Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “PayPal’s Braintree Tapped to Turn Pinterest Browsers into Consumers”
  • “EyeVerify’s Partnership with Turkish Reseller Yields Vodafone Contract”
  • “U.K.-based TransferWise: Growth and Metrics Updates

Around the web

  • TradeHero updates mobile iOS app.
  • WSJ features how Venmo helps users instantly move money more cheaply.
  • Apple lists Xero among group of business apps Apple is using to market the iPad for use in business.
  • Indianapolis Business Journal looks at the rise of robo-advisors Betterment, Wealthfront, Hedgeable, and Motif Investing.
  • TSYS launches its Chip Card on Demand to help issuers make the transition through the October chip-liability shift.
  • Top Image Systems unveils its new mobile account opening and onboarding app, MobiENROLL.
  • Benzinga interviews Igor Gonta, CEO of Market Prophit, on the launch of his Twitter-based, social media, smart beta index.
  • Fox Business features Planwise, LendUp, Trulioo, Plaid, Wealthfront, TrueAccord, WePay, Flint, Lending Club, Prosper, LendingRobot, and FutureAdvisor in its roundup of “30 Hot Fintech Startups to Watch.”
  • New York Business Journal reviews its gamification strategy of PFM solution, Qapital.
  • Financial Times profiles LendUp and the “grubby end of U.S. debt.”

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.

Finovate Alumni News

Around the web

  • Glenbrook Partners’ whitepaper features PayNearMe.
  • mBank reports that six months after launching Light Branches, basic banking product sales have tripled in Light Branches compared to traditional branches.
  • PYMNTS features comments from Blackhawk Network, CashStar, FIS, SimplyTapp, and Vantiv on social commerce.
  • MasterCard partners with Premier Bank in expansion into Somalia.
  • Nomis Solutions launches upgrade of its price-optimization suite.
  • D3 Banking announces that its solution is now available in a hosted environment.
  • Blooom CEO and co-founder Chris Costello talks about his company’s relationship with Yodlee.
  • ThinkAdvisor features eMoney Advisor, Vanguard, Wealthfront, Betterment, FutureAdvisor, and Jemstep in a column on the changing environment for financial advisors.
  • Sonavation CTO Rainer Schmitt wins award from the IEEE Technical Committee on Communications Quality & Reliability.
  • TechCrunch features PayPal’s Venmo office.
  • Verizon Ventures welcomes SimplyTapp to its portfolio.
  • On the Money Radio’s Steve Pomeranz interviews MaxMyInterest CEO and founder Gary Zimmerman.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Kantox Picks Up $11 Million in Series B, Doubling Total Capital
  • Guide Financial Acquired by John Hancock Financial

Around the Web

  • Misys unveils its in-memory analytics engine, FusionBanking Insight.
  • True Potential launches its Apple Watch app.
  • Commonwealth Bank of Australia begins testing Ripple as intra-bank transfer solution.
  • Michigan-based Isabella Bank to deploy workflow suite from Jack Henry & Associates.
  • Lending Club CEO talks about the brand-building benefits of going public.
  • Jet Propulsion Laboratory partners with eSignLive from Silanis Technology for end-to-end digital e-contracting.
  • Bankless Times features Avoka and its friction-minimizing, customer-onboarding technology.
  • PayPal to provide Touch ID support for its iOS app.
  • Gold Bullion International announces expansion into Asia.
  • eBay partners with Taulia to launch Preferred Supplier Program.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • FreeAgent to Crowdfund $1.6 Million Funding Round
  • edo Interactive Completes $20 Million Series E Round; Names Badran CEO, President

Around the web

  • Halliburton Federal CU to use Insuritas to launch insurance agency.
  • Receivables Exchange appoints James W. Toffey as new CEO.
  • PayPal, Xero, Intuit, HelloWallet, & TD Ameritrade win 2015 Webby Awards.
  • TransferWise launches updated Android app with one-tap payments for more than 360 currency routes.
  • SumUp releases SumUp terminal payment SDKs for iOS and Android.
  • AMP Credit Technologies appoints chief technology officer.
  • Dwolla launches ability to schedule recurring payments for a specific day, recurring schedules, and cancellation criteria.
  • NICE Systems sells its cyber and intelligence division to Elbit Systems for $158 million.
  • Photos from FinovateSpring 2015 last week are now available on the Finovate Flickr feed.
  • OptionNET Taps Tradier for Rollout of Trading Directly from Their Platform.
  • Kabbage partners with Sage Payment Solutions to create small business loan offering.
  • PayPal’s OneTouch checkout service now supports all merchants using BigCommerce, even when consumers don’t have the PayPal app installed.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Bitcoin-based P2P Lending Platform Bitbond Raises $670,000
  • WePay Closes $40 Million Series D Round Led by FTV Capital
  • Misys Launches FusionBanking Essence Islamic

Around the web

  • SEKUR Me debuts Apple Pay for online purchases featuring universal buy-button and one-click mobile payments.
  • Intuit launches Sync with PayPal to help SMBs simplify tasks with QuickBooks online data-integrations.
  • LifePay announces plans to expand into Southeast Asia in wake of ipoxPro acquisition.
  • The Guardian highlights Azimo as a “well-established” alternative to banks regarding money-transfer overseas.
  • NYSE’s new Bitcoin Index is powered by Coinbase.
  • Anheuser-Busch Employees Credit Union to deploy online- and mobile-banking solutions from Digital Insight.
  • Merck Sharp & Dohme Federal Credit Union adds processing and additional solutions from Fiserv.
  • Community Banks and Credit Unions go live with Touch ID in mobile banking through Malauzai Software.
  • Arxan appoints Sam Rehman as chief technology officer.
  • Nerdwallet features Seattle-based Lighter Capital.
  • Bankless Times talks with Brock Blake, Lendio CEO, about the company’s success.
  • PayNearMe to offer its cash payment service to Telinta’s service-provider customers.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • PayItSimple Pulls in $10 Million Line of Credit
  • Ripple Labs Reels in $28 Million, Eyes Asia Expansion
  • P2P Lending Meets High Street Banking as Metro Bank Partners to Lend via Zopa
  • Credit Sesame Raises $16 Million in New Funding
  • Planwise Raises $750,000, Nearly Doubling Total Capital

Around the web

  • Fox Small Business News names 11 Finovate alums in list of Hot Fintech Startups to watch.
  • Edenred México S.A. incorporates INETCO’s Insight software platform.
  • D3 Banking taps Jeffrey Walker as chief information security officer.
  • MasterCard launches P2P payments service, MasterCard Send, to help businesses reimburse rebate consumers without checks.
  • nTrust to deploy ID verification technology from Trulioo.
  • North American Savings Bank (NASB) partners with ACI Worldwide for online, mobile banking and billpay.
  • Avoka, Bill.com, BillGuard, CoinBase, Credit Karma, Jumio, Kabbage, Kreditech, OnDeck, Prosper, TransferWise, Trulioo, Venmo and WePay earn spots on Inc.com’s “20 Financial Technology Startups You Need to Know.”
  • ImageWare selects ValidSoft’s voice biometrics solution.
  • Kony teams with Citrix, to offer customers a mobile app solution from mobile design and development to enterprise mobility operations.
  • Altifi.com features Cloud Lending Solutions’ Cloud Lending Exchange.
  • ZD net: Intuit tightens PayPal integration with data synchronization app.

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.

Friction is Good: Social Network for Credit Innovator, Vouch Raises $6 Million

Friction is Good: Social Network for Credit Innovator, Vouch Raises $6 Million

Vouch_homepage

Fresh off its debut at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose, the world’s first social network for credit, Vouch, has raised $6 million in Series A funding from new and existing investors. Vouch’s total capital now stands at more than $9 million, and will help fuel the company’s ability to expand both the number and size of loans offered to its customers.

New investors included Cooley LLP, Data Collective, Stanford StartX Fund, and Core Innovation Capital, whose founder and managing partner, Arjan Schütte, will join the Vouch board of directors. They were joined by existing Vouch investors, AngelList, First Round Capital, Greylock, and IDG Ventures.

If you didn’t think P2P lending could get any more “P”, then you don’t know Vouch. The online lender enables borrowers to develop a “Vouch network”, including friends and family willing to “vouch” for their loans. By vouching, the friend or family member agrees to pay some increment of the loan if the borrower does not. Borrowers can take out larger loans on better terms based on the size and quality of their network. Schütte referred to the platform “simple, yet transformative.”

Vouch provides installment loans ranging from $500 to $15,000, with interest rates between 5% and 30%. Borrowers must have a minimum FICO score of 600, and they cannot be engaged in bankruptcy or foreclosure proceedings. Vouch charges a loan-origination fee between 1% and 5% of the amount borrowed.

Vouch combines the increasingly widespread tactic of leveraging social networks to learn more about an individual borrower’s creditworthiness with proven financial strategies like co-signing and sponsorship. TechCrunch reports that more than 70% of the company’s traffic is mobile (both iOS and Android), and more than half the platform’s users are female and older than 35 years of age. According to Vouch co-founder and CEO Yee Lee, a quarter of those using the technology are first-generation immigrant to the U.S., as he is. Founding the company along with Lee in 2013 were Sue Horn (formerly of Prosper) and Hugh Olliphant (formerly of PayPal). Lee is also a PayPal veteran.

Based in San Francisco, Vouch was the first company to present at FinovateSpring last week. CEO Yee Lee started off his demo and the event with a bang. Explaining how his platform likes the idea of keeping “friction intentionally high” during the onboarding process for both potential borrowers and potential vouchers, Lee offered the eyebrow-raising observation that sometimes in fintech “friction is good.”

Find out why in Vouch’s live demo at FinovateSpring 2015 available in our Video Archives later this week.

Finovate Alumni News

Around the web

  • Market Prophit unveils its social market sentiment smart beta index.
  • Silicon India takes a look at Ayasdi’s plans to use the capital raised in its latest $55 million funding.
  • Financial Advisor IQ highlights Betterment and Motif Investing in its discussion of millennials and machines.
  • QuantConnect is now integrated with Interactive Brokers.
  • ProfitStars celebrates surpassing 600 FIs using its Remote Deposit Anywhere technology.
  • FIS wins Best Core Banking, Best Outsourcing Project honors at Asian Banker Technology Implementation Awards.
  • TechCrunch: Yodlee’s Joe Polverari writes about LearnVest and its acquisition by Northwestern Mutual.
  • ABC’s 7 On Your Side quotes IDTheft 911 founder Adam Levin on protecting your driver’s license from identity theft.
  • Connect Financial Software Solutions to provide real-time, P2P payments courtesy of new partnership with Acculynk.
  • Cortera announces new releases of eCredit Software.
  • Zoho partners with Forte Payment Systems to offer electronic payments directly with Zoho Finance apps.
  • Dexterity Ventures’ Place2Give releases GIVE_api v. 2.0.
  • Pymnts interviews SimplyTapp president and co-founder Ted Fifelski.
  • PayPal to be publicly traded on NASDAQ in Q2 2015 with its original stock ticker symbol PYPL.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • MX Raises $30 Million in Series A Investment

Around the web

  • Encap Security to support Samsung fingerprint scanner as part of version 3.0 of its Smarter Authentication technology. See Encap at FinovateSpring 2015 next month in San Jose.
  • Dutch banking group ABN AMRO to deploy wealth-management solution, WealthSuite, from Temenos.
  • Top Image Systems wins recognition at 2015 IT Innovation Awards (IT Innovationspreis) for MobiPAY.
  • PayPal partners with Tillster, an online ordering platform.
  • Green Dot names MasterCard its exclusive transaction processor and network gateway.
  • American Banker: New Moves by Coinbase, Ripple Advance Digital Money Tech.
  • Currency Cloud appoints former Deutsche Bank CIO, Mitchel Lenson, as a non-executive director.
  • IP Commerce launches new version of Commerce Sync to automatically transfer sales info from a POS system or e-commerce solution into accounting software on a daily basis.
  • InComm partners with Russian internet giant Mail.Ru Group.
  • Stratos now shipping its all-in-one smart credit card. Come see Stratos at FinovateSpring in San Jose.
  • Open Source Project.com features Open Bank Project.

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.

 

 

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • After being acquired by Prosper in January, American Healthcare Lending has changed its name to Prosper Healthcare Lending.
  • Early Warning’s Authentify xFA wins Gold for Authentication Product of the Year at Info Security’s 2015 Global Excellence Awards.
  • Lighter Capital closes twice as many deals in Q1 of 2015 than it did in all of 2014.
  • On Deck expands small business lending in Canada.
  • Trunomi adds new chief architect, Kartik Venkatesh.
  • Tradier teams up with Apex Clearing Corporation to bring brokerage solutions to digital RIAs.
  • peerTransfer adds 56 new schools to its client base in Q1 2015, bringing its total to 650+ educational providers worldwide.
  • VentureBeat: PayPal brings its One Touch payments to the web.
  • Credit Karma wins gold medal in the Financial Services/Banking division at the 2015 Edison Awards.
  • UST Global and Kony launch new mobile app for Blue Cross of Idaho members.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Xero and ZenPayroll Win Honors at CPA Practice Advisor 2015 Reader’s Choice Awards
  • Finovate Debuts: Using Financial Media Solutions’ MAPPS to Create Videographics

Around the Web

  • MasterQueue, powered by Intellaegis, partners with Whitepages Pro.
  • Bitpost lists Coinbase and Blockchain as 2 of the top 5 bitcoin wallets on Android.
  • EVO Payments partners with Boomtown to simplify tech support for POS developers and merchants.
  • Fintech Today reports: With Paydiant, PayPal Will Be a Huge Hit with Merchants.
  • Blackhawk to integrate Kofax Mobile Capture SDK into its digital services platform.
  • Team One CU to pilot MShift’s AnyWhereMobile payment-network with a locally owned restaurant in Michigan.
  • SecondMarket’s Bitcoin Desk Relaunches as Genesis Trading.
  • Taulia named by AlwaysOn as a 2015 OnFinance Top 100 Company.
  • According to Gartner, Check Point Software Technologies lead the worldwide market share for firewall equipment in Q4 2014 and FY 2014.

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.

 

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • AlwaysOn’s OnFinance Top 100 Features 30 Finovate Alums
  • SaveUp Purchased by Chicago-Area Entrepreneur Paul J. Burt

Around the Web

  • Turk Ekonomi Bankasi (TEB) launches digital banking service developed by Monitise.
  • Dragon Wealth earns spot in Startupbootcamp FinTEch’s inaugural Singapore program.
  • Ayeyarwady Bank (AYA Bank) to deploy Bankworld ATM platform from CR2.
  • Virtual Piggy hires Viant Capital to provide financial advice on strategic options.
  • MasterCard presents its PFM “in-reach” benefits-platform to help issuers engage millennials.
  • iQuantifi teams up with MTSU Jones College of Business to produce inaugural Millennial Money Mindset Survey.
  • Motif updates its iPhone app to enable search-and-browse capability of motif catalogues directly from the app.
  • FreeAgent launches first iOS app to help manage invoices and expenses on the go.
  • PYMNTS features predictions from Blackhawk Network, Bluefin Payments, CashStar, Experian, FIS, Fiserv, and SimplyTapp.
  • Xero Denver named Top Workplace by Denver Post.
  • American Banker examines how Malauzai is helping small banks get a head start on Apple Watch.
  • PayPal confirms bitcoin acceptance option in SEC filing.

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.