Estonia and Irvine, California
100+ customers
$7 million in funding raised

How it works

The premise behind SaleMove is that it is difficult for consumers to make online purchases of complex financial products. According to Founder and CEO Daniel Michaeli, the lack of face-to-face interaction makes it easy for customers to be intimidated by these kind of purchases.

“Too often our interaction with businesses is asynchronous,” Michaeli says. “Even email and social media posts are more traditional, turn-based ways of communicating.” And what passes for real-time communication online is limited to IVR script or chats. “Walking into a website should be the same as walking into a store.” But the challenge is that much greater for businesses that are trying to sell complex services.

At Finovate, Michaeli elaborated on a few use-cases of the SaleMove platform in action. Starting with the Engagement Platform, he showed how a person completing an online insurance form, for example, was able to request real-time help from a customer-service representative via his preferred mode of communication—video, voice, phone, or chat—at any point during the process. The customer may opt in for co-browsing, giving the agent a cursor and the ability to enter data into on-screen fields. The communication mode can be changed any time during the interaction.

Michaeli also showcased SaleMove’s OmniCall. The service enables a customer to call an online merchant and immediately begin a co-browse session, made possible by a unique number that pairs the browsing session with the merchant’s number. “[Co-browsing] allows us to pre-authenticate the visitor,” Michaeli says. “[The merchant] knows exactly where I am. He can start co-browsing with me right away. It saves time, it saves cost, and it dramatically enhances the customer experience.”

SaleMove’s platform not only makes real-time online communication as seamless as in-person communication, but also works without the user or operator having to download or install anything; the platform is compatible with all browsers. “Everything happens through the browser,” Michaeli said. “All browsers, all operating systems.”

The future

When talking about the company’s current plans, Michaeli focuses on features. He talks about an engagement center that provides professional services. The idea is to determine KPIs “right off the bat,” and then build the program around the metrics that clients want to impact. “Many companies we work with—early adopting innovators—share our wavelength,” Michaeli said.

This is Michaeli’s central theme: tailoring the solution, making sure that even at the enterprise level the experience is unique and engaging. In terms of potential markets for the technology, Michaeli says financial services are a top-three vertical, along with auto and e-commerce. He says the breadth of applications in the financial service vertical enables a “whole host of things you can do: advisory, brokerage, insurance.”

“We have such great initial customers in the financial space,” Michaeli says. “I want to find more like-minded people who get the value of customer experience.”

Check out the demo video from SaleMove

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Finovate Debuts: Authy’s Password Alternative

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on January 14, 2016
Categories: Authy, Finovate Debuts, Twilio

The question isn’t whether the password’s dead, but rather, is it enough.

Authy Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) offers a scalable secondary authentication method that provides protection beyond the basic user name plus password. Only 36% of financial websites use a secondary authentication method. Authy seeks to improve that by offering an intuitive user experience that removes login friction while adding security.

Stats

11,000+ applications protected
2 million+ end users served
Available globally
~10 million customers between Authy and Twilio combined
Access to Twilio’s developer ecosystem of 700k

Products

The company, owned by Twilio, offers three products:

Authy OneCode sends a one-time verification code via SMS or automated voice call (illustrated far left)
Authy SoftToken is an app that runs on any device and generates a one-time code (illustrated far right)
Authy OneTouch allows the user to approve or deny the authentication with a yes/no response (illustrated middle)

Authy OneTouch is the easiest to use since it requires only the push of a yes button rather than entering a code.

OneTouch has a variety of use cases, including:

Account login
Large-value transaction validation
Multi-approval solution:
- Escrow model (both parties need to approve)
- Sequential approval (manager’s manager’s manager approval)
- Primary user approval (parent approval of child’s request)

Authy OneTouch example

Here’s how Authy OneTouch works to authenticate a high-value money transfer:

Sender enters the amount to transfer, in this case $5,300
Authy sends an approval request to the sender (pictured right) as well as to the recipient. The approval screen notes the institution, transaction amount, account number, and a request for the user to confirm or deny the transaction.
If both parties accept, funds are transferred

For new or stolen devices, Authy offers the ability to add or replace devices to a trusted circle. This prevents fraudsters from confirming transactions using a stolen phone.

Twilio acquisition

Before it was acquired by messaging API provider Twilio in February 2015, Authy was a Twilio customer.

To preserve Authy’s product after the acquisition, Twilio incorporated Authy’s offerings into its developer portal to complement its own products. As Twilio’s founder and CEO Jeff Lawson states, “This isn’t a typical acquisition where the Authy team members will be absorbed into the borg and the product slowly forgotten. Nope. Just the opposite – we love the Authy product and are investing massively in expanding its footprint with developers of all kinds.”

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

At its live demo at FinovateFall 2015, Authy was new to the Finovate stage but the technology was not. Alums Coinbase, Knox, Loyal3, and LendUp are all Authy customers. Dan Killmer (Lead Solutions Architect), Marc Boroditsky (VP and General Manager), and John Lindsay (CEO, Bitwage) debuted Authy OneTouch at FinovateFall 2015 in New York:

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Finovate Debuts: Finanteq Helps Innovative Banks Succeed in Mobile with SuperWallet

By David Penn Posted on January 13, 2016
Categories: Finanteq, Finovate Debuts

most

Can you imagine spending as much time with your banking app as you do with Facebook or Twitter?

Not only can FINANTEQ imagine it, but with its new banking app, SuperWallet, the Polish spinoff from eLeader is doing everything it can to make it happen across Europe and, soon, across America.

FINANTEQ’s goal is to move banks from the end of the value chain to the front. “Right now the bank is just an icon on a credit slip,” said FINANTEQ customer adviser, Kate Miroslaw. FINANTEQ’s SuperWallet reverses this deficiency by combining mobile banking, payments, and m-commerce all in one mobile banking app. Rather than being an afterthought, the mobile banking app suddenly is at the center of attention when it comes to paying bills, booking a flight, or ordering concert tickets.

From left: Finanteq m-Commerce Operations Manager Tomasz Perski; Customer Adviser Kate Miroslaw; and Marketing Manager Artur Malek demonstrated SuperWallet at FinovateFall 2015.

“Would people love the Starbucks app so much if it were just about payments?” asks Artur Malek, marketing manager for FINANTEQ. His point is that by allowing customers to do things like order ahead, the app transforms the consumer experience for the better. “This is the added value beyond payments,” Malek says. “And this is exactly what we do.”

Company facts:

Founded in September 2014 as a spinoff from eLeader
Headquartered in Lublin, Poland
Employs 100 professionals in Poland and the United States.

How it works

The way FINANTEQ sees it, banks theoretically have many ways to build relationships with their customers. But the actual interactions between banks and customers often don’t live up to these opportunities. “Selling to customers doesn’t happen very often,” Malek points out. And while payments are frequent, banks are often bystanders to the transaction, and besides, the payment space is increasingly being infiltrated by non-bank actors such as Apple and Samsung.

FINANTEQ’s solution is simple: combine e-commerce, banking, and payments in one app provided by the bank. In their demonstration of SuperWallet, the team from FINANTEQ walked through a wide variety of scenarios: checking account balance, booking a hotel, paying for parking remotely, buying concert tickets, hiring an Uber car, ordering groceries or takeout … all without leaving the app.

This means consumers don’t have to install numerous apps and, more importantly, don’t have to share data with scores of merchants. The bank safeguards the sensitive data transmitting only what is required for a transaction.

“Payment is made using data in the app, delivery address and other details of the transaction,” says Tomasz Perski, e-commerce operations manager. “There are many shops inside the app, but once authorized, there is no need for login or password. The services and shops available are chosen by the bank (bank partners) or by Finanteq, and the app can also feature offers and discounts.”

The future

Superwallet has been available in Eastern Europe since 2014 courtesy of early client Santander Group. And two new banks in Poland are expected to come online with the technology in early 2016. FINANTEQ is currently building out its U.S. team in anticipation of entering the U.S. market. Malek says the company is building relationships with merchants, especially aggregators. He mentioned that FINANTEQ now offers bus-ticket purchases in more than 130 cities.

Called one of the most innovative mobile banking apps by Forrester Research, Superwallet also won the Citi Mobile Challenge in April 2015 in Warsaw by taking top honors in the digital wallet category.

Currently, FINANTEQ has good traction in the CEE region. Its clients are some of the biggest and most innovative banks in countries like Poland, including Finovate alum, mBank, which is also a client.

Check out this video of FINANTEQ’s FinovateFall 2015 demonstration.

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