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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
It’s going to be hard to avoid the avalanche of news coverage of the U.S. Presidential election this week. But if you’re looking for a respite from the political headlines, Finovate’s Fintech Rundown is here for you! Be sure to check back all week long for the latest in fintech news.
Open banking
Financial API platform Salt Edgepartners with Central Bank of Bahrain to enhance corporate banking with open banking.
Tinkteams up with international money app Zing to launch automatic and one-tap top-ups leveraging open banking.
Happy Earth Day! Partnerships in payments and fundraising in the international investment/wealth management space are dominating fintech news headlines as the week begins.
Subscription management and billing platform Recurlyintroduces new dashboards with built-in benchmarks.
Klarnasells Hero, the virtual shopping platform it acquired in 2021, for $1.3 million (€1.3 million).
SplititunveilsFI-PayLater to empower banks to provide in-checkout installments for existing customers.
Identity verification
Financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology company ComplyAdvantageacquires knowledge graph builder Golden.
AU10TIXannounces $18 billion in business fraud prevented since 2021.
Small Business Tools
BaswareintroducesAP Protect, an AI-powered solution that empowers finance teams to protect their organizations against profit loss, invoice errors, and fraud.
Marqetapartners with OakNorth to offer commercial cards in the U.K.
Payroll
Ripplingraises $200 million in new financing with $13.5 billion valuation.
Open banking company Tink has launched its new rules-based risk engine, Risk Signals.
Risk Signals leverages account, transaction, and payment data to help prevent fraud and lower settlement risk.
Tink won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2014.
Open banking company Tinklaunched its new rules-based risk engine, Risk Signals this week. Risk Signals leverages account, transaction, and payment data to help prevent fraud and lower settlement risk.
“Risk Signals is an ideal fit for businesses looking to offer a secure and fast payment method especially in markets without real-time settlement – like Germany,” TInk SVP of Payments and Platforms Tom Pope explained. “With Tink’s Risk Signals, you no longer need to compromise between a fast checkout and reducing risk.”
Risk Signal features a suite of risk checks that are customizable to both financial institution and market. These risk checks include verifications of live balances to ensure a user’s ability to pay, transaction history review (including a review of previous non-settled payments), and velocity checks to identify suspicious transaction activity. Tink reports that firms such as payment service provider (PSP) Adyen are already using the solution. Additionally, the company said businesses have been able to fully implement Risk Signals within a week. In part, this is because Tink configures Risk Signals as a service, requiring no integration from the customer.
“By leveraging the real-time risk analysis during payment processes, Adyen can offer a payment option that not only ensures security and reliability but also aligns perfectly with both merchants’ and shoppers’ expectations,” Adyen Payment Partnerships Lead for Europe Dirk Jan Meijers said.
A two-time Finovate Best of Show winning company, Tink first won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2014. The Stockholm, Sweden-based company returned to the FinovateEurope stage three years later to take home its second Best of Show award.
In the years since, Tink has grown into an open banking leader. The company has 6,000+ connections to major banks in Europe, and 10,000 developers using its platform. Founded in 2012, Tink processes more than 10 billion transactions a year, and is active in 18 markets. The company was acquired by Visa in 2022 in a deal valued at $2.1. billion (€1.8 billion). Daniel Kjellén is CEO.
Interested in demoing at FinovateEurope in London next month? We are happy to read applications from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today to learn more.
U.K.-based renttech company Goodlord announced a partnership with open banking platform Tink this week.
Goodlord will leverage Tink Income Check to help landlords enhance their reference checking process.
Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Tink is a two-time Finovate Best of Show winner.
Goodlord, a renttech platform based in the U.K., has announced a partnership with open banking platform Tink. Goodlord will use Tink Income Check as part of its effort to modernize its tenant application process. The technology will also help Goodlord enhance its fraud protection for both agents and landlords.
Tink Income Check will enable Goodlord to bring real-time data directly from tenant bank accounts to its reference checking processes. With the consent of the renter, landlords will be able to verify income from salaries, pensions, and more going back 12 months or longer. Tink Income Check also optimizes approval rates and reduces both fraud and application abandonment. The technology serves as an alternative to the standard affordability check.
“We’re very pleased to be partnering with Tink on our open banking capabilities,” Goodlord Referencing Operations Manager Nicola Harding said. “We’ve long been advocates of open banking technology. It plays a crucial role in both modernizing the process for tenants, while also protecting agents and their landlords from fraud.”
Founded in 2017, Goodlord was launched to help smooth the process of renting properties – for all parties involved. By 2020, the company had processed one billion pounds via its platform. A year later, Goodlord announced that it had 1,000 agency customers. The company’s technology works along with the landlord’s or agency’s CRM to manage the entire tenancy process – from offer letter to rent collection.
“In the current climate, it’s more critical than ever to have an up-to-date and comprehensive view of tenants’ finances, to know they can comfortably afford the rent,” Tink’s U.K. Banking & Lending Director Tasha Chouhan said. “It also ensures those renters whose income payments are irregular, such as the self-employed or those working in the gig economy, have a fairer chance to secure a rental property.”
A two-time Finovate Best of Show award winner, Tink most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2019. This year alone, the Stockholm, Sweden-based fintech has announced partnerships with credit provider Younited, Italian fintech ConTe.it Prestiti, and Finland-based Multitude Bank.
Open banking platform Tink partnered with Irish postal services provider An Post.
Tink will provide data and analytics that fuel An Post’s Money Manager app.
The new partnership serves as an inroad for Tink into the Irish market.
Visa-owned open banking platform Tink formed a new partnership this week that will bring its open banking capabilities to users of Irish postal services provider An Post.
An Post, which offers not only parcel and mail logistics but also financial services, operates a network of 920 post offices for its 1.5 million weekly customers. An Post offers many of the major services typical of high street banks, including current accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, loans, and a currency card that allows users to purchase and top up 16 currencies.
Leveraging Tink for data and analytics, An Post now delivers a Money Manager app that helps users track their income and spending, set budgets, and receive insights about how they can better manage their funds.
“The partnership with Tink is the next step in our transformation journey, to firmly position ourselves as a challenger to the banks in Ireland, and to give customers access to simple money management tools that will enable them to build their financial confidence,” said An Post Financial Services Director John Rice. “As the leading open banking platform in Europe, Tink was a clear choice of partner for us to provide the data and analytics that sit at the core of our Money Manager app.”
For Sweden-based Tink, the partnership with An Post serves as an important inroad into the Irish market. “An Post is in the perfect position to help simplify money management for its customers through the power of open banking technology,” said Tink UK & IE Banking Lead Tasha Chouhan.
More than 10,000 developers use Tink’s tools to help financial services firms leverage the power of open banking via a suite of open banking tools including income verification, payment tools, risk insights, and more. Tink currently serves 18 markets from its 13 offices and integrates with more than 3,400 banks and financial institutions reaching over 250 million end customers across Europe.
Founded in 2012, Tink is a two-time Finovate Best of Show Award winner, and most recently demoed at FinovateEurope 2019. The company acquired FinTecSystems earlier this year, a move that expanded Tink’s reach into the DACH region with a range of new customers including N26, DKB, Santander, Solarisbank, and Check24.
Visa-owned open banking platform Tink has finalized its purchase of FinTecSystems. The acquisition, which was initiated prior to Visa purchasing Tink, was first announced in May of last year. The integration of the two companies combines Tink’s open banking platform and FinTecSystems’ product suite to offer a more complete solution when partnering for open banking technology.
Additionally, FinTecSystems brings Tink new customers including N26, DKB, Santander, Solarisbank, and Check24. The Germany-based open banking firm will help Sweden-based Tink build on its growth strategy and expand into the DACH region, where FinTecSystems is currently powering over 150 banks and fintechs.
“Germany is a key market for Tink, and we are excited to have acquired an innovative leader with a strong reputation for the quality of its bank connectivity and payments services,” said Tink Co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellén. “We have followed FinTecSystems for many years and are impressed by what they have achieved. Through this acquisition, we are taking a big step into the DACH region, and we look forward to supporting the FinTecSystems’ team to further accelerate their growth.”
FinTecSystems was founded in 2014 and facilitates data analytics, digital account checks, account aggregation, and open banking payments. The company connects to more than 99% of the banks in the DACH region, and in Germany specifically, three in every four online credit decisions involve FinTecSystems’ technology.
FinTecSystems’ 78 employees have joined Tink’s team, which now sits at almost 600 employees. FinTecSystems will continue to function as an independent, regulated company in Germany.
Today’s deal comes two years after Tink landed $103 million (€85 million) in a funding round that boosted its total raised to $308 million. The acquisition also comes after Tink itself was bought out by Visa in June of 2021 for $2.1 billion (€1.8 billion).
Tink, whose open banking platform is used by more than 10,000 developers, was founded in 2012 and currently serves 18 markets from its 13 offices. The company is a two-time Finovate Best of Show Award winner, and most recently demoed at FinovateEurope 2019.
FinovateEurope 2022 is right around the corner. If you are an innovative fintech company with new technology to show, then there’s no better time than now and no better forum than FinovateEurope. To learn more about how to demo your latest innovation at FinovateEurope 2022 in London, March 22 to March 23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!
Sustainability-as-a-Service company ecolytiq has announced a partnership with Visa-owned, European open banking platform Tink that will bring personalized impact footprint calculations and other pro-sustainability solutions to banks, financial institutions, and fintechs. The technology, which helps encourage customers to shift their behavior toward more sustainable choices in terms of spending, will be available initially in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and eventually expanded to other, larger markets in Europe.
“ecolytiq’s solution was created with the ability to quickly scale, because we know that global warming needs exponential climate action enablers,” ecolytiq CEO and co-founder Ulrich Pietsch said. “Tink is a strategic partner with a proven track record for enabling banks and fintechs to deliver the data-driven digital solutions their customers want and need. ecolytiq is the next-generation of these products.”
Ecolytiq’s products include ecoAware, which uses country-specific calculations to determine a customer’s personal environmental impact based on their bank transactions; ecoEngage, which helps bank customers determine ways to reduce their environmental impact via feedback loops, footprint analytics, and peer group comparisons; and ecoAction, which enables bank customers to offset their environmental impact via donations to ecolytiq’s certified offsetting partners. ecoAction allows individuals to compensate 100% or more of their carbon footprint, and ecolytiq plans to soon add ESG investment funds as a donation destination as well as the ability to select a green energy provider with its ecoSwitch solution.
An alum of Finovate’s developers conference, ecolytiq demonstrated its technology at FinDEVr 2021 earlier this year. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany, ecolytiq has already forged partnerships with Visa, FinTecSystems, challenger bank Tomorrow, and Worldline. Over the summer, the company won recognition in the Impact Shakers Awards in the “Education” category.
Two-time Best of Show winner Tink, based in Stockholm, Sweden, most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage at our European conference in 2019. The company’s open banking platform handles more than one billion API calls a month; supports more than 3,400 bank and financial institution integration partners; and reaches more than 250 million bank customers across Europe. Tink’s products help institutions confirm account ownership and verify income; provide up-to-date, standardized and categorized transaction data; offer a fully embedded payments experience to boost engagement and conversion, and enable firms to build smart, intuitive personal finance management solutions. In addition to its partnership with ecolytiq, Tink has also recently embarked upon collaborations with French payments service provider Lemonway and German PFM app Placons.
“The combination of Tink’s transactions product and ecolytiq’s sustainability expertise creates a valuable proposition for financial institutions and fintechs across the DACH region to offer services that better measure and help reduce carbon footprint,” Tink Regional Director for the DACH region Cyrosch Kalateh said. “We look forward to extending this partnership in the future, helping ecolytiq to expand at speed across Europe on our open banking platform.”
“Visa is committed to doing all we can to foster innovation and empower consumers in support of Europe’s open banking goals,” Visa CEO and Chairman Al Kelly said. “By bringing together Visa’s network of networks and Tink’s open banking capabilities we will deliver increased value to European consumers and businesses with tools to make their financial lives more simple, reliable and secure.”
Tink will retain both its brand and its current leadership team, and will remain headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The company is integrated with more than 3,400 banks and financial institutions, enabling millions of bank customers across Europe to benefit from aggregated financial data and smart financial services.
“Joining Visa, we will be able to move faster and reach further than ever before,” Tink co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellén said. “Visa is the perfect partner for the next stage of Tink’s journey, and we are incredibly excited about what this will bring to our employees, customers and for the future of financial services.
Another alum from Europe that made fintech headlines late in the week was Meniga. The company, which demoed its Carbon Insight solution at FinovateEurope Digital earlier this year, has teamed up with Länsförsäkringar, one of Sweden’s largest financial institutions, to help the firm launch its new personal finance management solution. Specifically, Länsförsäkringar will use Meniga’s data management platform to enable the new offering to provide customers with access to real-time spending data.
“We are extremely excited about joining forces with Länsförsäkringar,” Meniga co-founder and CEO Georg Ludviksson said. “Partnering with such a reputable bank will no doubt prove instrumental in further cementing our position as the go-to digital banking solutions provider in the Nordics. Having worked assiduously with Länsförsäkringar to create an outstanding and first-class personal finance management experience for their customers, we are also very pleased to have been able to assist them during a time when so many people are in need of support and looking to take control of their finances.”
Be sure to check out our interview with Pablo Viguera, co-founder and co-CEO of Open Finance innovator – and “Plaid of Latin America” – Belvo.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Sweden-based open banking platform Tinkannounced it has closed an extension on the venture round it landed in January. The additional $103 million (€85 million) brings Tink’s total funding to almost $310 million.
According to CNBC, the investment boosts Tink’s valuation to $824 million.
The new round was co-led by new investor Eurazeo Growth and existing investor Dawn Capital. Other existing investors PayPal Ventures, HMI Capital, Heartcore, ABN AMRO Ventures, Poste Italiane, and Opera Tech Ventures also contributed.
Tink will use the new round to fuel its expansion and further develop its payment initiation technology. Company CEO and Co-founder Daniel Kjellén noted that Tink has seen an impressive amount of growth this year. “We significantly built out our bank connections across Europe, increasing coverage from 2,500 to 3,400 banks, and now serve more than 300 world-leading financial institutions,” he said. “We also doubled the fintech users on our platform to 8,000 and increased employees from 250 to 365, in 13 offices across Europe.”
This growth comes after Tink’s recent three key acquisitions, including Swedish credit decisioning firm Instantor, Spanish account aggregation provider Eurobits, and the aggregation platform of U.K. open banking pioneer, OpenWrks.
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Stockholm, Tink has more than 350 employees and is currently serving its clients out of 13 local offices across Europe. The startup operates in Sweden, U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands. Tink most recently demoed at FinovateEurope 2019 where it showcased its API platform.
The following is a guest post from Scott Raspa, Head of Marketing, Hydrogen.
The European fintech scene has experienced tremendous growth over the last few years. One of the key drivers of this growth is open banking. This is causing financial institutions and fintechs to partner together to provide more innovative, user-friendly solutions for consumers throughout Europe.
European consumers are receptive to the idea of non-financial players offering financial products, according to EY’s Global FinTech Adoption Index 2019. The survey finds that fintech adoption throughout Europe, especially in countries such as the Netherlands, U.K., Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, are well above the global average of 64%, and aren’t showing signs of slowing down any time soon.
Below is a list of the top 50 fintech companies in Europe, based on their valuations.
These companies have raised over $16.8B (€14.3B) in venture capital funding and are valued, collectively, at over $92B (€78B).
The U.K. fintechs are valued at nearly $40B (€34B). The Netherlands are second, all thanks to Ayden, the most valuable fintech in Europe.
The U.K. has also invested the most money, nearly $11B (€9.4B), almost 65% of the funding of these top 50 fintech companies. After the U.K., Germany and Sweden have invested the most with 12.9% ($2.1B / €1.78B) and 12.4% ($2.0B / €1.7B) of the overall funding, respectively.
Fintech Enablement in Europe
Here at Hydrogen we work with companies all over the world. Our award-winning fintech enablement platform enables organizations to quickly and easily build fintech products and components. Whether you want to offer a PFM app in France, a challenger bank in the U.K., or issue cards in Germany, Hydrogen is here to help. Hydrogen has pre-built integrations, workflows, business logic, and UI already built in and available in white labeled/no-code modules or through our robust API.
It’s free to get started, so start building with Hydrogen today!
*Note: Funding information was provided by Crunchbase.com and the Euro, Pound, and US Dollar conversions were based off of today’s conversion rate. Also, total funding amounts didn’t include public companies or companies where we couldn’t identify the funding received.
It is hard to imagine having a better start to your week than Plaid had seven days ago when the innovative fintech (and Finovate alum) announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion.
But the €90 million ($100 million) raised by Swedish open banking platform Tink on Monday is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, the funding, which is the company’s largest to date, is a reminder that investment interest in (and funding for) companies dedicated to developing the infrastructure that connects consumers, banks, and the financial technologies is very much in abundance.
“Our aim is to become the preferred pan-European provider of digital banking services and to offer the technology needed for banks, fintechs, and startups to leverage the opportunities of open banking and enable them to successfully develop financial services in the future,” Tink co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellén said in a statement.
Tink demonstrated its platform most recently at FinovateEurope 2019. For more on this year’s Finovate event in Europe kicking off next month, visit our FinovateEurope 2020 page.
Azimo, one of our earliest FinovateEurope alums, announced a pair of big changes at the top to begin the new week.
The London-based money transfer firm, founded in 2012, promoted its COO Richard Ambrose to CEO back in August, as Azimo founder Michael Kent took what TechCrunch referred to as a lateral move to become executive chairman. Today, Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication, reports that the company has appointed Dora Ziambra to the post of Chief Operating Officer. Azimo also promoted its head of finance Tatiana Okhotina to the post of Chief Financial Officer.
“We’re fortunate to have the depth of talent to fill these top roles internally,” Ambrose said in a statement. “We’re lucky too that Azimo will continue to benefit from the experience and leadership of these two outstanding women.”
Here’s our weekly roundup of the latest news from our Finovate alumni:
Union Bank to leverage technology from FIS for core banking.
Italy-based CREDEM leveragingWorldline’s Payment and Liquidity Hub software CRISTAL to process Target2 payments
POS software Vend partners with Klarna to offer retailers more flexible payment options.
U.K. food retailer The Co-operative to deployACI Worldwide’s fraud management solution, ReD Shield.
A partnership between TransferGo and Currencycloud will enable the money transfer company to enter 14 new markets.
YellowDogforges reseller agreement with Annex Pro.
Bankable cozies up with Plaid to allow its bank customers to connect with their users’ bank accounts.
Ohpenappoints former Tesla marketing leader Corinne Aaron as new head of marketing.
Segmint to acquire WAND’s Product and Service Taxonomy division.
CuneXuscelebrates 2019 success with a 40% year-over-year increase in consumer reach.
Three Key Lessons We Learned from Plaid – Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that Visa is acquiring Plaid for a deal that’s worth $5.3 billion. The fact that they were so widely used at such an early stage is a testament to the quality of their code, but there are also a few key lessons to take away from their success.
ITSCREDIT’s Joao Pinto on the Digital Lending Opportunity – ITSCREDIT is a spinoff from ITSECTOR and is a fairly new player in the digital lending space. In this interview, Pinto talks to us about the digital lending opportunity, how his company fits into the current state of this fintech subsector, and what we can expect to see next.
Kasasa Enhances its Take-Back Loan – Community bank marketing expert Kasasaannounced a partnership with Carleton today in which Kasasa will integrate Carleton’s insurance and debt protection calculations into its Kasasa Loan.
Plinqit Brings Rewards-Powered Financial Literacy to First Community Bank – One day in the distant future, children will be educated in basic financial literacy as readily as they are taught algebra. Until then, solutions like Plinqit from HT Mobile Apps will be valuable tools for credit unions and community banks looking for novel ways to engage and educate their members and customers.
Credit, Data, and Cryptocurrencies: Graychain Rebrands as Credmark – The company that is bringing credit data clarity to the cryptocurrency industry is entering 2020 with a new name.
Tradeshift Lands $240 Million as it Inches Toward Profitability – The San Francisco-based company will use the investment to boost expansion efforts and gear toward a “direct path to profitability in the near future.”
Fintech, Financial Services, and the Case for 5G – Calling 5G “something banks aren’t even thinking about,” Celent SVP Dan Latimore said, “we believe the effects of 5G are going to be subtle and profound over time.”
Backbase-as-a-Service Helps Banks Leverage the Cloud to Innovate and Scale – The solution makes the company’s broad portfolio of digital banking offerings available to FIs looking to accelerate their ability to develop and offer new technologies to customers.
Also on Finovate.com
Visa to Acquire Plaid in $5.3 Billion Deal – “Today marks an important milestone for our company and for fintech,” company co-founder and CEO Zach Perret wrote on the Plaid blog earlier today. “What started with two founders building in a cramped conference room has become an incredible network that enables millions of consumers to interact with over 2,500 digital finance products.”
Not Another 2020 Trends Prediction Post (Seriously, It’s Not!) – We’re taking a look at the trends you can expect to see on stage next month at FinovateEurope. To keep things simple this year, we assessed the themes at a very high level and broke them down into three categories: the big, the little, and the trends in-between.
Singapore’s Digital Banking License Space Race Accelerates – Is there anyone out there who is NOT trying to secure a digital banking license in Singapore? The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced last week that has received 21 applications for digital bank licenses.
MogoSpend Offers Credit, Cashback, and Help Reducing Your Carbon Footprint – The new digital spending account from Canadian fintech Mogo does more than help Canadians get control of their finances. The solution also offers cardholders generous cashback rewards and a way to make a positive impact on the environment by reducing their carbon footprint.
Getsafe Expands its Insurtech to the U.K. – If your insurance company is offering you drone insurance, you know it’s not your grandmother’s insurance agency. Germany-based insurtech Getsafe does just that– and the company announced today it is expanding its home contents insurance offering (though, sadly, not its drone insurance offering) to users in the U.K.
Raisin’s New Acquisition Gives Company Access to the U.S. Market – European deposit marketplace Raisin announced today it acquired New York-based Choice Financial Solutions.
French Fintech Lydia Locks in $45 Million – TechCrunch reported this morning that French mobile payment app Lydia has raised $45 million (€40 million) in a round led by Tencent.
Visa’s Tap to Phone Brings Contactless Payments to mPOS – With Visa’sTap to Phone app arriving pre-installed on the new, enterprise grade smartphone from Samsung, a broad range of merchants will have access to yet another way to accept payments from customers.
INTL FCStone Acquires International Bank Transfer Firm – Headquartered in Germany, GIROXX offers international bank transfers and currency hedging. INTL FCStone plans to leverage this technology to expand its current client base to small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
DriveWealthteams up with SBI Thai Online Securities, bringing access to U.S. stocks to Thai investors.
Open banking platform Tinkannounces expansion to Portugal and Italy.
New partnership with Smart Pension will enable Revolut to offer its business customers the ability to automate monthly pension contributions.
Artivestannounces new partnership with Wellington Management.
Paysendintroduces worldwide money transfers to Uzbekistan.
Jumiotakes home top honors in the “Software Security Enterprise Product of the Year” category at the 2019 Best in Biz Awards.
Finastrainks deal with Pancreta Bank of Greece to deploy its Fusion Risk solution to help automate regulatory reporting.
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.
