FinDEVr APIntelligence

FDNY17_EventLogo_v1(wdate)Tickets for upcoming FinDEVr London and FinDEVr New York are at their lowest prices now. Register for FinDEVr New York now and save!

On FinDEVr.com

  • SimplyTapp Launches New Payments and E-Commerce App, Gane.

Alumni updates

  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews Marcin Truszel, Founder & CEO of Kontomatik.
  • StockTwits Partners with TradeIt to Expand Beyond Robinhood’s Brokerage.
  • Xignite adds senior sales, business development talent; unveils new offices in New York financial district.
  • Arxan Technologies partners with Cisco as to protect connected medical devices.
  • CurrencyCloud Taps Former Misys Executive Ed Addario as New CTO.
  • Quicken to Leverage PayNearMe’s Prism API.
  • The Banker interviews Avoka European GM, Richard Austen.
  • Persia International Bank chooses core banking technology from Temenos.
  • WISeKey and Stratumn partner to provide enterprise-grade process security software based on blockchain technologies.
  • EVO Payments acquires Sterling Payment Technologies.
  • Rabobank to deploy UP Immediate Payments from ACI Worldwide.

Stay current on daily news from the fintech developer community! Follow FinDEVr on Twitter.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • StockTwits Partners with TradeIt to Expand Beyond Robinhood’s Brokerage.

On FinDEVr.com

  • SimplyTapp Launches New Payments and E-Commerce App, Gane.

Around the web

  • TransferTo partners with Wirecard to enable mobile money operators to offer mobile-to-mobile remittance services.
  • Ayondo announces deadline for 2017 social trading championship.
  • Hellenic Bank of Cyprus to deploy new digital banking platform from Backbase. Join Backbase at FinovateEurope in London next month.
  • StockTwits teams up with TradeIt to give community members ability to execute trades with major brokerages via new iOS app.
  • Xignite adds senior sales, business development talent; unveils new offices in New York financial district.
  • Bambu wins Best Early Startup award at Next Money in Hong Kong.
  • Wealthfront revamps Selling Plan to help users sell and diversify their company stock.
  • Arxan Technologies partners with Cisco as to protect connected medical devices.
  • South by Southwest (SXSW) selects Hip Pocket to showcase Hip Money at SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event in March

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.

Look Who’s Making AI Intelligent Again

Look Who’s Making AI Intelligent Again
screen-shot-2016-10-31-at-12-25-38-pmCapital One was the first bank to go live with an Alexa integration. Other banks are following suit.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not new to fintech, but in the past two years we’ve seen a jump in the sophistication and scale of its use across the industry. The advances in chatbots and IVR solutions have done a lot to spur the growth of machine learning and AI.

In a Fintech Trending post earlier this month, we highlighted Capital One’s live integration and Lloyd Bank’s proof of concept with Amazon’s Alexa. We noted that Cap One was the only bank with a Skill (an Alexa-specific app) that’s currently live. Over the past couple of weeks, however, a handful of banks and financial services companies have launched their own A.I. initiatives in voice forms such as Alexa and GM’s OnStar Go, as well as text, such as Facebook Messenger.

UBS pilots Amazon’s Alexa

Last week news broke that UBS is soon to follow with an Alexa Skill of its own. The Swiss investment bank will launch a pilot program next month that allows a select group of UBS clients and non-clients to interact with Alexa.

However, compared to Capital One’s integration and Lloyd’s proof of concept, the UBS pilot is a bit stunted. In the UBS pilot, when users begin their inquiries with, “Ask UBS,” Alexa currently answers only general financial and economic questions, such as, “What is inflation?” and “How is the EU economy doing?” The pilot aims to test users’ comfort levels with spoken bot interactions.

Bank of America’s Erica

img_1489Also this week, Bank of America demo’d its smart chatbot, Erica, said to be coming in “late 2017.” While many banks offer this capability, Bank of America’s bot shows more emphasis on the intelligence piece of artificial intelligence. As Daniel Latimore, senior vice president of Celent’s banking practice, said in an interview with CNBC, “Though many banks have bots with some level of artificial intelligence, the customer experience has not always been great. Consumers are now accustomed to the types of seamless mobile experiences provided by apps like Uber and Airbnb and want better banking experiences.”

Erica will use AI, predictive analytics, and cognitive messaging to enable customers to make payments and check their account balances. She will even help them save money and offer advice to pay down debt by directing them toward educational videos and articles. Bank of America had a lot of consumer-usage data to draw upon while it was building Erica. In Q3 of this year, the bank saw 246+ billion payments and 950 million mobile banking sessions across 21 million active users.

Mastercard’s Facebook Messenger chatbot

Mastercard (F14) launched its own chatbot this week to deliver a personalized customer experience in messenger platforms. The company partnered with Kasisto to create Mastercard KAI, a bot for banks, which will launch next year on Facebook Messenger. The bot was created in-house in Mastercard Labs. It aims to offer a way for merchants to allow consumers to shop and transact in messaging platforms and check out with Masterpass.

30270931092_7092cd6235_o

The payments giant also announced partnerships with GM and IBM (FD16) this week to launch Masterpass payment functionality on OnStar Go, a digital platform that will be embedded in 2 million GM vehicles by the end of 2017. The OnStar Go platform will feature a marketplace of select merchants from which drivers can order and pay directly from their vehicle. Over time, OnStar Go learns the consumer’s purchasing behaviors and is able to push personalized and contextual offers to the driver. ExxonMobil, Glympse, iHeartRadio, MasterCard, and Parkopedia are the first brands to join the platform.

paypalinmessengerPayPal expands Facebook Messenger capabilities

PayPal (FD16) first announced it was integrating with Facebook Messenger last month, when the social media giant unveiled payments capability within Messenger. This week, the company announced further integration. In the U.S., PayPal will not only serve as one of the payment options within Messenger, but also:

  • Roll out as a payment option across more of Facebook’s commerce experiences (including Messenger)
  • Make it easy for PayPal customers to link their PayPal accounts to Facebook and Messenger at PayPal checkout
  • Offer the ability to get notifications in Messenger, facilitating receipt management for PayPal transactions in one place

The biggest takeaway is that as Messenger rolls out a native payment experience, merchants can accept PayPal payments directly within their bots. As an early pilot of this capability, PayPal’s Braintree partnered with Facebook and Uber in December 2015 to allow users to hail and pay for an Uber directly within the app.

Contrary to some reports, PayPal’s integration isn’t a chatbot. I learned this the embarrassing way when I typed “balance” in a Facebook message to PayPal and a half-hour later received a message from an actual person:

screen-shot-2016-10-26-at-3-37-06-pmThat awkward moment you learn you’re chatting with a real person, not a chatbot

SimplyTapp launches mobile payments app with chatbot

SimplyTapp’s (FD14) newly launched mobile payments app, Gane, works on both Android and iOS and offers tap-and-pay functionality at the POS. With the companion mobile app, users can collect and apply discount offers. Aside from mobile payment and offer-redemption capability, Gane works with chatbots embedded in Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Kik, and Telegram messaging platforms. The company plans to integrate with additional platforms in the future.

screen-shot-2016-10-26-at-2-53-18-pm

Why all the AI?

Banks and financial services companies aren’t just trying to farm out the jobs of their tellers and customer service agents to bots that don’t require a salary, paid time off, and health insurance, though that does play a role. Aside from the obvious role chatbots and AI play in answering simple customer inquiries without using up the time of customer service agents, banks’ motives are twofold.

First, it helps them meet customers where they are by operating in the same channels in which their consumers spend hours a day, such as Facebook. Financial services companies can offer a better user experience by not requiring users to open a separate app or launch a new window to view their balance. In cases such as PayPal’s and Mastercard’s integrations with Facebook Messenger, it also serves as a way to become the customer’s preferred payment method in that channel, i.e., becoming top-of-wallet in Messenger.

Second, it establishes the financial services company on the millennial map. Many of the incumbent players are struggling to attract their next generation of clients for payments and wealth management. Offering services that reach into channels such as Alexa and social messenger platforms help banks engage with potential millennial wealth management customers. It’s the same reason established wealth management players are launching robo-adviser—to serve as training wheels.

Note: A Finovate alum’s most recent appearance is shown by a capital F followed by the year; for example, FIS first appeared at Finovate in 2009, so you will see (F09) after their name, with a link to that first demo.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVrNY16-V2(wdate)We’re taking our FinDEVr developer showcase to New York on March 29 & 30, 2016. Register today.

The latest from upcoming FinDEVr New York 2015 presenters:

  • In the U.K., PayPal Here SDK reveals first eight business partners.
  • Quartz asks, “Should Venmo Buy a Bank?”

Alumni updates

  • MX inks multi-year data-aggregation deal with USAA.
  • NAB Asset Servicing selects Thomson Reuters as its preferred data partner.
  • HuffPost Business features SimplyTapp and Kontomatik in its list of the five most useful APIs in the financial world.
  • Mitek elects CEO James B. DeBello as Chairman of the Board.

Stay current on daily news from the fintech developer community! Follow FinDEVr on Twitter.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVr2016-NY-(Stacked)V2Are you building new financial technology? Be sure to check out coverage from our recent developers conference in San Francisco. We’re taking the fintech developer tool showcase to New York on 29/30 March 2016. Stay tuned for details.

Developer news

  • “The Next Web: How to Design with Developers”

The latest from FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 presenters

  • Think Big Data mentions Praesidio as a startup using machine learning in its cyber-security solution.
  • “Xignite Surpasses 50 Billion API Calls in a Single Month”
  • VentureBeat: Twilio rolls out new feature set designed to help developers build messaging apps using its platform.
  • Arxan Technologies extends its app-security protection to Apple TV.
  • “Digital Asset Holdings Acquires Blockchain-as-a-Service Innovator, Blockstack.io
  • Security solutions from Arxan Technologies now running on more than 500 million devices.

Alumni updates

  • Tradier teams up with Equities Lab to bring real-world trading experience to college students.
  • Google appoints Entersekt CTO Christiaan Brand as product manager for security and identity teams.
  • Pymnts looks at how SimplyTapp is addressing host card emulation.
  • Visa Inc. to Acquire Visa Europe.
  • Fierce Finance IT features BehavioSec.
  • Avoka partners with Trulioo to provide digital identification authentication to international banks.

Stay up-to-date on daily developments by following FinDEVr on Twitter.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Finovate Alums earn top honors at U.K.’s Emerging Payments Awards.

Around the web

  • NPR’s Morning Edition features Greg Smith, president of Blooom, in a segment on robo-advisory.
  • Diebold and SimplyTapp team up to introduce a white-label mobile wallet.
  • Trulioo now provides real-time ID-verification coverage in India.
  • INTECH licenses Digital Payments Guardian from Prairie Cloudware.
  • Yodlee integrates with Salesforce Financial Services Cloud.
  • TSYS and Ingenico partner on new solution to simplify EMV certification.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVr2015LogoV2DateAre you building new financial technology? Be sure to register soon for the only event exclusively for fintech developers, FinDEVr 2015, 6/7 Oct, in San Francisco.

Industry news

  • Expensify launches new fintech investment fund.
  • Yodlee hosts webinar on how to build financial apps to meet evolving customer expectations.
  • The Full FinDEVr: “A Look at the Final Line-up for FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco”

The latest from upcoming FinDEVr 2015 presenters

  • Wallaby Upgrades Credit Card Optimization Solution with Spend Monitor.
  • Backbase-powered Touch Bank goes live in Russia.
  • PayPal hires new CFO John Rainey, a former United Airlines executive.
  • EVO Snap* to fast track EMV migration for software vendors and retailers; partners with Handpoint.
  • NerdWallet looks at Personal Capital in feature on how automation is disrupting investing.
  • BehavioSec mentioned as one “wild invention of the future” that the Pentagon is behind.
  • OnDeck rolls out mobile app for account management on-the-go.
  • PYMNTS looks at how PayPal’s Paydiant is powering Subway’s mobile payments app.

Alumni updates

  • Market Visual integrates with Tradier’s API to enable investors to manage stock portfolios and trade on a single platform.
  • Tradier announces 75+ investor platforms and advisers now integrate with its API.
  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews CEO Jeremy Almond of PayStand.
  • In its latest podcast, Payments Views talks with Doug Yeager, HCE inventor and CEO of SimplyTapp.
  • Mobile Payments Today looks at InComm’s drive to bring open-loop prepaid to mobile wallets.
  • PayNearMe partners with The California Department of Child Support Services to offer a new payment option for cash-paying customers.

Stay current on daily developments by following FinDEVr on Twitter.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Behalf Closes $119 Million Series D”
  • “Neon Release Adds Touch ID and Enhanced Notifications to Oink 2.0″
  • “ShopKeep Rings Up $60 Million Investment”

Around the web

  • Citibank India and MasterCard launch digital wallet, Citi MasterPass, in India.
  • This is Money features TransferWise in a look at the lack of transparency in exchange fees.
  • LoanNow earns #4 spot in Orange County Business Journal’s “Best Places to Work in Orange County 2015” roster.
  • PYMNTS looks at how PayPal’s Paydiant is powering Subway’s mobile-payments app.
  • Payments Views talks with Doug Yeager, HCE inventor and CEO of SimplyTapp, in its latest podcast.
  • Expensify launches New Investment Fund, Expensify Ventures, for fintech startups.
  • American Banker considers how banks are using startups such as Social Money and Qapital to bolster their offerings.
  • Dashlane launches One-Tap Password Changer for Apple Watch and iPhone.
  • John Hancock Retirement Plan Services now offers Morningstar’s HelloWallet financial wellness tool to plan-sponsors on its Total Retirement Solution platform.
  • Arroweye Solutions to provide EMV Credit and Debit Cards for Mountain America Credit Union.
  • TechCrunch: Betterment tops 100,000 customers and $2.5 billion AUM.
  • Taulia reports record revenue and ten customer wins for Q2 2015.
  • Mobile Payments Today looks at InComm’s drive to bring open-loop prepaid to mobile wallets.

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.

 

The FinDEVr APIntelligence

The FinDEVr APIntelligence

Are you building new financial technology? Be sure to register now for the only event exclusively for fintech developers, FinDEVr 2015, Oct 6-7 in San Francisco.

FinDEVr2015-SF-Logo-Stackedwdate

The latest from FinDEVr 2015 presenters

  • Pinterest turns to Braintree to power PayPal payment option for browsing consumers.
  • FinDEVr 2015: First Round of Presenting Companies Revealed.
  • Backbase set to launch its first hackathon, 19/20 June 2015.
  • Spreedly now supports third-party tokens to help merchants continue to process transactions using their existing gateway-specific tokens from within Spreedly.
  • Thinking Capital announces new name, visual identity and tagline.
  • SandHill mentions SnoopWall as 1 of 5 Cool, Pre-VC, Cybersecurity Startups.
  • Avalara acquires Belgium-based VAT Applications.
  • UPS Capital Partners integrates with Kabbage to offer more SMBs access to a loan through UPS.

Alumni updates

  • Xero developed business apps that Apple is using to help market the iPad’s use in business.
  • Tech.co looks at how Trulioo’s API defends startups against credit-card fraud.
  • Xero reaches 500,000 customers for its cloud accounting service, sets sights on 1 million customer milestone.
  • Verizon Ventures welcomes SimplyTapp to its portfolio of investments.
  • Dunkin’ Donuts, Fandango, Sundance Catalog and Williams-Sonoma have all integrated Visa Checkout into their apps.
  • NerdWallet turns to Trulioo CEO Stepehn Ufford who offers 5 steps to protect against cyberthreats.

Stay up to date on daily developments by following FinDEVr on Twitter.

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

  • Actiance Picks Up $28 Million from New and Existing Investors
  • LendKey Adds $8 Million in Venture Debt; Reaches $800 Million in Loans

Around the Web

  • SimplyTapp and Top Image Systems team up to bring HCE mobile payment technology to FIs in the Asia Pacific region.
  • Braintree integrates Android Pay into its v.zero SDK to ease merchant adoption.
  • Global Debt Registry unveils new API service to speed access to consumer-debt data and documents.
  • Avoka and NAMU earn “most innovative customer engagement” and “best customer experience” honors respectively at Citi Mobile Challenge.
  • Bible Money Matters reviews the new Betterment RetireGuide.
  • Placecast introduces its mobile data-management platform (DMP) as a stand-alone solution.
  • Nomis Solutions joins Center for Pricing and Revenue Management at Columbia University.

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.

$680 Million Raised by 29 Alums in Q1 2015

$680 Million Raised by 29 Alums in Q1 2015

cartoonmoneystackThe biggest surprise in our look at first-quarter funding is that the $677 million amassed by 29 Finovate alums was more than 20% of the $3.2 billion invested in the entire worldwide fintech sector.

The $677 million raised was $85 million (+14%) above the same quarter a year ago, and more than triple the first quarter of 2013.

Q1 2015 was also $133 million above the $544 million mark set in the fourth quarter of 2014.

It will be worth watching to see if this record-setting first quarter for Finovate alum fundraising will be a sign of more great things to come for capital-raising in 2015.

Top 10 Overall Investments

  1. Xero: $111 million in February
  2. Coinbase: $75 million in January
  3. Betterment: $60 million in February
  4. TransferWise: $58 million in January
  5. App Annie: $55 million in January
  6. Ayasdi: $55 million in March
  7. Motif Investing: $40 million in January
  8. Ripple Labs: $30 million in January
  9. Bill.com: $50 million in February
  10. Pindrop Security: $35 in February

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q1 2015: More than $676 million raised by 29 alums
  • Q4 2014: More than $544 million raised by 25 alums
  • Q1 2014: More than $600 million raised by 8 alums
  • Q1 2013: More than $155 million raised by 14 alums

January: More than $275 million raised by 14 alums

February: More than $264 million raised by 8 alums

March: More than $136 million raised by 7 alums

If you are an alum that raised money in the first quarter of 2015, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.