Scalable Capital

Scalable Capital Raises $64.7 Million

Scalable Capital Raises $64.7 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Scalable Capital
  • Scalable Capital received $64.7 million (€60 million) in a venture round led by Balderton Capital.
  • The new funds boost Scalable Capital’s total funding to $352 million (€326 million).
  • Scalable Capital is facing new competition, with U.S.-based stock brokerage app Robinhood entering the market this fall.

Digital investment platform Scalable Capital landed some capital of its own this week. The broker and roboadvisor announced it received $64.7 million (€60 million) in a venture round led by Balderton Capital.

The round, which saw participation from HV Capital’s new growth fund and existing investors, is an extension of the company’s 2021 Series E fund. Today’s investment boosts Scalable Capital’s Series E Round to $227 million (€210 million) and brings its total funds to $352 million (€326 million).

According to TechCrunch, Scalable Capital’s valuation with the new round sits at $1.4 billion, the same valuation the company held at its 2021 Series E round.

The Germany-based company will use today’s investment to grow its investment platform and to “capitalize on its position as a leading provider of easy and cost effective investing solutions for retail clients.”

Founded in 2014, Scalable Capital has a mission to empower everyone to become an investor. The company, which is active in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK., has 600,000+ users who currently hold $17.3 billion (€16 billion) in stocks, ETFs, derivatives, bonds, commodities and crypto on its platform. The fintech’s cost for brokerage range from free to $5.39 (€4.99) per month. For users who prefer an automated approach, Scalable Capital also has a roboadvisor offering that has a varied fee structure based on the client’s holdings.

Earlier this year, Scalable Capital launched Credit, a tool that offers users access to secured loans in the Scalable Brokerage product. Residents of Germany can buy additional securities or withdraw a personal loan without having to liquidate existing positions.

As part of today’s fundng announcement, Balderton Capital General Partner Rana Yared will join Scalable Capital’s board. “Scalable’s one-stop, digital-first, wealth building and generating platform brings a suite of top-class financial products to individuals across Europe, and is unparalleled in the market. We’ve been impressed by Erik, Florian, and team’s vision and execution to date and are delighted to be supporting them in this next chapter.”

Scalable Capital recently began facing new competition in the European wealthtech market, as U.S. stock brokerage app Robinhood launched operations in the U.K. Today, the California-based company unveiled it will offer crypto trading for its European Union-based users.

Photo by Monstera Production

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Finovate Global Scandinavia: Subaio Partners with Aiia, Boost.ai Brings Conversational AI to DNB

Finovate Global Scandinavia: Subaio Partners with Aiia, Boost.ai Brings Conversational AI to DNB
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Aiia, Alumni News, Finovate Global, Jumio, Scalable Capital, Subaio

Denmark-based Subaio announced this week that it was teaming up with fellow Danish fintech – and fellow Finovate alum – Aiia. Subaio will leverage its partnership with Aiia to better assess creditworthiness for its new white label offering. The collaboration will streamline creditworthiness assessment through a combination of Aiia’s access to financial data and Subaio’s recurring payments detection technology.

“To create automation and a product that works for solid credit scoring across industries, we need as solid and deep quality of data as possible to label the transactions and categorize them afterwards,” Subaio Chief Commercial Officer Soren Nielsen said. “That’s why we chose Aiia to help us bring this next exciting step in the Subaio journey up to speed.”

In some ways, partnerships like this are being encouraged by regulatory decisions. The EU’s revised Consumer Credit Directive of 2021 mandates that financial services firms document customer income and recurring expenses before offering financing to help lower the number of non-performing loans.

“With Aiia, Subaio will be able to offer their customers a hassle-free, cost-efficient and data-driven solution to assess creditworthiness,” Aiia SMB & Fintech Director Tanya Slavova said. “With our high quality data in mind, this open banking empowerment will grant borrowers better loan assessments based on the accurate overview of the consumer’s actual financial situation.”

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Denmark, Subaio made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin. At the conference, the company demoed its white label subscription management service, which gives customers a comprehensive overview of their recurring payments, helps them cancel unwanted subscriptions, and provides notifications to enable customers to avoid “subscription traps.” The company returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateEurope 2022 in London with a demo of its automatic creditworthiness assessment solution.

Subaio has raised $4.9 million in funding from investors including Global PayTech Ventures. Thomas Laursen is CEO.

Making its Finovate debut at our all-digital FinovateEurope 2021 conference, Copenhagen, Denmark-based Aiia was launched in 2017. A leading open banking platform in Northern Europe, the company demoed its account-to-account payment services at FinovateEurope 2021, showing how the technology facilitates everything from one-off payments for ecommerce to bulk payments for SMEs using a single API. Aiia was acquired by Mastercard in the fall of 2021 for an undisclosed amount. Rune Mai is CEO and co-founder.

In other fintech news from the Nordics, Boost.ai, a Finovate alum from Norway, announced that it will bring its conversational AI technology to Nordic bank DNB. Specifically, DNB will use Boost.ai’s technology to automate more than half of the bank’s chat traffic with its Aino virtual agent. Aino presently automates upwards of 20% of the bank’s customer service requests. According to DNB, more than one million of its customers have interacted with Aino.

Boost.ai VP of EMEA Sanjeev Kumar praised DNB has “one of the many forward-thinking organizations that are reaping the benefits of embracing a conversational AI solution.” Kumar highlighted the fact that conversational AI helps free up staff to enable them to focus on higher-order and more complex customer service tasks. Headquartered in Oslo, DNB is the largest financial services group in Norway. DNB offers a full range of financial services, including loans and savings, insurance and pension products, as well as advisory services for both retail and corporate customers.

“Artificial intelligence is an important part of our digital strategy,” DNB SVP and Head of IT Emerging Technologies Jan Thomas Lerstein said. “In leveraging AI, our aim is to revitalize our value chains, creating better service for our customers and, of course, value for the bank.” Lerstein added that DNB is evaluating other AI-enabled solutions including voice APIs to help the bank reach “higher levels of personalization.”

Boost.ai made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in New York in 2019, demoing its virtual agent technology. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Sandnes, Norway, the company introduced a new CEO – Jerry Haywood – in the fall of 2022. Haywood took over the position from founder and previous CEO Lars Selsås, who will focus on product development and innovation going forward.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Photo by Mihis Alex

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Paymob Closes Egyptian Fintech’s Biggest Series B; South African’s Capitec Partners with Entersekt and nCino

Paymob Closes Egyptian Fintech’s Biggest Series B; South African’s Capitec Partners with Entersekt and nCino
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entersekt, Finovate Global, nCino, NuData Security, Scalable Capital, VISA

A $50 million investment will help Egyptian digital payments company Paymob expand into new markets in both the Middle East and Africa. The round was led by Kora Capital, PayPal Ventures, and Clay Point, and represents the largest ever Series B round in Egyptian fintech history.

“Central Bank of Egypt initiatives that are continuously being introduced in the market to support fintech companies were key to Paymob’s growth,” company founder and CEO Islam Shawky said. “The Central Bank has created a regulatory framework to help fintech flourish and participate in making Egypt’s digital financial inclusion ambitions a reality.”

Processing more than 85% of the market share of transactions in Egypt with its mobile wallet technology, Paymob serves customers in five markets including Palestine, Pakistan, and Kenya. The investment comes as Paymob reports strong 2021 growth, including year-on-year growth in merchant partners and monthly volumes of 4x as of December. The company has onboarded more than 10,000 merchants in less than two years en route to a goal of onboarding one million SMEs.

This week’s funding brings Paymob’s total capital to more than $68.5 million.

South African bank Capitec announced that it was teaming up with two Finovate alums, Entersekt and nCino.

One of the fastest-growing digital banks in South Africa, Capitec has partnered with cloud banking and digital transformation solution provider nCino. The two companies will work together to build Capitec’s Business Banking loan management system to better serve the company 70,000+ business banking customers.

“Capitec has embraced an agile and innovative approach to growth,” nCino CEO Pierre Naudé said. “We’re glad Capitec saw a partner in nCino and look forward to providing the bank with industry-leading technology and a flexible platform that will help drive the sustainability and growth of its business banking operations.”

nCino made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateEurope. The company’s flagship offering, its cloud-based Bank Operating System, provides a complete end-to-end banking solution that combines CRM, loan origination, workflow, ECM, business intelligence, and reporting all in a single location. nCino’s technology replaces disparate point solutions and manual processes with a modern, digitally-optimized experience.

In addition to its collaboration with nCino, Capitec also announced this week that it was working with South African identity and authentication solution provider Entersekt. Capitec will implement the company’s EMV 3D Secure solution to enhance the security of its e-commerce transactions.

The technology will enable Capitec to spot high risk e-commerce transactions in real-time, enhancing security without interfering with the customer experience. Entersekt’s EMV 3D Secure solution is pre-integrated with NuDetect from NuData Security – also a Finovate alum – which leverages behavioral biometrics and machine learning to help tell the difference between authentic users and potential fraudsters.

“We are constantly looking for ways to offer the best security possible without impacting our customers’ experiences,” Capitec Bank Marketing and Communications Executive Francois Viviers said. “By implementing Entersekt’s EMV 3D Secure solution with behavioral analytics from NuData Security, we are able to provide an additional level of protection for our e-commerce transactions. This also allows our team to continue to innovate, keeping our customers secure and Capitec at the forefront of digital banking innovation in South Africa.”

Entersekt demonstrated its technology as part of our developers conference, FinDEVr, in San Francisco in 2014. The company, headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, finished 2021 with a “significant investment” from Accel-KKR. This spring, Entersekt announced partnerships with edtech Mindjoy and the MiDO Foundation to promote financial literacy, as well as a collaboration with credit union service organization (CUSO) Bonifii to bring context-aware authentication solutions to credit unions.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Spencer Davis

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Ukraine Legalizes Crypto; Nordigen and Efigence Announce New Partnerships

Ukraine Legalizes Crypto; Nordigen and Efigence Announce New Partnerships
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Efigence, Finovate Global, Nordigen, Revolut, Scalable Capital

As more and more fintechs add their support to the people of Ukraine and create new pathways for individuals and organizations to contribute financially, the Ukrainian government has had to adapt in order to make some of these contributions not just possible, but legal.

This week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, signed month-old legislation to provide a legal framework for the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies in the country. Per the new legislation, cryptocurrency exchanges and other companies dealing in digital assets will be able to register with the Ukrainian government in order to operate in the country. Additionally, the new law will allow banks to open accounts for cryptocurrency companies.

Going forward, Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission will set the country’s policies on cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, issue licenses, and serve as a regulatory watchdog over the fledgling industry. The law is the second bite of the apple for Ukraine’s cryptocurrency advocates; the Ukrainian parliament voted to legalize cryptocurrencies last fall, but the legislation was vetoed by Zelenskyy, who cited the cost of creating a new regulatory entity to govern cryptocurrencies.

Ukrainian interest in cryptocurrencies certainly predates the Russian invasion of the country; a New York Times feature in November 2021 ran the headline “The Crypto Capital of the World” with the subhead “It has to be somewhere. Why not Ukraine?” But that interest has spiked since then as the country reportedly has received “tens of millions of dollars” in cryptocurrency donations to help Ukrainians cope with the devastation of their country at the hands of the Russian military.

Nordigen partners with French fintech Saveengs, U.K. lender Mallard Finance

Latvian open banking platform Nordigen has announced a pair of new partnerships this week. Saveengs, a French startup that specializes in helping people with little or no savings build a strong financial foundation, will work with Nordigen to help users find ways to save better. Nordigen’s technology will enable the Saveengs app to analyze the user’s finances to find opportunities to save in small amount, typically in increments of 20 euros.

“While the amount of money saved seems small at first, it definitely adds up,” Saveengs CEO Mourad Ketir said. “Open banking enables the app to perform financial analysis on our users’ existing funds and transactions quickly and easily, allowing the process of saving to start as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile across the channel, U.K.-based independent lender Mallard Finance has chosen Nordigen as its Account Information Service Provider (AISP). A specialist in providing financing for automobile purchases, Mallard Finance will leverage its new partnership with Nordigen to access financial data directly from borrower bank accounts during the application process. This will give the lender, which serves both individuals and businesses across the credit risk spectrum, a more exacting and accurate view of the applicant’s financial status.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Mallard Finance,” Nordigen CEO and co-founder Rolands Mesters said. He praised both the company’s professional team and its success in serving its customers since 1995. “We are happy to see companies continuing to choose open banking to further enhance their already existing services and internal assessment procedures,” Mesters added.

Nordigen most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope 2019 in London. At the conference, the company demoed its Nordigen Report, which enables banks and lenders to access loan applicant account histories and verify income and other important insights.

Efigence teams up with Polish bank Getin Noble

Getin Noble, a Warsaw, Poland-based banking and financial services company, has partnered with Polish digital banking solutions provider Efigence to help it launch new online banking services. The enhancements, to be introduced modularly, include new functionalities as well as modernization of its online presence.

“Today’s online banking is much more than a financial tool,” Director of Getin Noble Bank’s Electronic Banking Department Marta Dałkiewicz said. “Customers often have contact with it many times a day, so the solutions we propose must be affordable and easy to use.”

Efigence President and CTO Marek Lesiak said that increasing the accessibility of online banking was a major goal for the collaboration. This included design elements for both the web and mobile apps to make banking more convenient for the customer regardless of which channel they used. “Today, finance is connected with almost every sphere of our life,” Lesiak said, “and the use of online banking should be as easy, intuitive and pleasant as if it were part of our DNA.”

A two-time Best of Show winner, earning the honor in both its Finovate debut as well as at our second Dubai-based event in 2019, FinovateMiddle East, Efigence demonstrated the latest improvements to its digital banking platform at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Kostiantyn Stupak from Pexels

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Scalable Capital Goes Crypto

Scalable Capital Goes Crypto
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Scalable Capital

Digital investment platform Scalable Capital launched a crypto offering this week called Scalable Crypto. The new tool, which Scalable Capital is launching in partnership with Europe’s largest digital asset investment company CoinShares, helps users invest in cryptocurrencies.

Scalable Crypto will help everyday investors participate in crypto markets by offering access to crypto investments via regulated stock exchanges in Germany. The new tool will integrate with the company’s existing wealth management and broker offerings, and will hold cryptocurrencies in secured, cold wallets at regulated custodians.

“We make trading crypto as easy as trading shares or ETFs,” said Scalable Capital Co-founder and CEO Erik Podzuweit. “Crypto currencies are well established as an asset class in a balanced portfolio. With ‘Scalable Crypto’, we are providing an affordable and intuitive offering to help even more people to enter the crypto world. The expansion is the next stage in our journey to become Europe’s leading digital investment platform.”

Scalable Capital is making it easy for crypto-novices to experiment with digital currencies. Users trade on the Xetra and gettex exchanges and do not need to open a separate wallet to do so. Instead, cryptocurrencies are held in the form of securities in the customer’s existing account. Additionally, Scalable Capital takes care of the tax details for crypto securities.

Founded in Germany in 2014, Scalable Capital was launched during the roboadvisor craze and now has more than $6.8 billion (€6 billion) under management on its platform. Today, the company offers both B2C and B2B tools. The company provides private individuals digital wealth management, a broker with a flat rate, and overnight and time deposit offers. For B2B clients, Scalable Capital develops solutions for digital investment. Some of the company’s current clients include ING, Barclays, and Santander.

Scalable Capital, which demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2016, has 330 employees across its offices in Munich, Berlin, and London. Earlier this year, the company landed $180 million in new funding, bringing its total to more than $317 million. Scalable Capital has an estimated valuation of $1.4 billion.

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Cryptocurrencies, Financial Inclusion, and a Look at El Salvador’s Big Bitcoin Bet

Cryptocurrencies, Financial Inclusion, and a Look at El Salvador’s Big Bitcoin Bet
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Finovate Global, MasterCard, Nordigen, Scalable Capital

One of the biggest experiments in bringing cryptocurrencies to the mainstream is taking place in the small Central American nation of El Salvador. Earlier this summer, the country’s legislative assembly authorized granting Bitcoin status as legal tender inside El Salvador beginning September 7th. One month after Bitcoin joined the U.S. dollar as the second official currency in the country, what can be said of the project so far?

This morning, Reuters took up the question of Bitcoin adoption in the country and discovered that the initiative has boosted use of the cryptocurrency, but that increase in use has come with more than a few “headaches” for many Salvadorans who have attempted to withdraw cash from Bitcoin wallets or make other transactions with the digital asset.

On the adoption front, Forbes reported late this week that the Bitcoin project has resulted in more Salvadorans having digital, Bitcoin wallets than traditional bank accounts. According to the article, approximately three million Salvadorans have downloaded Chivo, the new, government-sponsored digital wallet to facilitate Bitcoin transactions. This adds up to 46% of the country’s 6.8 million population. “By contrast,” Forbes noted, “as of 2017, only 29% of Salvadorans had bank accounts.” The Forbes account also observed that Chivo is not the only option available to those seeking to transact in the cryptocurrency; the availability of other digital wallets suggests that the estimates on early Bitcoin adoption by El Salvador’s citizens could be significantly higher.

El Salvador president and long-time Bitcoin backer Nayib Bukele boasted recently of negotiations with the country’s largest gas stations to offer reduced prices for those paying for gasoline using the Chivo app. But widespread adoption by the country’s retailers will still be one of the initiative’s biggest hurdles. Part of this issue is likely timing- a Reuters story reported that, according to the Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development, 12% of consumers have used Bitcoin in the month since the Bitcoin Law was implemented, and that 93% of the 233 companies it surveyed were reporting no payments in Bitcoin over the same time period. But another part of the issue may be easily explained by Chivo itself, which provides instant conversion from Bitcoin to dollars – meaning Salvadorans who own Bitcoin can still readily pay for transactions in dollars if they choose to.

Nevertheless, early indications are that the project may accomplish its most important role of promoting financial inclusion – especially among the country’s poorer, rural-based citizenry. While some in the business community remain skeptical – and more aggressive opponents of the measure have resorted to vandalizing and defacing Chivo ATMs – others point to the possible use of Chivo as a way for expat Salvadorans living in places like the U.S. to send money to family still in El Salvador as a use case that could help drive Bitcoin adoption in the country. Potential cost savings of using Chivo instead of traditional money transfer services – as well as the Salvadoran government’s willingness to incentivize Chivo use with Bitcoin bonuses of up to $30 – could help Bukele’s Bitcoin brainchild sustain the momentum it already has achieved in its first 30 days.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Diego Madrigal from Pexels

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Roboadvisor Scalable Capital Secures $180 Million in New Funding

Roboadvisor Scalable Capital Secures $180 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Scalable Capital

In a round led by Tencent, digital wealth management platform Scalable Capital has locked in more than $183 million (€150 million) in Series E funding. The new capital brings the company’s total funding to more than $317 million (€260 million) and gives the Munich, Germany-based firm a valuation of $1.4 billion – making the firm Germany’s, and fintech’s, latest unicorn. Scalable Capital said that the financing will help the company add to its workforce, as well as help support expansion into European markets like France, Italy, and Spain.

“We see huge demand to invest money in the capital markets instead of leaving it in bank accounts,” Scalable Capital co-CEO and co-founder Florian Prucker said. “Our clients can access fully managed globally diversified ETF portfolios and – in the same app – self directed trading in shares, ETFs, crypto currencies, and funds. We also provide a market-leading offering of ETF, stocks, and crypto monthly savings plans. We are planning to launch derivatives trading next.”

Having Tencent as an investor, according to Scalable Capital co-CEO and co-founder Erik Podzuweit, will also help the company improve its appeal to millennial customers who have become increasingly comfortable investing via their smartphones.

A Finovate alum since 2016, Scalable Capital offers banks, insurers, and corporate clients a digital wealth management platform that support automated investing and rebalancing. With customers ranging from ING to Openbank (Santander’s digital bank) to Siemans Financial Services, Scalable Capital provides globally diversified, cost-efficient ETF portfolios that are personalized to the investor’s risk profile.

Scalable Capital currently has more than $5 billion in assets under management. In the wake of this week’s funding, the company plans to add cryptocurrencies to its product portfolio, open a new office in Berlin, and double its workforce this year to 400.

Scalable Capital began the year with a pivot: the company announced in January that it would continue its direct to consumer business in Germany and Austria, but will limit its operations in the U.K. to its B2B business. The cost of customer acquisition was cited as one of the challenges to the company’s retail ambitions in the U.K. and, as such, Scalable Capital decided to focus on expansion and development with its German platform and its B2C and wealth businesses.

Also this year, Scalable Capital announced the appointment of new Chief Strategy Officer Dirk Urmoneit. Urmoneit comes to the company after holding senior positions at index provider Solactive AG and investment banks J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

Photo by Jenna Hamra from Pexels

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Three Fintechs Driving Financial Inclusion in Nigeria

Three Fintechs Driving Financial Inclusion in Nigeria
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Diebold, Finovate Global, MasterCard, Scalable Capital, Tinkoff Bank

A report earlier this year from PwC highlighted the “changing competitive landscape” for fintech and banking in Nigeria. For those looking to learn more about both the growing impact of technology in financial services in one of the major countries in Africa, as well as the challenge created by COVID-19, PwC’s review provides an comprehensive overview.

The report also concludes with nine recommendations the analysts believe would encourage continued growth in Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem. These recommendations range from making it easier to invest in fintech companies to encouraging partnerships and “strengthen(ing) the synergy between banks and FinTech players” in a mutually beneficial way.

Financial inclusion is a huge part of both the challenge of – and the opportunity for – fintech in Nigeria. The report notes that more than 30 million adult Nigerians do not have or use either formal or informal financial services products or solutions. This represents more than a third of the country’s adult population. And while the report points out that mobile money operators have been among the businesses to help bring more financial services to the underbanked, there are some fintechs that have taken up the cause of financial inclusion, as well. A trio of these companies are highlighted below:

Bankly is a cash digitization and savings platform that caters to Nigeria’s unbanked. The company provides a digital wallet that is secure, convenient, and accessible, and all users require in order to open an account is a phone number. Bankly leverages more than 2,000 agents across 29 of the country’s 36 states to scale the company’s offering.

In operation for just over a year, Bankly has already picked up recognition from the 2019 Innovating Justice Awards sponsored by the Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law. The company has also participated in the GreenHouse Capital accelerator program. Tomilola Adejana (CEO) and Fredrick Adams are co-founders.

Covr Branchless offers banks, insurance companies, and government agencies a suite of applications that enable them to leverage cloud, GPS, and mobile channels to conduct a wide variety of financial processes. Account opening, instant debit card linking, cash withdrawals, fund transfer, billpay, KYC validation and loan origination are among the operations enabled by Covr’s technology.

Covr is owned by Advancio Interactive, a Nigerian technology company focused on sustainable financial access that was founded by Olufisayo Oludare (Managing Director). Covr won Advancio first place at the Startup Istanbul Challenge in the fall of 2017, only the second Africa-based startup to do so.

FairMoney is a online micro lender that provides instant loans from N1,500 to N500,000 (approximately $4 to $1,300), with average loans of about N12,000 ($33-$35). Using the company’s Android mobile app, prospective borrowers apply for financing by answering a few questions and providing some basic financial information. The app analyzes this information – as well as the borrowers geolocation and other factors – to make a loan offer in a matter of minutes.

But what makes the company especially interesting is the fact that it is working to launch a challenger bank. FairMoney raised $11 million in Series A funding last fall for this purpose and plans to expand its offerings to include current and savings accounts.

Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Reserve Bank of India (RBI) encourages government to incentivize the use of QR code transactions and promotes the adoption of open, interoperable standards.
  • Amazon to offer car and motorcycle insurance in India courtesy of partnership with Acko General Insurance.
  • National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) facilitates recurring payments with its new UPI AutoPay feature.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Brazil’s Central Bank reverses course to authorize payments system involving WhatsApp.
  • Payscout teams up with Brazilian fintech Rede Celer to grow its payments business in the country.
  • Partnership between FacePhi and Naranja X will help bring biometric recognition technology to digital onboarding processes for firms in Argentina.

Asia-Pacific

  • Finovate: Ant Group’s Double IPO Listing Shuns U.S. Exchanges.
  • Trulioo brings its GlobalGateway identity verification technology to customers in Vietnam.
  • Crowdfund Insider takes a look at the impact of COVID-19 on fintech lending platforms in Indonesia.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Telco Orange and bancassurance company NSIA team up to launch Orange Bank Africa to serve underbanked communities in Abidjan and Cote d’Ivoire.
  • Vodacom partners with Ant Financial Services Group to bring Alipay services to South Africa.
  • Uganda-based digital cross-border money transfer startup Eversend raises $1 million via an oversubscribed Seeders crowdfunding campaign.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Germany’s Scalable Capital lands $460 million valuation with new $58 million funding round.
  • Russian bank Tinkoff unveils new functionalities for its financial and lifestyle services voice assistant Oleg.
  • EstateGuru, a P2P lending platform based in Estonia, launches a new payment service in partnership with Lemonway.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Oman’s BankDhofar extends partnership with Diebold Nixdorf to improve the customer experience of its ATM network. Bank Nizwa, also based in Oman, announced an extension of its digital payments partnership with Mastercard.
  • Turkey-based online payments platform Mobilexpress secures $2 million in Series A funding.
  • Spotii, an e-commerce technology provider based in the UAE, unveils new deferred payment option.

Photo by Tope A. Asokere from Pexels

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Scalable Capital Lands $460 Million Valuation with New $58 Million Funding Round

Scalable Capital Lands $460 Million Valuation with New $58 Million Funding Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Scalable Capital

Scalable Capital landed $58 million (€50 million) for its roboadvisory platform this week. The new funds come courtesy of BlackRock, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, and Tengelmann Ventures.

Today’s round brings Scalable Capital’s total funding to $133 million (€116 million) and boosts the Germany-based company’s valuation to $460 million. Scalable Capital will use the investment to grow in the wealth management and brokerage spaces, and invest in the B2B side of its business.

“In times of COVID-19, our funding round is a powerful signal; it shows that our focused, digital business model is convincing the investors,” said company Co-founder and Co-CEO, Erik Podzuweit. “We will use the additional capital to expand our position as the market leader in digital wealth management and to reach new customer segments with the broker.”

With 80,000 customers across Germany, Austria, the U.K., and Switzerland, Scalable Capital has $2 billion in assets under management. The company offers personalized, fully managed investment portfolios.

Using its risk management technology, Scalable Capital’s B2C offering aims to make investing accessible for everyone by charging simple, transparent fees.

“We established Scalable Capital to make investing easier and better through technology,” said Scalable Capital Co-founder and Co-CEO Florian Prucker. “Not only has our B2C business grown strongly over the last few years, but Scalable Capital’s technology is also used by more and more B2B partners; most recently we launched our partnership with Barclays. With this funding round, we also want to expand our team of currently 130 employees in order to drive our expansion and the further development of our platform.”

The company’s flagship offering is a B2B approach that brings its roboadvisory technology to help banks offer their clients a different flavor of investing. Scalable Capital recently added three additional partners to its roster and now boasts partnerships with firms including Barclays, Gerd Kommer Capital, Raiffeisen Banking Group Austria, ING Deutschland, Siemens Private Finance, Openbank, Targobank, Oskar, and Baader Bank, and others.

Photo by Maarten Wijnants on Unsplash

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Partnership with Scalable Capital Drives New Roboadvisory Service from Barclays

Partnership with Scalable Capital Drives New Roboadvisory Service from Barclays
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Scalable Capital

Whether you believe our climbing stock markets around the world are a result of massive, coronavirus-fighting monetary and fiscal stimulus, or merely Millennials easing into their family formation years, there’s no doubting the demand for solutions that help investors maximize the opportunities of advancing markets.

This makes the news that Barclays has launched a new digital wealth management service – Barclays Plan and Invest – all the more timely. It also makes the fact that they’ve partnered with Finovate alum Scalable Capital to launch the new service all the more interesting.

“Over the last few months, we’ve seen a rise in the number of people wanting to invest for the first time and it feels more important than ever that we give people the right tools and advice to plan for their financial future,” Dirk Klee, CEO of Wealth Management and Investments at Barclays explained.

“We launched Plan & Invest after listening to our customers, who said they wanted an investment service that gave them the convenience and affordability of robo-advice, but with more of the personalization of Wealth Management.”

Barclays will pilot the new roboadvisory service with current account customers that have at least £5,000 to invest. The solution will be accessible via Online Banking, and features dedicated customer support via telephone. Barclays said that it will add to the service over the balance of the year, including adding it to the Barclays app this summer.

Customers will be able to set up their own personalized investment plans using Barclays Plan & Invest for free. They will be charged an annual fee of between 1.39% and 1.59% once accounts are established and funded; the actual amount of the annual fee is based on the value of the customer’s investments, and is divided between service and product costs.

Founded in 2014 and making its Finovate debut two years later at FinovateEurope, Scalable Capital specializes in leveraging technology to make sophisticated investment management accessible to the average investor. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, and in London, U.K., the company offers investors access to globally diversified, cost-efficient, ETF portfolios based on their individual risk preferences and investment goals.

Among the largest roboadvisors in Europe, Scalable Capital serves more than 60,000 customers and manages more than £2 billion for its clients. The company has raised €66 million in funding, and includes BlackRock, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, and Monk’s Hill Ventures, among its investors.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Buckzy Payments, CheckAlt, iProov, Meniga, MX, myGini, Mylife, NICE Systems, Ninth Wave, NYMBUS, Onfido, Revolut, Scalable Capital, Tradeshift, UBDI, Zogo Finance

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • Nice Actimize introduces surveillance system, SURVEIL-X.
  • Scalable Capital teams up with Raisin to offer its customers the ability to invest in fixed-term deposits at partner Baader Bank.
  • Standard and Premium customers of Revolut in 26 markets now have access to stock trading via the platform.
  • Financial Times highlights Meniga as a fintech to watch. Come see Meniga’s live demo at FinovateFall next week in New York!
  • NYMBUS appoints Dr. Joerg Richter as its new Chief Operating Officer, Platforms. NYMBUS will showcase its newest technology at FinovateFall next week in New York!
  • Tradeshift to help Spendency app users leverage their transaction data.
  • iProov releases HTML v.2 Beta on GitHub to help users secure user identity in HTML5.
  • Onfido earns the top spot in FinTechCity’s 2019 Fintech 50 roster.

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.

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Scalable Capital Raises $28M

Scalable Capital Raises $28M
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Scalable Capital

Munich-based robo-advisor platform, Scalable Capital, has raised a further €25 million in growth capital, two years after BlackRock invested €30 million, writes Jane Connolly of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Handelsblatt reports that HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and Tengelmann Ventures also took part in this round.

Founded in 2016, Scalable aims to target high-earning young professionals, who invest an average of €35,000. Customers can answer a list of questions about their experiences and objectives, to receive a recommendation for a portfolio of listed index funds (ETFs).

Although the amount raised is relatively low for the industry, Scalable Capital founder Erik Podzuweit said, in the Handelsblatt Disrupt podcast: “Actually, we did not need the money, because unlike some other business models, each customer pays for the offer.”

He added: “So we took the money and can now grow a little faster and at the same time still keep something in reserve.”

BlackRock acquired just under a third of the company two years ago. Despite the capital increase, the founders still have ownership of more than a quarter of the business.

Scalable Capital demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2016. Last month, the company teamed up with Futurae to add multi-factor authentication to its investment platform. This spring, the company was named to the Wealthtech 100.

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