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Finovate Global Germany: Ecolytiq Partners with Tatra Banka; Airbank Inks Deal with Klarna Kosma

Finovate Global Germany: Ecolytiq Partners with Tatra Banka; Airbank Inks Deal with Klarna Kosma
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Crassula, ecolytiq, Finovate Global, FIS, MasterCard, PaySend, Salt Edge, WorldPay

This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at recent fintech developments in Germany where green banking, embedded finance, and open banking are the themes at the top of this week’s fintech headlines.

First up, Berlin-based Sustainability-as-a-Service innovator ecolytiq announced that it was teaming up with Slovakian financial institution Tatra Banka. The climate engagement fintech will provide Tatra Banka with the technology the firm needs in order to launch new green banking functionality on its online banking brand, Blue Planet. The new feature, which will be made available to Tatra Banka’s more than 600,000 customers, will enable users to monitor the impact their transactions may have on the environment (for example, with CO2 emissions), provide users with ideas on how to reduce their environmental impact, and offer rewards for spending that is environmentally friendly.

Founded in 2020, ecolytiq demonstrated its technology at Finovate’s developer event, FinDEVr 2021, which was held as a part of FinovateSpring that year. Putting accurate data at the center of the ability to move toward greater environmental sustainability, ecolytiq demonstrated how its open knowledge graph and streaming technology keep its data relevant and current. More recently, the company announced a strategic partnership with exceet Card Group, makers of sustainable payment cards made from wood and, the following month, teamed up with French sustainable neobank Green-Got.

Peter Golha, a director at Tatra Banka said that the institution believed it had a a role to play in the transition toward a more environmentally sustainable economy. “Not only have we a chance to change our own trajectory, but also a chance to live the topic of sustainability alongside our clients,” Golha said.

Founded in 1990, Tatra Banka was the first private bank to be established in Slovakia. Winner of the TREND Bank of the Year award for two years in a row, Tatra Banka announced this spring that it had achieved its greatest profit to date, reporting $164 million (EUR 162.1) in consolidated profits for the financial year 2021.

Second, German financial management platform for businesses Airbank inked a deal with Klarna Kosma this week. Klarna Kosma is an open banking platform launched by Swedish e-commerce innovator Klarna this spring. Seen as a rival to fellow Finovate alum Tink and its open banking platform, Klarna Kosma offers financial institutions, fintechs, and merchants connectivity to more than 15,000 banks in 24 countries around the world via a single API. Kosma was made possible in many ways by Klarna’s acquisition of direct, bank-to-bank payments company SOFORT in 2014, and Klarna has been developing and expanding the service ever since.

“Over the past year, the demand for Open Banking services from financial institutions and fintech startups has reached a tipping point,” Klarna Kosma VP Wilko Klaassen said. “(This) is why we have built a dedicated business unit which brings together engineering, product management, sales and marketing all together in the same team to focus on this $15 billion, fast-growing market.”

Airbank will leverage its new relationship with Klarna Kosma to “accelerate” its expansion into European markets and beyond. Airbank enables businesses to consolidate their bank accounts in a single location, allowing them to more easily automate bill management, make payments, and manage their finances. Companies also can use Airbank’s platform to track their financial transactions and forecast future liquidity. The partnership with Klarna Kosma will make it possible for Airbank to securely access account information from thousands of banks around the world, expand more aggressively, and better serve its SME customers that have global requirements.

“By the end of this year, we will serve over 50 counties, making Airbank the most comprehensive global banking solution for SMEs in the industry, with the ability to connect bank accounts from almost anywhere in the world,” Airbank founder and CEO Christopher Zemina said. “We are delighted to have Klarna Kosma as an experienced and dynamic partner that shares our ambition to shape the future of B2B financial management.”

Lastly, early in the week we learned that Berlin-based embedded finance startup Monite had teamed up with Codat, a U.K. firm that offers a universal API to enable access to consented business data from banking, accounting, and ecommerce platforms. The partnership will enable both SaaS platforms and financial institutions to integrate invoicing and billing functionality into their apps. This will allow platforms and institutions to offer businesses a unified solution for managing their financial operations.

In a statement, the CEOs of both Monite and Codat praised the great variety of financial apps and platforms dedicated to serving SMEs. The challenge, according to both Monite CEO Ivan Maryasin and Codat CEO Pete Lord, is that the variety can be overwhelming for many small businesses. “What’s still missing are the ‘super apps’ that bring everything together,” Maryasin said. “It can be time-consuming to manage and get the most out of them all,” concurred Lord.

Founded in 2020, Monite has raised $7.8 million in funding for its technology that empowers financial institutions and platforms to offer financial services such as multi-banking, AP automation, invoicing, and more to their customers. London, U.K.-based Codat neared unicorn status last month upon raising $100 million in Series C funding. The investment took the company’s total funding to more than $176 million and gave Codat a valuation of $825 million. The round was led by JPMorgan Partners, and featured participation from Plaid and Shopify.

Founded in 2017, Codat began this year with the announcement of a partnership with Moody’s Analytics to enhance small business lending.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Austrian fintech Helu.io, which specializes in providing financial solutions for SMEs, raised more than $10 million in Series A funding.
  • Rubicon, a fintech headquartered in Albania, announced an expanded partnership with Mastercard.
  • Latvia’s Crassula, a white label cloud banking software company, teamed up with Canadian open banking solutions provider Salt Edge.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Photo by XU CHEN

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FIS Launches Guaranteed Payments Solution for Protection Against Chargebacks

FIS Launches Guaranteed Payments Solution for Protection Against Chargebacks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, FIS, Signifyd
  • FIS is launching its Guaranteed Payments solution this week that boosts merchants’ ecommerce transaction approval rates and guarantees protection against chargebacks.
  • FIS is partnering with ecommerce fraud prevention company Signifyd to reduce merchant chargebacks.
  • “With this solution, customer retention works hand in hand with fraud elimination to unlock incredible revenue growth opportunities,” said Signifyd CEO and Co-founder Raj Ramanand. 

Core banking expert FIS is launching a Guaranteed Payments solution this week. The new tool guarantees merchants increased ecommerce transaction approval rates and eliminates the financial liability of chargebacks resulting from fraudulent purchases.

Guaranteed Payments, which is available across the Signifyd Commerce Network and integrated into FIS’ Worldpay platform, facilitates increased merchant approval rates and provides guaranteed chargeback protection. The new technology combines machine learning and transaction intelligence to analyze aspects of a consumer’s purchase, including email address and payment credentials. Leveraging that information, Guaranteed Payments can instantly distinguish legitimate orders from fraudulent orders. The reduced fraud helps merchants optimize revenue and fulfill orders more quickly.

“Guaranteed Payments brings together two powerful sources of transaction intelligence—the Worldpay data stream produced from processing 40 billion orders annually and the Signifyd Commerce Network of thousands of merchants worldwide,” said FIS Chief Product Officer Vicky Bindra. She adds that the new tool can “combine fraud protection with increased approvals to enhance payment optimization and the overall user experience.”

Preventing chargebacks is at the heart of Signifyd’s technology. The California-based company helps identify fraudulent product orders using machine learning algorithms that sift through big data, including user behavior patterns, to reduce merchant chargebacks on fraudulent charges and save money on shipping goods on declined orders. In the event an order turns out to be fraudulent, Signifyd reimburses the merchant for the chargeback.

“Merchants using Signifyd experience a 5 to 9 percent increase in top line conversion on average,” said Signifyd CEO and Co-founder Raj Ramanand. “With this solution, customer retention works hand in hand with fraud elimination to unlock incredible revenue growth opportunities.”

FIS’ Guaranteed Payments is launching at a time when ecommerce activity and the fraud the comes along with it are at an all-time high. While the ecommerce market is predicted to grow 50% in the next two years, so is the fraud that comes along with it. In the past year, nine out of 10 merchants lost revenue due to payment fraud. False positives are hurting merchants, as well. Even though fraud currently accounts for about 1% of online transactions, merchants routinely reject as much as 9% of orders to avoid fraud, missing out on $443 billion in potential revenue.

Photo by RODNAE Productions

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FIS Partners with Treasury Prime to Bring Embedded Finance to Small and Mid-Sized Banks

FIS Partners with Treasury Prime to Bring Embedded Finance to Small and Mid-Sized Banks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, FIS
  • FIS has partnered with Treasury Prime to launch a new embedded finance offering.
  • The new solution will give FIS’ banking customers additional options for managing deposits, AP, and other critical bank processes.
  • The collaboration with Treasury Prime is FIS’ second big embedded finance play of the year, having acquired embedded finance solution provider Payrix in February.

FIS has launched a new embedded finance offering, built in partnership with Treasury Prime, to help community and regional banks take advantage of the most modern digital capabilities and create new distribution channels. The new API-based solution will give FIS’ banking customers and their business clients new options when it comes to managing deposits, accounts payable, and other key banking operations.

The new offering will also enable community and regional banks to potentially create new revenue streams by expanding their client base, especially among highly digitally-active consumers.

“Embedded finance is a growing trend in the market because it allows businesses to bring innovative ideas quickly to market by combining financial services with user experiences right at the point of need,” FIS Head of Payments Kelly Beatty explained.

A leading technology solutions provider for merchants, banks, and capital markets firms – and a Finovate alum since 2010 – FIS processes more than $75 billion in transaction value for than 20,000+ clients globally. Treasury Prime offers APIs that enable companies to embed a range of banking services onto their platforms to boost revenues, increase customer loyalty, and offer rewards. Writing about the partnership on the Treasury Prime blog, Vice President of Banking Jeff Nowicki noted that the collaboration will enable banks to focus on their core strengths “rather than trying to compete with fintechs.” The partnership will also create new opportunities for business lines or revenues “(in) the same way community banks have for ages added lenders or business banking teams to target specific segments.”

The technology already has been integrated by digital commercial bank Grasshopper. The firm, in partnership with Web 3 blockchain company HUMBL, will deploy FIS’ embedded finance services across both its consumer and commercial divisions.

“Our vision has been clear from the start,” Grasshopper Chief Digital Officer Chris Tremont said,. “We wanted to better serve the needs of fintechs, small and medium-sized businesses, and the venture community. This BaaS platform and sophisticated set of APIs allows us to leverage technology and provide an enhanced banking experience for our clients.”

2022 has been a year in which FIS has paid particular attention to opportunities in embedded finance. A Finovate alum since 2010, FIS began the year with an acquisition of embedded payments solution provider Payrix. The deal will bolster FIS’ e-commerce, embedded payments, and finance experiences for small and medium-sized merchants via SaaS-based platforms.

“The acquisition of Payrix is an excellent proof point of FIS’ ability to unlock the value of our broad portfolio of solutions as companies of all sizes rely on FIS as a destination for innovation to advance how the world pays, banks, and invests,” said FIS President Stephanie Ferris.

Photo by Laker

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Fintech Merger and Acquisition Activity Starts Strong in Q1 2022

Fintech Merger and Acquisition Activity Starts Strong in Q1 2022
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alkami Technology, Azimo, BeSmartee, FIS, Fiserv, HooYu, Mergers & Acquisitions, Mitek, MoneyGram, Plaid, Revolut, SecureKey, Segmint, Sezzle, StreetShares, Taulia, Trulioo, Wealthfront

While 2021 was a record year for fintech merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, 2022 is off to a great start.

According to FT Partners, there were 1,485 M&A deals in the fintech space totaling $348.5 billion in 2021. As Square’s $29 billion takeover of Afterpay demonstrated, last year’s massive volume is partially thanks to multiple large deals.

This quarter, only eight of the 21 deals initiated disclosed financial details. Of those, the deal volume added up to almost $5 billion.

January

February

March

While experts predict that 2022 M&A activity will likely see momentum from 2021, there are two aspects to watch out for this year. First, we will not see as many SPACs as we saw last year. This may decrease the number of companies choosing to exit this year. Second, fintech valuations are deflating after experiencing huge rises over the course of the past two years. While the loss in value won’t directly impact the number of M&A deals, it will decrease the deal volume.

Photo by Martin Lopez

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FIS On Ecommerce Trends & BNPL Market Predictions

FIS On Ecommerce Trends & BNPL Market Predictions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FIS, Speaker series

What’s behind all of the buzz surrounding the recent buy now, pay later (BNPL) trend? We spoke with Jason Pavona, FIS General Manager for North American E-commerce, to get his thoughts on the matter.

As the General Manager for North America, Pavona leads FIS’s merchant acquiring commercial efforts in the United States and Canada along with driving the payments analytics business he founded and acquired by FIS.

In our interview below, we gleaned insights from FIS’s recent payments report and tapped Pavona’s expertise on BNPL, the uptick in ecommerce, and banks’ responses.

It’s widely understood that ecommerce grew in 2020. Do you anticipate that the growth curve will continue or level off?

Jason Pavona: We are seeing this growth continue for at least the next three years. Our recent Global Payments Report is forecasting that the global ecommerce market will grow by nearly 60 percent by 2024 to a total value of $7.3 trillion. The pandemic did accelerate this growth, as we saw two to three years of typical acceleration condensed into 2020, so some leveling off can be expected. However, this rapid growth was also driven by a push towards digital retail that was underway well before we had ever heard of COVID-19. Consumers are now more comfortable than ever making payments online — their inclination to the speed, ease, and flexibility of online shopping points to continued growth in the ecommerce market. While growth may slow down the line, we are not seeing signs of a plateau in that growth.

The report notes that Asia is leading when it comes to using mobile wallets at the point of sale. What’s holding back U.S. consumers from using mobile wallets at the point of sale?

Pavona: Payment innovation in Asia, and particularly China, has coincided with the rise of smartphones and powerful local super apps, helping the region leap ahead of the rest of the world in the use of mobile wallets. The pandemic helped to accelerate digitalization of the point of sale across the world and increase the usage of digital wallets, but buy-in from Asian governments in the innovation of payments has supported that development.

Mobile and digital wallets are rising in the U.S., with digital wallets accounting for a third of all online payments in 2020, but the U.S. does still have some catching up to do. We expect mobile wallets to become more ubiquitous as Americans become more used to the technology and begin using digital wallets in place of their physical credit cards.

Many Americans, however, are torn over going fully digital in their payments. FIS has found that while 55% of consumers prefer digital payments, 67% feel more comfortable using traditional payments methods.

There’s been a relatively large influx of third-party players in the BNPL space, but some banks have created their own BNPL offerings. Which do you see coming out on top?

Pavona: It is possible that banks are able to take some market share in the BNPL space, however this could be considered to be taking back market share from BNPL providers that have taken over the relationship with bank customers at the point of sale.

Third party BNPL providers are growing rapidly, and in order to compete banks need to forge stronger relationships with merchants at the point of sale – relationships companies like Affirm and Klarna already have. It may also be reasonable to expect banks, in response to third party financing, to adjust their consumer credit card offerings to gain a competitive edge and compete directly within their customer’s wallets, rather than at the point of sale.

Do you think BNPL payments will be a lasting trend or will consumers eventually default back to traditional credit?

Pavona: It is a bit early to say one way or another whether BNPL will be a lasting trend and how the leading providers will expand their product sets and relationships, though given the rapid growth of BNPL solutions across markets it’s not difficult to make a case for BNPL being here to stay. FIS expects BNPL to more than double its market share to 5% of all transactions by 2024, and comprise 4% of the global ecommerce market by 2024. While U.S. consumers may still be building trust in BNPL tools, some European countries have accepted them whole-heartedly. For example, BNPL purchases account for 20% of all online transactions in Sweden and Germany.

While we forecast several more years of strong BNPL growth at least, another question to consider is how BNPL will fare under heavier scrutiny from regulators. The U.K. and other countries have already begun discussing and introducing BNPL regulations and other countries like the U.S. could be soon to follow.

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Ten Finovate Alums Join FedNow Instant Payments Pilot Program

Ten Finovate Alums Join FedNow Instant Payments Pilot Program
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Alumni News, Capital One, Citi, Daily news, Finastra, Finzly, FIS, Fiserv, Green Dot, Jack Henry, List series, Temenos

More than two years in the making, the FedNow payments initiative – launched by the U.S. Federal Reserve to accelerate payments and transfers – is picking up speed. The project currently has more than 110 banks, financial services providers, and other organizations slated to participate, and among them are ten Finovate alums.

“We’re gratified by the industry’s tremendous interest and willingness to devote time and energy to help us develop the FedNow Service,” Esther George, executive sponsor of the Federal Reserve’s payments improvement initiatives, said. George, who is also President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, added that the pilot has had to “adjust” to accommodate greater than expected interest.

The idea behind the service is to expand the reach of instant payment services offered by financial institutions and enable businesses and individuals to send and receive instant payments, with full access to their funds within seconds. The FedNow Service will leverage the Federal Reserve’s FedLine network, which connects to more than 10,000 financial institutions directly or via their agents.

The pilot program is designed to review the technology’s features and functionality, assess the user experience, and greenlight the product for further testing and eventual general availability. Participating institutions will be retained, post-launch, to provide additional review and advice with regard to issues like adoption roadmap, industry readiness, and overall payments strategy.

“The FedNow Service marks a turning point in the industry’s move to making real-time payments a reality,” Booshan Rengachari, founder and CEO of Finzly, explained. Finzly is one of Finovate’s newest alums – most recently demoing its technology at FinovateWest Digital last fall – and is one of the participants in FedNow’s pilot program.

Rengachari further suggested that this “turning point” was a moment his company had anticipated. “We created our Payment Hub specifically to help FIs prepare and go to market faster with newer RTP networks,” he said. Finzly’s CEO added that this helps “address the challenges of offering single payment API for multiple payment networks without having to run disparate payment systems from multiple vendors.”

The 10 Finovate alums participating in the FedNow project are listed below.

Photo by Inge Wallumrød from Pexels

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FIS and The Clearing House Help Bring Real Time Payments to Small Banks

FIS and The Clearing House Help Bring Real Time Payments to Small Banks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, FIS

Financial services company FIS announced this week it has partnered with The Clearing House (TCH) in an effort to bring real-time payment processing and settlement to small-to-mid-sized banks and credit unions.

FIS will help its core banking system clients quickly and cheaply connect to TCH’s RTP network, a payments infrastructure that enables instant payments settlement and immediate availability of funds for banks participating in the network.

“As a long-time partner with The Clearing House, we are excited to see the RTP network continue to grow and to be working with banks across the United States to take advantage of the speed, power and scalability of real-time payments,” said FIS EVP, Head of Financial Institutions Payment Solutions Royal Cole. “We’ve designed our new managed service to ease the process of connecting to this emerging platform for small-to-mid-sized banks and credit unions that lack the resources of their larger competitors.”

Among FIS bank clients already participating in TCH’s RTP network are St. Louis, Missouri-based First Bank; and Nano Banc, a relationship-based bank headquartered in Irvine, California.

FIS was founded in 1968 and made major news headlines last year when it acquired Worldpay for $34 billion.

The Clearing House launched its RTP scheme in 2017. Today the RTP network’s real-time payment capabilities are accessible to banks that hold 70% of U.S. demand deposit accounts (DDAs). The network currently reaches over half of all U.S. DDAs.

Photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash

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FIS Unveils Subscription Model for Core Banking

FIS Unveils Subscription Model for Core Banking
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, FIS

Fintech giant FIS has adopted the subscription model that has proven popular in selling everything from wine to digital media to diapers. The Florida-based company launched a subscription core banking solution today called ClearEdge.

ClearEdge is geared specifically to serve community banks and offers a bundle of technologies to help them modernize their operations and provide a better customer experience. The flat-fee, month-to-month subscription model doesn’t require lengthy terms and it eliminates liquidated damages and exclusivity requirements.

“We are committed to making it as easy as possible for our qualifying community bank clients to access the advanced technology they need to offer modern, differentiated products and services to their customers,” said Head of Global Core and Channels, Americas at FIS Rob Lee. “ClearEdge takes that commitment to the next level with a powerful offering that we believe will be a game-changer for many community banks.”

“The ability to bundle solutions relative to our business needs creates the opportunity for us to be more creative and flexible while better controlling our back-office expense,” said John Dickson, chief operations officer at Coastal Community Bank. “Plus, it just makes sense in today’s volatile market.”

As the bank-fintech partnership ecosystem strengthens and the uncertainty of the COVID-19 economic environment persists, we can expect to see more subscription-type models from tech providers. The increased flexibility, combined with the ability to pick-and-choose solutions that are tailored to each individual organization, is a model that is better suited to modern banking requirements.

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

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Stratyfy Earns Spot in FIS Fintech Accelerator Incoming Cohort

Stratyfy Earns Spot in FIS Fintech Accelerator Incoming Cohort
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, FIS, Stratyfy

Predictive analytics innovator Stratyfy is one of ten companies selected to participate in the incoming cohort of FIS’ 2020 Fintech Accelerator program.

“The ten companies selected for the fifth year of FIS’ Accelerator program bring a wealth of promising ideas and technologies,” FIS Chief Growth Officer Asif Ramji said. “We look forward to working with these firms to bring their ideas to life.”

Joining Stratyfy in the program are:

  • Cirrus Secure
  • Cobbler Technologies
  • Dasceq
  • Mall IQ
  • Sequretek
  • Silot
  • Surfly
  • TrustStamp
  • XpenseOne

Seven of the companies in the cohort have headquarters in the United States. Of the others, Sequretek is based in Mumbai, India; Silot in Singapore; and Surfly in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. And after four years in operation, the accelerator, in partnership with The Venture Center, will conduct its fifth program virtually due to the challenges of the global public health crisis.

In addition to being entirely virtual, this year’s program will run for 18 weeks instead of the usual 12 weeks to allow for increased mentoring and training time. The program will culminate with a Demo Day technology presentation on October 14th. Participating startups will also receive a monetary investment; the amount was not disclosed.

Executive Director for The Venture Center, Wayne Miller, pointed to the program’s success in empowering startup companies and helping improve access to financial services and technology. “With our partners at FIS and the State of Arkansas, we’re honored to be a part of bringing cutting-edge technologies to the places and people who need them, particularly in this moment of monumental technological advancement,” Miller said.

The news comes in the wake of Strayfy’s announcement of a new strategic partnership with Innovesta Technologies. The two companies are collaborating on a machine learning solution that will help businesses better measure the risk of and opportunity in non-public companies. The partnership combines Stratyfy’s decision engine and advanced machine learning technology with Innovesta’s comprehensive data assets to deliver real-time insights into the forces that impact business performance.

“Models built from historical data offer little help during an unprecedented health and economic crisis like the current global pandemic,” Stratyfy co-founder and CEO Laura Kornhauser said when the partnership was announced in May. “Achieving an inclusive global financial recovery requires robust risk management strategies, and those strategies necessitate an understanding of the unique challenges being faced by every business. Stratyfy’s decision management solutions will leverage Innovesta’s trustworthy data to directly address this need.”

Founded in 2016, Stratyfy is headquartered in New York City. The company was named one of the world’s 100 most promising startups to watch last year by CNBC.

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FIS Unveils Portal to Help SMEs Access PPP Loan Forgiveness

FIS Unveils Portal to Help SMEs Access PPP Loan Forgiveness
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, FIS
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

There may be no second acts in politics. But with the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) rolling out the next phase in its loan forgiveness initiative for SMEs, it’s good to see that the economic rescue plan has another shot at getting it right.

We chronicled some of the challenges that PPP 1.0 faced. Fortunately, this time around, many of the cooperating financial institutions, financial services companies, and fintechs are in a better, more informed position to help make sure the businesses that need the help actually get the help.

One example of this is the new portal powered by the FIS Real-time Lending Platform. This portal, available to FIs and merchants participating in the SBA’s PPP, automates and streamlines the process of applying for loan forgiveness under the provisions of the new program.

“As a critical infrastructure provider, FIS is focused on making it as easy as possible for small businesses and merchants to complete the loan forgiveness process and help them get back to business as soon as possible,” FIS Head of Global Core Banking and Channels Rob Lee said. “Our new portal uses advanced automation technology to handle the entire process, reducing the time and complexity for businesses in getting forgiveness of the essential loans that are critical to their business.”

Using pre-filled applications and documentation uploads for efficiency, the portal figures loan forgiveness amounts, and allows FIs to review and e-sign the requests. The document packages are sent to the borrower and bank for e-signing and then, via the portal, the materials are submitted to the SBA for validation. The portal is 100% digital and can be easily deployed by banks who can get started by uploading a file of eligible loans from their current PPP customers. FIS notes that via its Real-Time Lending Platform, it has facilitated “billions” in PPP loan funds through lenders to SMEs whose businesses have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

A Finovate alum since 2013, FIS made fintech headlines last month when the company unveiled a new venture arm and a plan to invest $150 million in fintech startups. Last year, FIS was part of fintech’s biggest transactions of 2019 with its $34 billion acquisition of fellow Finovate alum Worldpay.

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FIS’ New Venture Arm Unveils Plan to Invest $150 Million in Fintechs

FIS’ New Venture Arm Unveils Plan to Invest $150 Million in Fintechs
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FIS

Fintech giant FIS unveiled a new venture arm today. The Florida-based company is targeting a goal to invest $150 million in fintechs over the course of the next three years.

The investment arm will focus on early-to-growth stage startups across the fintech sector and will centralize around emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning, digital enablement and automation, data and analytics, security and privacy, distributed ledger technology, and financial inclusion.

FIS launched the new venture arm to “nurture a growing ecosystem of innovators within and outside the company” as well as to complement its other initiatives including the FIS FinTech Accelerator program, the FIS Innovatein48 research and development competition, and its innovation labs.

“At a time when many other fintech firms are scaling back their investments, FIS is deepening its commitment to stay at the forefront of innovative technologies that can help our clients accelerate digital transformation and emerge even stronger from the current pandemic,” said FIS Chief Growth Officer Asif Ramji. “FIS Ventures is a significant new component of our investment strategy to identify and bring to market innovative new technologies that advance the way the world pays, banks, and invests.”

And FIS Ventures has made it clear that the funding relationship is not just about the money. The company will form strategic partnerships with each funding recipient. In turn, the companies will not only benefit financially but will also gain from FIS’ reach, scale, operating expertise, customer-base, and channel partners.

FIS Ventures’ first investment went to Flutterwave, a Nigeria-based payment acceptance platform.

Founded in 1968, FIS is a Fortune 500 company and is a member of Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The company demoed at Finovate in 2016. In the third quarter of last year FIS made one of the biggest acquisitions of the year, purchasing Worldpay for $34 billion.

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OTB Ventures Goes Big on CEE Startups; Analysts Share Insights on Indian Fintech

OTB Ventures Goes Big on CEE Startups; Analysts Share Insights on Indian Fintech
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, FIS, Infosys, Plaid

With a commitment of $100 million (€92.4 million), Poland-based OTB Ventures will spend the next few years helping back some of the most innovative tech startups in Central and Eastern Europe.

The investor, whose funding is backed by the European Investment Fund (EIF) will target “post-product startups” developing solutions for fintech, cybersecurity, AI, Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics and other advanced technologies. Known as the biggest venture capital fund in the CEE region, OTB Ventures said it wants companies with “unique intellectual property” and “disruptive ideas.”

“CEE is a cradle of talented engineers and IT specialists, pioneering innovative companies,” OTB managing partner and co-founder Marcin Hejka explained. We see a huge investment potential in these companies with up-and-running products and initial business traction in international markets. The purpose of our fund is to discover, develop, and realize this potential on a global scale.”

OTB Ventures includes AI and consumer analytics firm Cosmose, regtech innovator Silent Eight, and digital transformation solution provider – and Finovate alum – FintechOS – among its more recent investments. With its new fund, OTB plans to commit approximately $15 million to 16 companies, taking stakes of 10% to 15%. OTB’s largest investment in a single company to date was the $10 million in company invested in micro-satellite company Iceye in 2018.

Report Season for Indian Fintech: A number of analyst organizations have picked the second half of February to release their latest insights on fintech in India. In addition to the report from IBS Intelligence noted below, content marketing platform SEMrush released its Top Insights into Fintech Industry of India report this week.

Among the interesting top level takeaways from both reports is the importance of making sure that security and financial education keep pace with the growth of financial inclusion. As more people in frontier and periphery markets become comfortable with sharing their personal details and newly-forged financial identities online, the dangers of criminal exploitation and even simple misuse (poor password management habits, for example) grows, as well.

Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Aafaq Islamic Finance to deploy core banking, Islamic banking, and payments solutions from Infosys.
  • Bahrain-based GFH Financial Group acquires 70% stake in pan-MENA payments technology company, Marshal.
  • National Bank of Yemen goes live with the ICS Banks Universal Banking Platform from ICSFS.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Pakistan-based mobile wallet Sadapay readies for launch.
  • Entrepreneur features fintechs apps that are helping SMEs in India go digital.
  • IBS Intelligence unveils its India fintech report.
Photo by Vikas Sawant from Pexels

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • The Central Bank of Brazil to enter the payments business with the launch of its new app, PIX, later this year. PIX will provide immediate settlement for all transactions.
  • TechCrunch profiles fintech startup Belvo and its aspiration to become the Plaid of Latin America.
  • Bank Innovation features Mexico City, Mexico-based digital bank Stori.

Asia-Pacific

  • Singapore-based, installment payment startup Hoolah expands to Malaysia.
  • Indonesian online lender UangTeman raises $10 million in new funding.
  • Get, a digital commerce platform based in Myanmar, acquires local lender Daung Capital.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigeria’s LAPO Microfinance Bank, the largest microfinance institution in the country, to deploy core banking, payments, and digital experience solutions from Oracle Financial.
  • African Banker examines the balance between financial inclusion and consumer protection as Kenya’s fintech boom expands.
  • Nigerian consumer lending platform Carbon announces $100,000 fund to support startups in insurance, health, and education.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Poland-based OTB Ventures raises $100 million to back tech startups in the CEE region.
  • Wirecard partners with Raiffeisen Bank International to bring digital payments solutions to markets in 13 Eastern European countries.
  • Germany’s Opel Bank chooses FIS’ cloud-native, Modern Banking Platform. This marks the solution’s first deployment in Europe.

Top image designed by Freepik

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