• FIS has launched its Digital Trading Storefront, enabling banks, brokers, and fund managers to offer a customizable digital trading experience with real-time execution and enhanced personalization.
• The new Digital Trading Storefront is built on FIS’s Cross-Asset Trading and Risk Platform.
• The new tool supports both buy-side and sell-side strategies while helping firms manage trading volumes and mitigate regulatory compliance risks.

Payment, banking, and investment systems provider FIS unveiled its Digital Trading Storefront today. The new tool enables banks, brokers, market makers, and fund managers to offer their customers a new digital trading experience.

The new Digital Trading Storefront builds upon FIS’ existing Cross-Asset Trading and Risk Platform. Formerly known as Front Arena, FIS Cross-Asset Trading and Risk Platform helps firms enter new markets quickly and support strategies for both the buy side and sell side. FIS’ Digital Trading Storefront enhances this by offering a suite of digital tools that allow for personalization and real-time trade execution.

Firms can customize their Digital Trading Storefront by integrating their own front or back-end components, and tailoring the design and customer experience to suit their brand. The platform facilitates more accessible trading in real-time, while helping mitigate regulatory compliance risk with APIs. When firms move their cross-asset trading platforms into the digital platform, they are better able to manage trading volumes at scale.

“Providing a competitive digital trading experience has become crucial for financial institutions who want to help customers be smarter when putting their money to work,” said FIS President, Capital Markets Nasser Khodri. “With this launch, FIS is unlocking financial technology that enables banks, broker dealers and wealth managers worldwide to deliver more modern experiences to their customers when their money is at work.”

FIS was founded in 1968. Headquartered in Florida, the firm offers a wide range of products and tools for its 15,000 clients across the globe, processing $50 trillion annually. In addition to wealth management tools, FIS also offers payment capabilities, risk management tools, customer communications products, and more.

In recent months, FIS has expanded its reach in the fintech and banking sectors through new offerings and partnerships. In July, FIS teamed up with Lendio, a fintech known for its lending technology, to launch a new SMB Digital Lending solution to support SMBs in need of financing. In August, Commerce Bank selected FIS to implement a loyalty program management platform.

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• FIS unveiled its embedded finance platform, Atelio by FIS, this week.
• The platform leverages FIS’ existing technology to enable businesses to embed a variety of financial products and services into their offerings.
• FIS made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2013. Stephanie Ferris is CEO and President.

FIS is the latest company to introduce a platform to make it easier for businesses and software developers to embed financial services and fintech solutions into their products and services. Atelio by FIS, launched this week, is one of the first banking-as-a-service offerings from a major core provider. The technology will serve B2C fintechs and enable financial and non-financial services companies alike to implement embedded finance into their existing offerings

“Welcome to the future of financial services,” FIS President of Platform and Enterprise Products Tarun Bhatnagar said. “Atelio by FIS is our vision to lead where fintech is going, which is outside the boundaries of how businesses enable, and their customers consume, financial services today.”

Atelio leverages FIS existing technology by way of easily embeddable and consumable components. The platform enables non-financial companies to offer their customers a wide variety of financial experiences: collecting deposits, moving money, issuing cards, sending invoices, and more. Atelio also provides tools to help companies fight fraud, anticipate cash flows, and gain insights into consumer preferences and behaviors.

FIS’ latest offering comes at a time when growth in embedded finance is expected to soar. In its product announcement, the company pointed to research from Bain Capital that indicated that embedded finance will represent 10% of all transactions by 2026. The firm values these transactions at $7 trillion, or more than $50 billion in total revenue. Additionally, research from S&P Global Intelligence showed that banks that offered embedded finance solutions outperformed their peers in terms of deposit growth.

“More than just a new solution, Atelio is built to lend the expertise, tools, and distribution so that our users and clients can focus on creating,” Bhatnagar said. “Our scale, distribution and continued investment in technology have given us the foundation to unlock our financial capabilities to a wider audience and power the next generation of financial innovation.”

Three FIS clients – KeyBank, private student loan provider College Ave, and payment system and billing platform Royal Pay – have already deployed Atelio and are building solutions on the platform.

Jacksonville, Florida-based FIS made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2013. Currently, the company enables 95% of the world’s banks, moves more than $1 trillion a month, and processes $50 trillion via its asset management technology every year. The company’s new product announcement came one day after FIS announced first quarter 2024 results which included the firm’s “fifth straight quarter of exceeding our financial outlook,” according to FIS CEO and President Stephanie Ferris.

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

• A number of sources are reporting that FIS has acquired Bond Financial Technologies for an undisclosed sum.
• The acquisition was first reported by Fintech Business Weekly’s Jason Mikula, who subsequently shared an internal note from FIS describing the acquisition.
• Neither company has commented publicly about the acquisition reports.

Both FIS and Bond Financial Technologies are being discreet about the news. But a growing number of sources – from TechCrunch to Twitter – are reporting that FIS has acquired the embedded finance company for an undisclosed sum. The news broke on June 1 via a tweet from Fintech Business Weekly’s Jason Mikula. TechCrunch confirmed the story days later, citing unnamed sources. But neither FIS nor Bond has issued an official statement on the news. Mikula followed up his initial tweet with a tweet on Friday sharing an internal communication from FIS president of platform and enterprise products, Tarun Bhatnagar, that provided additional details.

What do we know? In his tweet, Bhatnagar said that FIS was “welcoming 30 Bond colleagues to the FIS team” and that Bond co-founder and CEO Roy Ng will stay on, reporting to Bhatnagar. Bhatnagar noted that the acquisition makes sense for FIS insofar as it brings both banking-as-a-service and embedded finance talent and experience to the company. Bhatnagar added that the acquisition will “close a gap” when it comes to FIS’ embedded finance capabilities, and accelerate time-to-market for the company’s new embedded finance projects.

Founded in 2019, Bond has raised $49 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company’s embedded finance platform enables program management teams to build, launch, and operate their own financial products. Account verification solutions, deposit accounts, virtual and physical cards, and money movement tools are among the products that Bond’s technology helps companies create. With modern APIs and a robust integration layer, Bond simplifies the process of building and launching new products without having to partner with multiple institutions and vendors. Bond also manages the programs so that companies do not need to worry about securing banking licenses or staffing their own compliance teams.

Earlier this year, Bond announced a partnership with College Ave Student Loans. The collaboration will enable the private student loan provider, one of the top three in the U.S., to develop financial solutions for students and their families. Ng praised the company for its refinancing program and loan products for undergraduates, graduates, and parents, alike. “We look forward to partnering with College Ave to help millions of young adults build a strong financial future,” Ng said.

CardRates published an extensive profile of Bond and its founders at the beginning of the year.

Photo by Leeloo Thefirst