This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
NetGuardians and Intix have merged to form Vyntra, a new company focused on unifying transaction observability and financial crime prevention for banks and financial institutions.
Vyntra will deliver real-time transaction intelligence to help over 130 financial institutions across 60+ countries detect fraud, ensure AML compliance, and resolve payment issues before they impact customers.
Vyntra aims to strengthen operational resilience and support instant payments by offering a more transparent, secure, and intelligent financial infrastructure.
Fraud and risk protection company NetGuardians is joining forces with financial messaging platform Intix. The two announced this week that they have merged to form Vyntra, which aims to bring transaction intelligence to financial institutions.
Vyntra combines NetGuardians’ expertise in financial crime prevention with Intix’s transaction observability. Vyntra will help its more than 130 financial institution clients in 60+ countries receive real-time intelligence about their customers based on their transactions.
“Vyntra represents a new chapter—not just for us, but for the financial institutions we serve,” said Vyntra CEO and former Group CEO of both Intix and NetGuardians Joël Winteregg. “Whether it’s monitoring transactions and payment flows, ensuring anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, or detecting fraud as it happens, Vyntra unifies transaction observability and financial crime prevention under one roof. Our mission is simple: to help financial institutions navigate complexity with clarity and protect the integrity of every transaction.”
Vyntra is launching at a time when financial institutions need real-time, full observability of transactions to enhance compliance, reduce risk, and strengthen operational resilience. The company will leverage fraud prevention, AML compliance, and transaction observability to help financial institutions see, secure, and optimize every transaction in real time. The intelligence will also help firms protect instant payment networks and detect and resolve payment issues before they impact customers.
“The merger of NetGuardians and Intix was designed to support a safer and more transparent financial system,” said Gisle Glück Evensen, Partner at Summa Equity. “Now, as Vyntra, this vision becomes a reality. We’re proud to support the team as they lead the way in transaction observability and financial crime prevention.”
Switzerland-based NetGuardians offers tools to help companies reduce payment and internal fraud and monitor transactions to meet AML requirements. The company also provides its own NetGuardians Community Scoring and Intelligence service that generates actionable insights to help firms expand their risk signals.
Zelf, a messenger-based challenger bank based in Latvia and focused on Generation Z customers, announced earlier this week that it has secured $2 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Austrian venture capital firm 3VC, and featured participation by Seed X, Hard Yaka, Goldfinger, and angel investor Chris Adelsbach.
The company, founded by CEO Elliot Goykhman, will use the capital to fuel growth and expansion throughout Europe, particularly in Spain, Germany, Poland, and Italy. Zelf also sees the funding as an opportunity to establish itself in the U.K. and the U.S., as well. Most recently, the company launched operations in France and said it has 13,000 people currently using its Zelf Cards there.
“We started building ZELF in 2018 with a vision of a cashless and contactless society of the future,” the Zelf Team noted on its blog in a look back at 2020. “and the shockwave of COVID-19 in 2020 proved that it was the right path not only businesswise, but also sadly healthwise.”
Zelf accountholders get a digital Mastercard and an IBAN account which can be used to send and receive money on instant messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber. Zelf also features an AI-powered voice interface that can be used to perform basic PFM functions like requesting money, sending invoices, and checking account balances.
“We are confident that our business model of eliminating cumbersome banking apps, as well as physical plastic cards, will prove to be the winning strategy,” Goykhman said.
This week’s Finovate Global Lists takes a look at the fintech industry in the Philippines. IBS Intelligence recently leveraged the Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report to analyze the adoption of digital financial services in the country and pick five companies to keep an eye on this year.
The Philippines, as the article noted, is an interesting case study insofar as the country’s capital of Manila has signficant English-speaking population and what IBS Intelligence called “a more western inclined culture” that is a “natural fit for the growth of fintech.”
Compared to larger neighbor Indonesia and smaller neighbor Malaysia, the Philippines is younger and has a faster growing population. The Philippines also has a marginally higher literacy rate, as well as higher real GDP growth and greater per capita mobile phone penetration (based on subscriptions).
Looking specifically at the country’s fintech industry, Startup Genome noted that fintechs comprise 15% of the startups in Manila, the Philippine capital. The report gave the country’s fintech market a transaction value of $10 billion in 2019 and anticipated a growth of 24% in 2020. Among the fintechs highlighted in the report are digital wallet and exchange Coins.ph (recently acquired by Indonesia mobility company Go-Jek for $72 million) and online financing platform for SMEs, First Circle.
Enterprise risk and banking fraud protection NetGuardians landed $19 million (chf 17 million) in funding this week.
The round, which is more than double each of the company’s previous rounds, brings the company’s total funding to $34.5 million (chf 30.6 million). Investors include NetGuardians client the Pictet Group, as well as private investment group ACE & Company.
NetGuardians will use the investment to help it meet rising demand for its fraud-mitigation software. Specifically, the company will strengthen its position in existing markets and further develop its SaaS subscription model.
“Since our first round of funding, we have been able to grow and strengthen our fraud-mitigation platform worldwide, serving institutions in more than 30 countries,” said NetGuardians Chief Strategy Officer Raffael Maio. “This latest round of funding will help us to reach more clients and explore new markets with our Collective AI technology provided as software-as-a-service.”
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Switzerland, NetGuardians employs 90 people in its offices across Singapore, Kenya, and Poland.
Mambu, the cloud-based banking platform based in Germany, is partnering with U.K. business banking platform Tide to power the company’s revolving credit facilities and overdrafts for small businesses.
“There is a need to be flexible, agile, and customer-centric in the design of financial products,” Managing Director of Mambu EMEA Eelco-Jan Boonstra explained. “Legacy technology constraints can undermine even the best innovation strategy.”
The collaboration will enable Tide to overhaul its product suite in order to better serve customers in a number of locations around the world. This includes offering larger overdrafts, credit cards, and invoice financing, as well as enabling Tide members to lend to each other leveraging solutions managed by Mambu.
“When today’s customers evaluate financial institutions, they no longer compare different banks, they compare experiences,” Boonstra said. “We see this partnership approach as the future of banking technology.”
Regtech is all the rage in fintech these days. From helping businesses negotiate a wave of new regulation – from GDPR to PSD2 – to empowering firms to combat fraud, companies involved in developing technologies to ensure that businesses are getting and staying compliant are enjoying rare attention from the rest of the industry.
A recent review of top regtech startups in Europe in Fintech News was an example of the light increasingly shining on these companies and their vital role in supporting a fintech industry that a growing number of financial services customers – and other businesses – are relying on.
The review cited research from KPMG that anticipates regtech spending in 2022 climbing to $76 billion. Analysis from XAnge, a European VC firm, finds approximately 140 regtech startups in the E.U., divided fairly equally between compliance management, KYC/AML, and risk management solutions.
We were especially please to see that, of the ten regtech startups highlighted in the feature, four of the companies are Finovate alums. Apiax and NetGuardians, which most recently demoed at FinovateEurope and at FinovateAsia respectively, both hail from Switzerland. Apiax, recently profiled here on the Finovate blog, offers a comprehensive compliance solution that leverages APIs to integrate its compliance rules into digital processes. NetGuardians focuses on Big Data and uses it to help banks fight fraud and automate compliance.
Also earning recognition on the top European regtech list was Ireland’s Fenergo. The company, founded in 2009 and having made its Finovate debut back in 2012, specializes in client onboarding and account opening solutions for banks and financial services companies. Just this week, Fenergo announced that it was launching a new remote account opening solution in both the EMEA and APAC regions.
Half of the companies on Fintech News’ regtech roster are from the U.K. The Finovate alum among this group, Onfido, leverages automated machine learning, optical character recognition (OCR), and other technologies to provide identity verification to combat fraud. Demoing its technology at both FinovateEurope and FinovateFall in 2018, the company earlier this month announced a major $100 million fundraising that brought the company’s total capital to more than $182 million.
“We’ve naturally chosen the grow-fast path because we strongly feel that the time to solve the digital access problem is overdue, and urgently needs to be solved, for good,” Onfido CEO and co-founder Husayn Kassai said. “We didn’t fundraise to just get to the next milestone, we need the funding as we’re changing the world.”
The Buy Now Pay Later Revolution is sweeping the world. Check out Finovate Senior Research Analyst Julie Muhn’s coverage of Tencent’s $300 million investment in Australia-based Afterpay this week:
Tencent’s move comes shortly after its rival Ant Financial took a minority stake in Afterpay competitor Klarna. Afterpay has 3x the web traffic of Klarna and 1.5x the traffic of its other major competitor Affirm.
The buy-now-pay-later segment of fintech has been heating up this year, despite– or perhaps because of– the current economic and health crises.
Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.
Asia-Pacific
V Capital, and advisory firm based in Malaysia, and U.S.-based Cross River Bank partner to apply for a digital banking license in the country.
Hong Kong-based Oriente, a fintech that provides digital infrastructure for financial services, secures $50 million in its still-open Series B round.
South Korean cryptocurrency startup Childly teams up with blockchain analysis company Chainalysis.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Nigerian fintech startup Okra, which facilitates the exchange of real-time financial between banks, customers, and apps, locks in $1 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by TLcom Capital.
Flutterwave, based in San Francisco, California and Lagos, Nigeria, introduces new portal for African e-commerce merchants.
Visa and Kenya’s Pesapal team up to support connected digital payments.
Central and Eastern Europe
Resistant AI, a cybersecurity startup based in the Czech Republic, raises $2.75 million in funding.
Azer Turk Bank (ATB), based in Azerbaijan, deploys technology from Lithuania’s Ashburn to manage EFTPOS networks.
Germany’s Celonis leverages its process mining platform to develop new AI-powered accounts payable solution.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Egypt’s Commercial International Bank acquires 51% stake in Kenya’s Mayfair Bank.
BenefitPay, Bahrain’s national electronic wallet, announces 1257% increase in remittance volume in March.
Tata Consultancy Services to launch a digital only bank in Israel.
Central and Southern Asia
Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX announces trading availability of two native tokens from Crypto.com, MCO and CRO, on its platform.
Amazon launches new credit service, AmazonPay Later, in India.
India-based ecommerce firm Paytm unveils contactless dining solution for restaurants in the coronavirus era.
Latin America and the Caribbean
paysafecard brings its payments platform, Paysafe, to Paraguay.
Latin Post looks at the use of fintech apps in Mexico.
CREALOGIX to power new digital and mobile capabilities for LGT Vestra’s wealth management app and client portal.
Strands announces achieving ISO 27001 certification in all offices.
Horizon Investments to implementFiserv’sUnified Wealth Platform for core portfolio management.
Personeticsannounces that users of Salesforce and Microsoft CRM platforms will be able to access the company’s data-driven actionable insights via new APIs.
Diebold Nixdorflaunches a new series of self-service, digitally-connected ATMs.
NetGuardiansappoints Swissquote co-founder Paolo Buzzi to its board of directors.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
NetGuardianspartners with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Western Switzerland to improve ML and AI software for financial fraud detection and prevention.
Brewin Dolphin, one of the U.K.’s largest wealth managers, selectsAvaloq’s software as a service solution for its back office infrastructure.
The Paypers: Worldlinerolls out payment solution for online marketplaces.
Payjo relaunches as Interface.ai with a new interface, a new brand, and a platform for intelligent virtual assistants.
TurnKey Lenderreceives accreditation from the Singapore government’s IMDA, a certification that enables companies to expand into international markets easier.
Mambuto open a second North American-based office this year.
Authority Magazine interviews Ed O’Brien, CEO of eMoney Advisor.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Kineticaunveils its active analytics platform that makes it easier to deliver smart analytics applications at scale.
Forbes interviews co-founder and CEO of Onfido, Husayn Kassai.
Tinkoff Mobile, a subsidiary of Tinkoff Bank, announces service in six new regions.
DocuSignlaunches its DocuSign Agreement Cloud to help companies better manage business agreements digitally.
Capsilonannounces the beta launch of its digital underwriter solution.
AlphaPointadds DiamondBack stablecoin to its crypto exchange.
Sri Lanka’s Bank of Ceylon goes live with Clari5 Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Solution to address money laundering threats.
PYMNTS: Amazon and Worldpayteam up on one-click commerce.
NetGuardians‘ AI fraud-prevention software available on Microsoft Azure.
TurnKey Lendersigns partnership agreement with Refinitiv.
MX and Personeticspartner to bring AI-driven insights to financial institution customers.
ICBA and Jack Henry’s ProfitStars expand preferred service provider program with remote deposit capture solutions.
Insuritas and Oregon Mutual announce partnership to offer auto and home insurance solutions through meta-agency platform.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Swiss wealth and asset manager Pictet has chosen NetGuardians’ fraud-mitigation software for protection against banking fraud, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
Pictet will use the solution, customized for its specific needs, to further protect its customers from growing threats.
Joël Winteregg, NetGuardians CEO, said: “With cyber-fraudsters getting more daring all the time, it’s necessary for banks and wealth managers to make sure they do everything they can to protect their clients. By using NetGuardians, Pictet not only gets an effective real-time fraud-mitigation solution but also becomes member of the NetGuardians’ global community, which shares fraud-mitigation best practice.”
NetGuardians cites stats from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Report in 2018, which says global fraud losses are estimated to reach up to $4 trillion.
NetGuardians’ solution works by using analytics, profiling and machine learning.
The machine-learning algorithms can discover new fraud schemes, “helping wealth managers stay on top of emerging threats such as scams against bank’s customers”.
Headquartered in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland and founded in 2007, NetGuardians demonstrated its FraudGuardian solution at FinovateAsia 2016. FraudGuardian detects fraud in real time, leveraging dynamic profiling, pattern-based intelligence, and predictive analytics to provide comprehensive analysis of user behavior across all banking channels.
UK-based GBG Acquires IDology in $300 Million All-Cash Deal.
NetGuardiansTeams Up with Swiss Wealthtech Pictet to Fight Fraud.
FinastraBrings its Core Banking Technology to Saudi Arabia.
Around the web
BBVAunveils first blockchain-supported structured green bond.
StrandsintroducesEngager 2.0, the newest edition of its AI and machine learning powered financial insights generator.
Avaloq’s banking suite goes live with the Austrian division of international private banking and asset management group, LGT.
IKO, the mobile app co-developed by Braintri for PKO Bank Polski, wins first place in worldwide ranking of mobile apps published by British Retail Banker International for second consecutive year.
Baker Hillearns nomination for The Best Tech in Indiana in TechPoint’s 20th annual Mira Awards.
CardFlight’sSwipeSimple now enables more than 50,000 merchants across all 50 states of the U.S.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
NetGuardiansmakes the Chartis Risktech Quadrant for enterprise fraud technology 2018.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
CFE Federal Credit Union implementsLarky’s Engagement Platform.
LedgerlaunchesLedger Live, the all-in-one companion app to your Ledger device.
Xerointegrates with BBVA’s API Market for small businesses.
Lendioexpands the Lendio franchise in Rochester, New York.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
PaySimpleannounces real-time data integration with QuickBooks Online.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
