Finovate Alums Take Gold, Silver and Bronze at PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015

Finovate Alums Take Gold, Silver and Bronze at PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015

Sixteen Finovate and FinDEVr alums have been recognized by the PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015. Three alums, MasterCard , Clover Network and OnDeck took home top honors in their categories, winning gold in “Best New Technology,” “Best POS Innovation,” and “Best Small Business Innovation,” respectively. The rest of the alum field earned silver and bronze in 13 additional categories, including LoopPay, which earned Silver for Best New Technology and a Bronze for “Most Innovative.”

InnovationProject2015_homepage

More than 600 companies competed for the awards, with more than 10,000 votes tallied. Finalists were selected by an expert panel, and the top five companies in each category were submitted to the “PYMNTS community” for voting. In addition to the Innovation Awards, the event recognized Phil Tomlinson of TSYS (also a Finovate alum) and Michael Joseph of Safaricom, inducting both into the PYMNTS Hall of Fame. Two women, Carey Kolaja, VP of Global Consumer Products for PayPal and Perse Faily, CEO of Tillster, were also recognized at the event. Apple took home the Innovation Award’s Catalyst Award for what MPD CEO Karen Webster called during the award ceremony, “creating a roadmap for the industry” with its ApplePay innovation.

The full list of winning alums is below. For more information about the Innovation Awards 2015, including the full list of all finalists, visit their page here.

Gold

Silver

Bronze

Finovate Alumni News

  • Business Standard looks at the partnership between TradeHero and OANDA.
  • P2Binvestor reaches $50 million invoices-funded milestone.
  • Ripple Labs adds former State Department policy official, Anja Manuel, as advisor.
  • peerTransfer picks Digital River to provide payment processing.
  • Trustev Wins Most Disruptive Technology Award at SXSW.
  • WattzOn to participate in Georgetown University Energy Prize competition to help communities reduce energy consumption.
  • Toopher raises $200,000 of planned $300k financing round.
  • Fifth Third Bank launches online money movement solution from CashEdge.
  • Finovate Debuts: How Bitbond Leverages Bitcoin to Benefit Borrowers and Lenders.
  • Madrid-based Banco Mare Nostrum implements MicroStrategy as its analytics standard to drive analysis and insight for its employees.
  • American Banker features David Pinski’s move from a bank to a startup, Zumigo.
  • Payment Week interviews Cardlytics on how big data is changing consumer engagement.
  • American Banker: Ripple Labs hires Anja Manuel, a former U.S. State Department official, as company adviser.
  • Ovum names Kony a leader, recognizes it for its comprehensive cloud-based mobile solution.
  • ThreatMetrix enhances TrustDefender Mobile to help businesses meet new payment card industry data security standards.
  • Spring and All: FinovateSpring 2015 Presenters Revealed!

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.

Day One at Bank Innovation 2015: A Focus on the Future of Fintech

BI2015_mini_logo_jpg.jpg

“That’s a word you use with your enemies.”

Ripple Labs CEO and founder, Chris Larsen, on the term “disruptor”

After two days at Bank Innovation 2015, I’m starting to believe that the fintech industry might be settling into, if not maturity, then at least a pretty responsible young adulthood. And it all has to do with the concept of disruption.

A few years ago, for example, a panel discussion among startups on the future of banking might have sounded very different from what I heard at Bank Innovation’s event in Seattle this week. My takeaways?

  • Startups are as interested, or even more interested, in working with financial institutions as they are in trying to replace them.
  • Startups recognize their limitations as emerging businesses in an industry with many incumbents.
  • Startups are aware that their innovations are the first step in a loop of experimentation and collaboration that involves technologists, financial professionals and consumers.

Doug Lebda, founder and CEO of Lending Tree, seemed to speak for many presenters when he insisted “we’re all in this together” during his fireside chat Monday morning. For all the talk of disruption and creating beautiful customer experiences in the tech world in general, today’s fintech startups begin their focus on the future with challenges as practical as reducing friction.

As Lebda put it when asked about the next innovation in the space by a member of the audience: “Ease of transaction. Period. Full stop.”
Fintech disruption: What’s your function?
That’s not to say that Bank Innovation 2015 was lacking in the old-fashioned, concept-from-another-planet, disruption department. Ripple Labs CEO and founder Chris Larsen’s offhand remark about micropayments between self-driving cars sent a palpable buzz through the room—and through Twitter at #BankInnovation15. But it was his lucidity on the role cryptocurrencies are likely to play in the real world that was worth the price of admission.

BI2015_LarsenRipple.JPG

Larsen’s vision is of an “internet of value” similar to the “internet of information” or “internet of data” that we have today. Cryptocurrencies will be key to this ability to exchange value, Larsen believes. But in the same way that the internet of information was built by institutions—from government to academia—the internet of value will be built not by consumers, but by what he called “custodians of value.”
“You don’t have to change the bank’s role or Visa’s role,” Larsen said. He sees Ripple as a “giant pathfinding algorithm for value exchange” that can improve on the current system of correspondent banking by providing financial institutions with real-time settlement, and “atomic,” “go/no go” transactions that are end-to-end traceable.

Startups help banks get better

Technology will always seek to deliver innovation faster than finance can integrate it, as nCino CEO Pierre Naude suggested in the conversation on the future of banking. Bitreserve CEO Halsey Minor added that there was a time when he “didn’t think banks would have to deal with innovation.”

BI2015_Day1_Panel1.JPG

But to the extent that technology helps banks and other FIs become better at “core competencies” and reduce friction the more likely the relationships and collaborations are to be valuable for all involved.
In this way, financial institutions can serve as what iQuantifi CEO Tom White called “advice drivers” just as well as startups can prod FIs toward greater efficiency and serve as testing grounds for new approaches to everything from credit decisioning to customer engagement.
So if banks are getting back to basics of lending, payments and savings, as CBW Bank chairman and CTO Suresh Ramamurthi suggested, there are fintech startups helping make that happen. Alternative lenders are white-labeling products for FIs to sell to their customers, as Lending Club’s Andrew Deringer, VP, head of Financial Institutions Group, pointed out, opening up new cross-selling opportunities. Funding Circle co-founder and U.S. managing director, Sam Hodges, highlighted the “massive need for small business financing” and the role played by startups able to look at risk differently.

BI2015_Day1_Panel2.JPG

This argument was echoed by Emmanuel Marot, CEO of LendingRobot who talked about the development of niche marketplace lending alongside new niche markets. All of it is helping move small businesses up the chain toward the kind of loans banks are interested in and able to profitably make.
It also is about providing better service, something that in the lending business goes all the way to the individual loan officer, as Lebda explained during his Fireside Chat session. “My best loan was when people came up and really talked to me,” he said in response to a question about emotional banking, a theme that would be heard more than once at Bank Innovation.
“This is the future,” added LendKey CEO and founder Vince Passione. “No more waiting. Not just shopping but getting it completed. Not just the coupon for the car. But the coupon for the financing.”
Finovate Alum Wins DEMOvation Challenge

Thumbnail image for iQuantifi_BankInnovation2015.jpg

Congratulations to Tom White and the team from iQuantifi. iQuantifi took home Best in Show honors as part of Bank Innovation 2015’s DEMOvation event Tuesday morning. Also participating was authentication specialist and fellow alum, AuthenticID.
DEMOvation featured six companies,
with each providing a brief, eight-minute demonstration of its technology. Attendees voted for their favorites via Bank Innovation 2015’s mobile app. Read more about the DEMOvation challenge here.

More observations from Bank Innovation 2015 coming Friday.

Finovate Alumni News: March 4, 2015

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgSecureIDNews takes a look at the partnership between FinSphere and Visa.
  • Fiserv launches four new modules for its Financial Crime Risk Management platform.
  • iQuantifi wins “Best in Show” at Bank Innovation 2015 DEMOvation Challenge.
  • Silanis earns spot on KMWorld’s “100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management” list for 2015.
  • IT Business Edge interviews Flint Mobile CEO Greg Goldfarb.
  • American Banker considers the benefits of banks using Ripple.
  • Innovation in Finance interviews CoinJar at FinovateEurope in London.
  • Capital Bank’s OpenSky Puts CRIF’s CreditFlow & StrategyOne to the Test.
  • Inc: How OnDeck Plans to Make Alternative Lending a Blue Chip Business.
  • Inc. lists Bionym as one of 8 Canadian startups to watch out for in 2015.
  • Yodlee now provides data APIs to nearly 50 fintech applications and services in the personal wealth-management space.
  • Braintree expands its Asia-Pac operations into Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
  • PandoDaily: PayNearMe partners with Grameen America to help lift women out of poverty.
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.

Alumni News—February 18, 2015

  • Mitek launches Commercial Mobile Deposit Capture, bringing MDC technology to the enterprise.
  • Malauzai reports doubling revenues, growth of customer base to more than 300 community banks and credit unions.
  • D3Banking adds to leadership team with four new appointments.
  • Check out FinovateEurope 2015 in the press.
  • Bluefin Payment Systems to provide Decryptx point-to-point encryption (P2PE) solution to Heartland Payment Systems’ clients.
  • Temenos purchases Akcelerant to accelerate growth in North America.
  • Lending Club partners with BancAlliance, a national consortium of 200 community banks.
  • Fast Company lists BehavioSec, Ripple, Braintree, Expensify, NICE and BlueVine as top innovative companies in the money category
  • PYMNTS discusses retail’s adoption of mPOS with Bluefin Payment systems.
  • ayondo clients now receive free access to real time analysis tools from StockPulse.
  • Kantox uses Apply Financial’s API to enhance customer service and enable more integrated international payments.
  • TechFlash interviews Payfone CEO and co-founder Rodger Desai.
  • Stockhouse: TIO Networks poises to capture major portion of mobile payment market.
  • USA Today highlights Tuition.io for student debt management.
  • TransferWise launches in United States.
  • Code CU to use Insuritas for insurance agency solution.
  • Coinbase Android and iOS apps now available in 11 new languages.
  • Global Financial Private Capital selects HiddenLevers to help advisors grow their practice.
  • Tradier’s API takes 15 million production calls in Jan., a 33% increase in a single month.
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.

Alumni News—February 6, 2015

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgCardFlight releases its mobile POS app, SwipeSimple 2.0.
  • Sky News reports Temasek is investigating a possible purchase of Misys.
  • The Observer features Ripple Labs in its look at the “race to replace bitcoin.”
  • Column on digital money accounting highlights, Mint, Venmo, and Coinbase.
  • Investopedia compares Motif Investing to investing with traditional exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
  • Forbes highlights Betterment, Wealthfront, FutureAdvisor, blooom, Motif Investing, and Personal Capital in a column on roboadvisors.
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.

Alumni News– February 3, 2015

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgProfitStars adds Banno Mobile solutions to the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) Preferred Service Provider program.
  • Lending Club to serve as exclusive POS financing for Alibaba.com’s U.S. business buyers.
  • Visa CEO selects NBCUniversal’s Vasant M. Prabhu as CFO.
  • On Finovate.com: “Fidelity Investments Acquires eMoney Advisor for Reported $250 Million”
  • The Philippine National Bank deploys core banking solution and EFT switching solution from FIS.
  • ABC2 News in Baltimore talks with Robb Gaynor of Malauzai Software about mobile banking apps.
  • Thinking Bigger profiles Blooom and its new way to 401(k).
  • The Costa Rica Star features Azimo, a money-transfer service.
  • Financial Advisor’s look at assets managed by roboadvisors highlights Wealthfront, Financial Guard, Personal Capital, and Betterment.
  • Jumio enhances capturing technology for its ID card-scanning service, Netverify.
  • Discussion of the “positive powers” of fintech in The Guardian features ACI Worldwide, Azimo, TransferWise, Ripple, and Blockchain.
  • Check out our final Sneak Peek before we launch into a record-breaking FinovateEurope.
  • CSO Online features Nymi, Myris, and EyeVerify.
  • Kabbage funding More Than $3 Million per Day.
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.

Alumni News– January 29, 2015

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgTinkoff Bank to deploy fraud prevention solution from Iris Analytics.
  • EagleBank implements EnAct client management and sales software from Fiserv.
  • KDnuggets interviews Anthony Bak, principal data scientist for Ayasdi.
  • Red Zebra Analytics brings its card-linked offers service to Germany.
  • Ripple Labs raises $30 million in Series A round.
  • CNBC Tech Check interviews Tradeshift CEO Christian Lanng.
  • Computer Business Review features Venmo and Flint Mobile in its list of “5 mobile apps to turn your wallet digital.
  • Datamonitor analyst describes why he’s looking forward to watching Advice Games’ demo at FinovateEurope 2015.
  • Simple now works on BillGuard.
  • Google Cloud Platform now available to VMware customers.
  • TechCrunch explores Coinbase’s recently launched U.S. exchange.
  • Cachet Financial Solutions integrates with Apple Pay.
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.

Ripple Labs Raises $30 Million in Series A Round

RippleLabs_logo.jpg

The Wall Street Journal, Crunchbase, and other sources are reporting that open payments protocol specialist, Ripple Labs, has raised $30 million in new funding. Although the company has not confirmed some of the details of the deal, participating investors are believed to be IDG Capital Partners, Google Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz.

RippleLabs_homepage.jpg

This latest infusion of capital follows successful angel and seed funding rounds which raised $9 million in 2013, and takes the company’s total capital to nearly $40 million. WSJ further reported that the investment puts Ripple Labs’ valuation at $100 million.
(Crypto Coins News helpfully compares this valuation to Ripple’s “primary value in XRP” to arrive at a very different figure.)
Ripple Labs developed the Ripple protocol, a distributed open source payment network that enables the real-time transfer of funds in any currency. The technology was deployed by Fidor Bank AG last May, and in September Cross River Bank and CBW Bank became the first U.S. banks to incorporate the Ripple protocol into its settlement operations. In January, Ripple Labs named Gene Sperling, former Chief White House Advisor, to its board of directors.
Ripple_homepage.jpg
The investment comes at a time of resurgent optimism for digital and cryptocurrencies like Ripple. Recent investment in bitcoin exchange Coinbase, which opened its first U.S. exchange this week, has helped restore interest in the technology after the price of bitcoin dripped below $300 and fell to as low as $178.
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, Ripple demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Francisco. Chris Larsen is CEO.

Alumni News– December 4, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgIntelligent Environments awarded Fairbanking certification. See Intelligent Environments demo at FinovateEurope 2015 in February.
  • Xsolla partners with BitPay to bring bitcoin payments to gaming. See Xsolla at FinovateEurope in London.
  • MasterCard partners with Gates Foundation to launch innovation lab in Nairobi, Kenya.
  • App Annie unveils Audience Intelligence, a solution mobile app publishers can use to learn demographic data from users.
  • Access Development partners with Oklahoma Education Association.
  • Yueyu Fu, co-founder and CPO at Rippleshot interviewed at Benzinga Fintech Awards.
  • Intuit’s Quickbook Online Accountant is now available in the U.S.
  • Ripple to plug its real-time settlement protocol into Earthport’s payments hub.
  • Braintree is now rolling out its One Touch payment service outside the U.S.
  • eGift Card feature added to Wipit-powered Boost Mobile.
  • SocietyOne Closes Undisclosed Series B Funding Round.
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.

Alumni News– November 13, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgKili acquires NFC microSD pioneer DeviceFidelity.
  • American Banker lists Currency Cloud, BioCatch, Linqto, VerifyValid, and Rippleshot as top 10 tech companies to watch.
  • Fintech in the fall: themes and company updates from CAN Capital, Encap Security, Fuze Network, Guardian Analytics, Larky, Ripple, and Xpenditure.
  • American Banker examines 2015 plans for FIS, Fiserv and Diebold.
  • Forbes looks at the success of RoboAdvisors: Betterment, Wealthfront, Personal Capital, and SigFig.
  • Forbes examines Kantox’s P2P FX trading technology.
  • TSYS partners with FICO to deliver a marketing product for card issuers called TSYS Targeted Messaging.
  • Digital Insight enters reseller agreement with Guardian Analytics to deliver anomaly detection services to financial institutions.
  • Trulioo wins 2014 Canadian Technology Companies to watch award from Deloitte.
  • Huffington Post interviews Andrea Gellert, SVP Marketing at OnDeck.
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.

Fintech in the Fall: Themes and Company Updates

Fall is in full swing and there has been plenty of news to keep the fintech world busy.

I spent last week at Money20/20 where the themes centered around Apple Pay, Bitcoin, and Millennials. In between listening to industry experts on these and other topics, I sat down to chat with seven Finovate alums. Here are a few notable updates:

CANCapitalLogo.jpg

CAN Capital (fka Capital Access Network) has supplied just over $4 billion in funding to more than 55,000 small businesses. It continues to expand, reporting double-digit growth from last year.

CAN’s financing works well for small businesses who cannot obtain funding through traditional bank loans. Its 60%+ approval rate is made possible by the robust tech and big data analytic capabilities that enhance market insight. This ultimately broadens CAN’s access to prospective clients and enables it to provide customers with a lower priced loan.

CANHomepage.jpg

In June, it launched the beta version of CAN Connect, a set of 4 APIs. One of these APIs is called CAN Instant Quote (IQ). It pulls data from software that a small business uses frequently, such as scheduling or accounting software, to pre-approve them for instant financing.

In November, CAN announced a partnership with Yodlee to extend funding through its small business offering. This will enable Yodlee’s financial institution clients to offer customers access to funding via CAN’s Instant Quote API. The service will be available by Q1 of 2015.

While fixed term loans are still CAN’s core product, it is currently looking into offering flexible payment terms in 2015.

See CAN Capital’s demo from FinovateFall 2013 where it debuted Mobile Funder.

encaplogo.jpg

Encap Security offers Smarter Authentication, a seamless way for banks to authenticate users across multiple channels, without disrupting the user experience.

Several weeks ago, Encap partnered with Feedzai to leverage its analytic engine that authenticates users. When the customer’s identity is in question, they are sent challenges to authenticate themselves, rather than being shut out of the system entirely.

Other partnerships are in the works, but all are confidential at this point.

Additionally, Encap has recently integrated Apple’s Touch ID to replace users’ PINs. While Encap’s Smarter Authentication will still be the underlying technology, Touch ID will help authenticate the user at each point of interaction.

EncapTouchID.jpg

The company plans to incorporate other biometrics in the future.

Watch Encap demo Smarter Authentication at FinovateSpring 2014.

Fuze_Network.jpg

As we tweeted last week, Fuze was recently acquired by Ingo Money, a company that specializes in mobile check cashing services for underbanked consumers. Ingo enables customers to instantly deposit checks onto a prepaid card, bank account, or mobile wallet.

The acquisition will combine Ingo’s mobile check cashing with Fuze’s swipe-to-pay and swipe-to-load features to give users more control over their money. Ingo will also leverage Fuze’s existing network of more than one billion cards, which includes:

    • 50 million prepaid cards
    • 459 million debit cards
    • 576 million credit cards
    • 531 million private label cards
    • 137 million other types

Ingo is also working on solutions to help users avoid late fees by enabling them to send funds to a location of their choice, such as their landlord. Additionally, it plans to expand the number of retail locations where customers load cash and move money from card to card.

FuzeHomepage.jpg

The terms of the acquisition, which is set to be finalized by the end of this year, were undisclosed.

Fuze Network last demonstrated at FinovateFall 2011 where it debuted Swipe2Pay.

GuardianAnalyticsLogo.jpg

With a swell in data breaches this year, security has become a hot topic with the half-billion personal identities stolen in the last 8 months.

The increasing number of new solutions and capabilities banks now offer has opened up fresh opportunities for fraudsters to compromise users’ identities. To combat this, Guardian Analytics has added capabilities that gather user reputation data, such as their IP address.

Guardian Analytics is working with more than 300 financial institutions and has expanded its partnerships outside of banks. In the last year and a half, it has partnered with two non-bank institutions, Fiserv and Digital Insight.

GuardianAnalyticsHomepage.jpg

In the future, the California-based company plans to expand its analytics-based security solutions, since rules-based security is failing under the ever-expanding number of requirements needed to protect institutions.

Guardian Analytics debuted FraudXCHANGE at FinovateFall 2012.

LarkyLogonew.jpg

Larky, a company that provides card-linked discounts and offers on a mobile platform, signed six new financial institution clients across Alabama, Michigan, and New York in October.

Each new client is using a white-labeled version of Larky’s platform coupled with a package of local offers and rewards. The offers not only save users money, but also drive traffic to local business, and increase card usage.

LarkyHomepage.jpg

Check out Larky’s demo from FinovateFall 2014.

ripplelogo1.jpg

Open source payments protocol, Ripple,announced a partnership with Yantra, which specializes in electronic payment systems. Specifically, Ripple will use Yantra’s risk management capabilities.

The Ripple network increases the speed and velocity of transactions, which add to its risk. To mitigate the liability, it leverages Yantra’s technology to create context and conditionality to its money movement processes.

RippleHomepage.jpg

Yantra will augment the data collected about transactions and is adding new tools, such as custom search fields, to better analyze the data, and all within seconds.

Ripple debuted at FinovateSpring 2013.

CardwiseLogo.jpg

When we last spoke with Xpenditure at the beginning of this year, the company had $2.2 million in Angel funding and 15 employees. By the end of 2014, it will have raised $3.5 million in total funding and expects to have 25 employees.

It is also expanding its operations. It recently opened offices in São Paulo and New York City. In fact, the U.S. is its fastest growing market and accounts for 30% of its customers.

XpenditureHomepage2.jpg

In late October, it launched a partnership with MasterCard and its expense management system will be available as a part of MasterCard’s Business Owner ToolBox in Canada.

Check out Xpenditure’s demo from FinovateEurope 2014.