Partnership Outlook

Boss Insights Teams Up with MX to Boost Business Lending with Real-Time Financial Data

Boss Insights Teams Up with MX to Boost Business Lending with Real-Time Financial Data
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Boss Insights, Daily news, MX, Partnership Outlook
  • Finovate alums Boss Insights and MX are partnering to give SMEs access to real-time financial business data.
  • The partnership will support faster, more accurate lending and funding for SMEs, as well as enhancing payment services.
  • A multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner, MX is headquartered in Lehi, Utah. Boss Insights is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

A partnership between open finance company MX and business data aggregation innovator Boss Insights will make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to access real-time financial business data. Announced late last week, the collaboration will help banks and other financial institutions better serve their SME customers.

Courtesy of the new partnership, firms will have a 360-degree view of their business customers’ financial health via a single API. The API offers real-time access and integration with accounting, banking, and commerce data from more than 1,000 sources including QuickBooks, Xero, Shopify, Stripe, and Amazon.

“Boss Insights shares MX’s view that finances should be simple, useful, and intuitive,” Boss Insights CEO Keren Moynihan said. “Together, MX and Boss will empower fintechs, private lenders, and financial institutions with a platform to originate, decide, and monitor the business requests of their SMB and commercial business customers. This will help them make faster, more accurate lending, funding, and payment decisions.”

Among Finovate’s newer alums, making its Finovate debut in 2019, Boss Insights leverages big data and AI to accelerate the lending process for SMEs. The company’s Smart Capital product suite offers automated screening, due diligence, and portfolio management, and empowers lenders with real-time insights that lower risk and boost revenue opportunities. Founded in 2017, Boss Insights is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

“The partnership of MX and Boss Insights demonstrates the power and role of connectivity and data in the future of finance,” MX EVP of Partnerships Don Parker said in a statement. “As a leader in Open Finance, MX is committed to expanding our partner ecosystem with reputable partners who align to our overarching mission and stringent data and security standards. Today’s partnership with Boss Insights demonstrates our commitment to Power the Open Finance Economy.”

The newly-announced collaboration with Boss Insights is one of a number of partnerships that Lehi, Utah-based MX has announced in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the company teamed up with omnichannel payments platform Qolo Partners to help fintechs and neobanks scale their businesses faster. In March, MX worked with fellow Finovate alum Fiserv to enable secure consumer financial data access and sharing. That same month, MX announced that it had forged a new data access partnership with the University of Wisconsin Credit Union.

Photo by Luis Ruiz

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Cross River Bank Teams Up with PayTile to Offer Location-Based Payments Solution

Cross River Bank Teams Up with PayTile to Offer Location-Based Payments Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Partnership Outlook
  • Cross River Bank and PayTile announce collaboration to offer a new location-based payments solution.
  • The companies compare the new solution to Apple’s AirDrop, which enables the sending of data without an exchange of PII.
  • In addition to the partnership, PayTile is launching a new cash drop-off technology Money Drop.

A partnership between Cross River Bank and online payments company PayTile will bring a new location-based payments solution to market. PayTile is among the first P2P payment platforms to use geo-location to enable safe and private financial transactions between individuals without requiring exchange of personal information. The company will leverage core banking infrastructure and payments functionality – including ACH and Push-to-Card capabilities – from Cross River Bank for the new offering.

“PayTile’s mission is to make digital payments as private as cash and as safe as a card,” PayTile CEO Anu Vora explained. “While traditional P2P apps exist to pay the people you already know, PayTile exists to safely pay people you don’t know.”

PayTile’s technology is designed especially to be used in situations in which physical cash would be the preferred option. This includes tipping in hospitality-related instances, as well as informal transactions such as shopping at local farmer’s market. The company compares the location-based payment service to iOS’s “AirDrop” capability, enabling money transfers without requiring an exchange of usernames, legal names, emails, or phone numbers.

“Anu and the team at PayTile are revolutionizing peer-to-peer payments,” Cross River founder, president, and CEO Gilles Gade said. “By partnering with innovative companies like PayTile, Cross River creates real time solutions to empower consumers and their finances.”

The partnership announcement comes at the same time that PayTile is launching its Money Drop technology which enables the digital placement of cash or other digital goods at an exact location for users to pick up and redeem at their convenience. One use case of Money Drop, according to PayTile, would be for the company’s business partners to use the technology to draw a physical crowd to a specific location for promotional purposes, such as selling discounted tickets at an event location or offering rewards to commemorate the opening of a brick-and-mortar business.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Cross River Bank ended 2021 with new collaborations with money movement automation platform Astra and payments firm Payment Approved. With Astra, Cross River Bank will power the first point-to-point debit transfer solution, offering instant payments via API. With Payment Approved, Cross River Bank will provide both the payments and technology infrastructure to support payments via Push-to-Card capabilities with both Mastercard and Visa. Cross River Bank will also serve as the sponsor bank for Payment Approved, providing clearing accounts, FBO management, and merchant acquiring services for the company’s business customers.

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MX Inks Partnership with Payveris

MX Inks Partnership with Payveris
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MX, Partnership Outlook

Financial data platform and connectivity leader MX is teaming up with integrated money movement platform Payveris to enable financial services and fintechs to offer low-cost, low-risk money movement via enhanced account connectivity.

“We respect Payveris as a leader in the money movement space and we’re excited about this partnership because it will help our joint customers have full control over almost every aspect of the experience for money movement,” MX co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Brandon Dewitt said. “Payveris has a long track record of strength, security, and reliability in lowering the friction to the user experience, significantly reducing operating costs, and future-proofing their IT investment.”

The integration, announced this week, will enable organizations to offer intelligent digital payment and money movement services, as well as use Payveris’ MoveMoney platform and suite of open APIs, SDK widgets, and SSO products – all embedded into an integrated money movement offering.

Payveris VP of Product Management Chirag Patel said that the partnership was a response to growing demand from financial institutions for automation in billpay and money movement. Patel noted that this challenge was especially acute for banks and credit unions that are facing new competition from technology companies and retailers that are offering banking services. “Banks and credit unions are looking to have a major role in delivering the best experience possible for their users,” Patel said. “With MX’s industry-leading financial data platform and modern connectivity, we’re making the payment experience seamless – the way consumers move and manage money – and simpler than ever.”

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Cromwell, Connecticut, Payveris was acquired by cloud-based billpay technology company Paymentus last month for $152.2 million. In July, Payveris announced that it had optimized the P2P functionality on its MoveMoney platform, enabling users to send money to anyone with a U.S. bank or credit union account using only the recipient’s mobile phone number of email address. In May, the company reported that its MoveMoney platform supported a total of more than 225 credit unions, including 27 CUs added in the past year alone.

Named to the Forbes Cloud 100 last month, Lehi, Utah-based MX includes partnerships with finance platform and “virtual goal mall” Goalry, credit union giant BECU, and fellow Finovate alum Dwolla among its more recent collaborations. The company connects more than 16,000 financial institutions and fintechs with its data connectivity network, and powers 85% of digital banking providers – in addition to thousands of banks, credit unions, and fintechs. Be sure to check out the latest from MX as the multiple-time Best of Show winner returns to the Finovate stage next week for FinovateFall 2021.

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Sensibill and FreeAgent Team Up to Bring Automation to Small Business Expense Management

Sensibill and FreeAgent Team Up to Bring Automation to Small Business Expense Management
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, FreeAgent, Partnership Outlook, Sensibill

A collaboration announced late last week between a pair of Finovate alums will give small businesses new options when it comes to digital receipt and expense management.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada’s Sensibill, which won Best of Show for its FinovateFall demo of its digital receipt insights solution, has partnered with FreeAgent. The U.K.-based cloud accounting software company will combine Sensibill’s technology within its own new Auto Extract feature to help SMEs transition from manual expense management and receipt tracking to a modern, automated process.

“By joining forces with FreeAgent, we’re eliminating the time and money businesses have traditionally spent manually entering data into clunky and cumbersome spreadsheets and systems,” Sensibill Chief Technology Officer Danny Piangerelli said. “Instead, we’re delivering item-level details that enable faster, better expense management.”

Sensibill’s customer data platform blends ethically sourced, enriched SKU-level data with real-time, actionable insights to help FIs achieve personalization at scale. Integrated into FreeAgent’s Auto Extract technology, the technology enables businesses to capture, organize, and categorize their receipts digitally and accurately link them with corresponding bank transactions.

“Automation is at the center of our business,” FreeAgent co-founder and CEO Roan Lavery said, “which is why partnering with Sensibill was a natural choice.” Lavery added the collaboration will help increase satisfaction and engagement among customers while relieving SMEs and their accounting team from the “administrative hassles,” costs, and inaccuracies that plague most manual, expense management processes.

Founded in 2007 and making its Finovate debut in Europe in 2013, FreeAgent was acquired by NatWest five years later for $73 million (£53 million). The company currently has more than 110,000 small businesses, freelancers, and contractors in the U.K. using its technology for a variety of key business tasks – from invoice and expense management to project management and sales tax calculation.

With more than 60 million users across 150+ financial institutions in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., Sensibill was founded in 2013 and has raised more than $50 million in equity capital. Founded by current CEO Corey Gross, the company has forged partnerships this year with fellow fintech CAARY, as well as with Maryland-based SkyPoint Federal Credit Union ($182 million in assets) and AbbyBank, a full-service community bank based in Wisconsin with assets of $616 million.

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Cooperative Teachers Credit Union Collaborates with Scienaptic on AI-Enabled Credit Decisioning

Cooperative Teachers Credit Union Collaborates with Scienaptic on AI-Enabled Credit Decisioning
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Partnership Outlook

There were many lessons drawn from the economic response to the COVID pandemic in 2020. Among them was the role that digital technology can play in helping facilitate financial assistance to small businesses coping with lockdowns, quarantines, and a workforce wary of exposure to a deadly virus.

As many of our worst concerns about COVID-19 have begun to subside and economies have started to return to something approximating normalcy, the drive to make financing easier for individuals and small business remains an important part of a financial inclusion conversation that predates the pandemic. This is one of the reasons why we should expect to see more partnerships like the one announced today between Texas-based Cooperative Teachers Credit Union and AI-powered credit decisioning platform provider Scienaptic.

Courtesy of the new partnership, Cooperative Teachers Credit Union (CTCU) will be able to make faster, more accurate credit decisions for its members, as well as offer a range of additional financial options to them. Founded in 1953 “by teachers and for teachers,” CTCU currently serves more than 7,000 members and their families in East Texas and has more than $124 million in assets.

“Through the years, CTCU has grown in assets, in members, and in offerings,” the credit union’s president and CEO Tim Miller said. “We are excited to partner with Scienaptic and build upon this growth by tapping its AI-powered credit decisioning platform. Scienaptic’s AI will enable us to offer enhanced credit access to our members and improve their financial well-being.”

New York-based Scienaptic helps banks and credit unions move beyond outdated credit decisioning tools such as credit algorithms and traditional underwriting technologies that provide financial institutions with high credit loss rates and a subpar experience for potential borrowers. In contrast, Scienaptic drives traditional and alternative data through a powerful, preconfigured predictor library and explainable AI models to deliver more informed “yes/no” credit decisions, more accurate credit scoring and pricing, as well as more appropriate credit line levels for consumers. A boon for both credit underwriting and SME lending, Scienaptic’s platform is available as a hosted SaaS offering to keep capex costs low for its clients.

“By leveraging Scienaptic’s AI enhanced decision-making capabilities,” Scienaptic President Pankaj Jain said, “CTCU is positioned to create more approvals faster and strengthen member relationships, all while delivering an exceptional customer experience without increasing risk.”

The collaboration with CTCU is only the latest partnership Scienaptic has forged in recent weeks. In the month of August alone, the credit decisioning platform provider announced teaming up with automobile financing specialist Right Decision Financial Services, Oregon’s InRoads Credit Union, and the 140,000+ member Credit Union of Colorado.

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CreditRich Founder Angel Rich to Take Financial Literacy to the Next Level

CreditRich Founder Angel Rich to Take Financial Literacy to the Next Level
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Diversity in Fintech, Partnership Outlook

Not all partnerships in fintech involve companies. In fact, one of the most interesting partnerships in fintech in recent days might be a union between people – not an alliance among corporations.

Angel Rich, who made history this spring as the first African-American woman to secure an institutional partnership with one of the Big Three major credit bureaus, announced her engagement to Karl Jones, Director of Corporate Partnerships at ansrsource, this week. “What’s better than one future Black billionaire?” Rich asked on her LinkedIn page by way of sharing the engagement news. “Two. Thanks for all of your love and support on our engagement. Karl Jones and I are very excited to make an impact with our union.”

Rich’s company, WealthyLife, launched its AI-powered fintech app, CreditRich in April, collaborating with Finovate/FinDEVr alum Experian. The app enables individuals to use their spare change or “round ups” to pay for bills and other expenses. CreditRich promotes financial wellness by allowing users to prioritize debt payments – or to use the app’s algorithm to find and pay first those bills that have the most impact on the user’s credit score. Users can make one-time deposits to accelerate any debt repayment, as well as make contributions to a family member’s account to enable them to pay down debt and improve their credit score. The CreditRich app is currently available on the Android operating system, with an iOS expected soon.

“It makes sense to put financial literacy, intelligent billpay, and credit management together on a smartphone to help people increase their credit scores faster and easier,” Rich said late last year on the news that actor, singer, and songwriter Naturi Naughton had joined WealthyLife as Chief Branding Officer. “I don’t want people to experience the same hurdles I did after graduating from college with $180,000 of debt.”

Also the founder of Black Tech Matters, an organization dedicated to promoting ethnic diversity in STEM, Rich said she is looking forward to collaborating with Jones to advance financial education technology solutions. ansrsource, where Jones is Director of Corporate Partnerships, specializes in helping companies leverage digital technology to enhance their training and development strategies. The Dallas, Texas-based company’s clients range from 42,000-student Arizona State University to construction manufacturing firm Hilti.

As BlackNews.com noted, the union between financial literacy and digital education represented by Rich and Jones also represents a union of rivals. Rich is an alum of the famous HBCU (historically black college/university) Hampton University in Virginia. Jones is a graduate of the equally-legendary HBCU Howard University in Washington, D.C.

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Digital Investment Platform Munnypot Acquired by Cairngorm Capital

Digital Investment Platform Munnypot Acquired by Cairngorm Capital
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Munnypot, Partnership Outlook

Sometimes a partnership is not enough and only a full-fledged union will suffice.

This is the approach taken by Cairngorm Capital, a U.K.-based private equity firm that announced this week that it had acquired FinovateMiddleEast alum Munnypot – along with investment management services provider Whitefoord – in order to launch a new digital wealth management firm, Verso Wealth Management.

“Our firm believes that the parallel trends of the increased complexity of consumers’ advice needs, their growing adoption of digital services and rising automation in wealth management will endure over the long term,” Cairngorm Capital’s Neil McGill explained. “The combination of award winning technology, high quality advice, and an exceptional management team ensures that the Verso Group is well placed to capitalize on this.” 

Founded in 2015 and making its Finovate debut three years later in Dubai, Munnypot was developed to serve both mass market investors who struggle to secure traditional financial advice, as well as existing investors looking for a goal-based, low-cost, digital alternative. Munnypot offers Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), General Investment Accounts (GIAs), and Junior ISAs (JISAs) that enable parents to make investments on behalf of their children. Designed for investment and savings goals that are at least five years in the future, Munnypot analyzes the investor’s objectives and other key details to provide tailored advice on the most suitable investment plan to meet those goals

The new firm will be run by Munnypot CEO Andrew Fay and Managing Director Simon Redgrove, who will take identical positions in leadership for Verso. Also joining Verso’s executive ranks will be Whitefoord Chief Executive Vince Whitefoord who will lead the firm’s discretionary investment management business. Verso will operate as a combination of human expertise from its client advisors and investment professionals with an automated investment advice capability. This approach is designed to appeal to a broader range of potential customers, including small savers and those new to equity investing.

“Verso will make it far easier for advisors to maximize efficiency, reduce compliance risk and increase revenue,” Fay said. “Our goal is to become the leading digitally driven IFA consolidator and there’s no limit to our ambition.”

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Partners in Payments: Best of Show Winner Finzly Teams Up with ICBA Bancard

Partners in Payments: Best of Show Winner Finzly Teams Up with ICBA Bancard
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finzly, Partnership Outlook

This week’s Partnership Outlook focuses on recent Finovate alum – and Best of Show winner – Finzly. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based fintech announced that it will work with ICBA Bancard to bring instant payments to its payments hub, Payment Galaxy. ICBA Bancard is the payments services subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), and the partnership with Finzly will enable the company to offer community banks and credit unions – as well as their customers and members – more efficiency and convenience, as well as improved cash flow.

“The rise in digital and contactless payments, fueled by the pandemic, has heightened demand for faster payments,” ICBA Bancard President and CEO Tina Giorgio said. “Through this collaboration, ICBA Bancard is helping community banks deliver payments when and where customers want while streamlining their payment processes for additional value and distinction in the market.”

Finzly’s Payment Gateway features preloaded connections to both the Fed and The Clearing House to support instant payments; built-in compliance tools for powerful, thorough audit trails; a bulk payment service for both real-time and future-date scheduling disbursements; and a secure, fraud management system for both payments and messages.

“Finzly’s payments hub not only helps banks stay relevant in today’s fast-paced market, but also helps future-proof their payment infrastructure,” Finzly founder and CEO Booshan Rengachari said. “We are very excited to partner with ICBA Bancard and are eager to see more community banks pursuing the road to innovation through smarter payments transformation.”

Most recently demonstrating its technology at FinovateWest 2020, Finzly took home Best of Show honors for its demonstration of its Digital Account Opening (DAO) solution, powered by Finzly’s BankOS. In the months since then, the company has teamed up with Pacific Western Bank, which selected Finzly’s FX STAR platform for end-to-end management of international banking products, and announced a strategic partnership with Fintel Connect, a performance marketing company specializing in financial services companies and fintechs. The Finzly-Fintel alliance will create a digital growth solution for bank partners, enabling them to meet growing customer demand for digital services and provide alternatives to in-person, in-branch services.

“Banks that rely on Finzly’s modern offerings really want help with digital marketing,” Finzly Chief Strategy Officer and advisor Dave Hunkele. “Fintel Connect provides our clients with a cost-effective, digital channel for attracting potential customers, who can then be onboarded through Finzly’s account opening solution. 

Other major partnerships this year for a very-busy Finzly have included collaborations with California Community Banking Network and Fulton Bank, both announced in March. The company began the year with news that it had joined the pilot program for Federal Reserve’s FedNow instant payment service. Finzly was founded in 2012.

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Cross River Bank Helps Bring Fly Now Pay Later Trip Financing to the U.S.

Cross River Bank Helps Bring Fly Now Pay Later Trip Financing to the U.S.
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Partnership Outlook

There may be few businesses more excited about the prospect of a post-COVID era than those in the travel industry – which makes the news of a collaboration between U.K.-based Fly Now Pay Later and BaaS provider Cross River Bank all the more musical to homebound ears. The partnership will enable Fly Now Pay Later to leverage Cross River Bank’s FDIC license to offer its travel financing solution in the United States. The company’s financing solution, available at checkout as well as via the Fly Now Pay Later’s Anywhere app, will enable U.S. travelers to book trips and spread the cost of travel over time.

“The recovery of travel is likely to be gradual, but when it happens, we hope that by giving people the freedom to book a trip and pay at a pace that works for them, will help spur reservations,” Fly Now Pay Later CEO Jasper Dykes said in May during the company’s recent funding announcement. “There are tens of thousands of people who have families around the world who need a frictionless way to finance their flights. By removing financial boundaries, we hope to open the post-COVID-19 world for travelers and reconnect people with their friends and families around the globe.”

For Cross River Bank, the partnership announcement with Fly Now Pay Later comes only a few weeks after the company completed its acquisition of data and analytics firm PeerIQ. In addition to supporting Cross River’s mission to provide greater access to financial services and enable greater financial inclusion, the acquisition will enable Cross River to expand its offerings to include end-to-end SaaS solutions, advanced portfolio analytics, as well as further data aggregation capability and risk management tools. In June, Cross River Bank also unveiled Cross River Digital Ventures, a venture capital division that will invest in companies innovating in lending, payments, investing, and fintech that offer “strategic value” to both Cross River and the technology industry more broadly.

“By providing strategic support to early-stage companies we can build on the Cross River momentum to fuel and strengthen the next wave of fintech innovation,” Cross River Head of Corporate Development Hillel Olivestone said. “These are promising startups that align with Cross River’s mission and values, and we look forward to working with them to grow and expand the fintech ecosystem.”

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Partner Power: Interface.ai Brings Intelligent Virtual Assistants to Dover FCU

Partner Power: Interface.ai Brings Intelligent Virtual Assistants to Dover FCU
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Interface.ai, Partnership Outlook

The 43,000+ members of Dover Federal Credit Union (DFCU) are the latest beneficiaries of the marriage between AI and customer care that has been a growing feature of the customer experience in financial services. The Delaware-based institution, with more than $600 million in assets, has teamed up with interface.ai to leverage the company’s Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) in its call center operations initially, before expanding the technology to DFCU’s website, online, and banking services.

“The IVA will enable us to create a seamless experience for members across all of our contact channels,” DFCU VP of Marketing & Digital Experience Tyler Kuhn said. “It will also help to continue to create efficiencies across the organization. With the ability of the technology to continuously learn and improve, we will be able to adapt to new member needs and evolve. Working with interface.ai also allows us to retain our personal touch in every conversation through their neutral voice-enabled system that makes every voice-interaction with the IVA, human-like.”

In the partnership announcement, Kuhn recalled pandemic-era call center volumes that were twice as large as usual and had a major impact on DFCU’s ability to serve its members at a time of crisis. Finding no traditional solution to the challenge, Kuhn said that interface.ai’s IVA had a number of key features that DFCU needed in order to effectively respond to its members. Focusing on these critical issues – eliminating support bottlenecks, improving operational efficiencies, and enhancing the overall member experience – according to Kuhn, is what led DFCU to interface.ai.

“In our search, we discovered that interface.ai’s IVA would enable us to instantly respond to member inquiries around the clock, while maintaining high service levels – ultimately leading to enhanced member experiences and further optimizing our operational costs by creating efficiencies across the organization,” Kuhn explained.

Interface.ai won Best of Show in its Finovate debut last year, demonstrating its out-of-the-box, “personal teller” that uses human-level, natural language to enable call centers to automate 60% of their calls in 60 days. Since then, interface.ai has forged a number of partnerships with banks and credit unions including collaborations with Pasadena Service Federal Credit Union in May, with America’s Credit Union based in Washington State in April and, in December, with Dallas, Texas-based Neighborhood Credit Union.

Founded in 2018, interface.ai is headquartered in San Mateo, California. Srinivas Njay is founder and CEO.

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Power to the Partners! A Look at Who’s Teaming Up to Tackle Banking’s Biggest Challenges

Power to the Partners! A Look at Who’s Teaming Up to Tackle Banking’s Biggest Challenges
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Partnership Outlook

While cryptocurrencies and IPOs often grab the biggest headlines in fintech, much of the critical work of forging partnerships and innovating collaboratively between fintechs and financial institutions often goes, if not unnoticed, then at least a little underrecognized and underappreciated.

With this in mind, we’re starting off each week with a reminder that, when it comes to getting technology from idea to implementation, partnerships and collaborations are often the primary vehicle to getting it done. No man – or woman – is an island. And the same is true for any technology company or financial institution interested in making a meaningful impact in the lives of their customers and members.

Here’s a look at some of the more recent partnerships and collaborations between banks, credit unions, fintechs, and other players in the financial services space. Boldface indicates the company has demoed its technology at a Finovate and/or FinDEVr conference.

Banks and Credit Unions

Payments

  • Cloud payments and financial messaging specialist Volante Technologies announced an instant payments partnership with European payment services company SIA.

Security, Fraud Prevention, and Digital Identity

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Five Ways Partnerships Between Banks and Fintechs Help Drive Innovation

Five Ways Partnerships Between Banks and Fintechs Help Drive Innovation
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bankjoy, Compass Plus, Finastra, Fiserv, Minna Technologies, Partnership Outlook, Temenos

To steal a line from Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, when it comes to innovation in fintech, it takes two to make a thing go right. Whether the “thing” is an end-to-end digital transformation or creating the technology infrastructure to enable firms to build and market their own innovations, collaboration and partnership with fintechs increasingly seems to be the path that the most forward-looking banks and other financial institutions are pursuing.

With this in mind, here’s a look at some of the more interesting recent partnership announcements over the past month – with an eye toward what these collaborations might be saying about the near-term future of fintech.

DBS Bank: Headquartered in Singapore. Total assets of $420 billion (SGD 579 billion) in 2019. Largest bank in Southeast Asia. Operates in 18 markets around the world.

  • Partner: Infor
  • Project: Digital trade financing
  • Objective: Faster “more cost efficient” financing for the 68,000+ SMEs on Infor’s Nexus network.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC): Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Has 17 million clients in Canada, the U.S., and 34 other countries. Total assets of $1.2 trillion (1.49 trillion CAD) as of 2019.

  • Partner: Red Hat, Nvidia
  • Project: In-house, AI-based private cloud platform
  • Objective: The new build will allow the bank to develop “transformative intelligent applications” and to bring those solutions to market faster.

Orange: Telecommunications corporation headquartered in Paris, France. Fourth largest telecom in Europe and one of the ten largest in the world with 26 million customers. Total assets of $124 billion (€106 billion) and revenues of $49 billion (€42 billion) as of 2019.

  • Partner: Temenos, NSIA
  • Project: Orange Bank Africa launch
  • Objective: Partnership will bring savings and micro credit services to underserved customers in Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal.

Lloyds Banking Group Headquartered in London, U.K., Lloyds is the country’s largest digital bank with 16.9 million active customers online and 11.5 million on mobile. Founded in 1765, the bank currently has total assets of more than $1 billion (£833 billion).

  • Partner: Form3
  • Project: Along with partners Google Cloud and Microsoft, Form3 will help the U.K.-based bank “investigate and develop” a cloud-payments-as-a-service platform.
  • Objective: The collaboration, which also includes a minority equity stake in Form3, will simplify Lloyd’s payment capabilities and support enhanced data and new overlay services.

Banca Ifis: Specialty commercial and corporate banking firm for SMEs headquartered in Venice, Italy. The firm has more than 130,000 retail clients in the country, and online funding and deposits totaling more than $4.7 billion (€4 billion).

  • Partner: Raisin
  • Project: New deposit products
  • Objective: Raisin’s customers in Germany will gain access to deposit solutions available from Banca Ifis. The collaboration will enable German customers to take advantage of relatively higher interest rates available in Italy.

Other fintech/financial institution partnerships of note this month:

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