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What’s in your wallet? Or rather, what’s in banks’ clients’ wallets? Some sexy competition appeared on the market yesterday, as Apple announced the pending launch of its own credit card in collaboration with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard.
The card is touted more for its mobile and digital qualities than its shiny titanium finish. Despite the shine, however, many of the card’s features and offerings aren’t new. And that’s good news for banks. While traditional financial institutions aren’t as sexy as tech companies such as Apple, they are generally viewed as more trustworthy. And with that kind of foundation, all banks need to do is piece together the features into their own credit card offering and market it properly.
Fortunately, there are plenty of fintech firms out there to help. Here are some of the features Apple is promoting and a list of corresponding fintechs that can help banks take the same approach.
Apple boasts a titanium card with the customer’s name etched on the front– no credit card number, no cvv code, no expiration date. All of that information is tucked away inside the app. Physical card innovator Dynamics takes a similar (though admittedly less visually appealing) approach. The Pennsylvania-based company offers a computer-in-a-card that hides part of the card number, the cvv code, and expiration date on the physical card until the consumer enters their PIN into the card. As an added bonus, Dynamics also offers in-card loyalty and rewards features, as well as a card that hosts multiple numbers, allowing customers to toggle between debit and credit cards.
As a company that is known for simplifying technology, Apple is taking a similar approach with its customer service. “Have a question? Just text,” is the message the company features on its card website. Fortunately, there are plenty of fintechs that help banks simplify their customer experience. Two such companies are Finn.ai and Clinc, both of which leverage AI to save banks money on customer service representatives, while simplifying and expediting access to answers via a chat interface.
PFMOne way to win over customers is to convince them you’ll help them organize their finances and ultimately save them money. That’s why Apple is offering in-app PFM capabilities. And while the technology hasn’t changed much since it debuted before the fintech craze, the colorful user interface is beautiful enough to convince anyone to want to look at their spending behavior.
Banks have seemingly endless options to compete with this feature. And while most financial institutions currently offer some sort of PFM capabilities, it’s worth looking at it from a superficial point of view. Utah-based MX and Sweden-based Tink both offer visually-pleasing interfaces that are arguably more beautiful than Apple’s and are backed by powerful PFM engines.
Apple’s iPhone holds the hardware for both fingerprint and facial recognition technology, and since the company is reinforcing its focus on security, it is leveraging biometrics for account access. With the right software, banks can leverage fingerprint and facial recognition technology as well. Jumio, IDology, and Mitek all offer technology banks can implement for fast account access, as well as account onboarding.
With access to consumer data, Apple has an advantage of being able to quickly onboard new consumers using existing consumer information. There are multiple fintechs that help banks onboard consumers quickly, as well, including Digital Onboarding, Q2’s Gro Solutions, and Fenergo. Digital Onboarding motivates customers to open new accounts using incentives and gamification. Gro Solutions touts the ability for customers to open and fund accounts in under four minutes. And Fenergo takes a holistic approach to onboarding, providing banks a lifetime view of the client to help perform data refreshes, ongoing due diligence, and upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
Credit card rewards programs may seem like a feature of the past, but rewards are certainly still relevant. With its new card’s rewards program, Apple once again seeks to simplify things by offering consumers daily rewards. Two fintechs, Cardlytics and Cartera Commerce, offer tried and true loyalty and rewards programs. These offerings not only boost consumer loyalty, they also offer banks further insight and analysis into consumer spending.
Apple’s new credit card is shipping this summer. Fortunately for banks, fintechs are here to help them compete.
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Danish fintech Lunar Way has partnered with Swedish fintech Tink to use the latter’s API platform to provide customers with an overview of their finances and initiate payments through the Lunar Way app, reports Henry Vilar of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
At the end of last year, Lunar received an account information service provider (AISP) license and a payment initiation service provider (PISP) license, the first fintech company in Denmark to do so.
These licenses commit banks to allow companies like Lunar Way to build new financial services on top of their data and infrastructure for the benefit of the users.
The partnership with Tink is aimed at accelerating this process, the firm says, making the most of its new licenses.
Lunar Way says that Tink’s entrepreneurial mindset and approach to the financial market are much like its own, which motivated the partnership.
Just under a month ago, Lunar Way received €13 million in funding to expand throughout the Nordics.
A few days before that, Tink was the one receiving a whopping €56 million to establish itself in Europe.
Tink demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2017, winning Best of Show honors for its independent, consumer PFM app that gives users a PSD2-compliant, virtual banking experience. Founded in 2012, the company is led by CEO and co-founder Daniel Kjellén.
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Less than a week away from its return to the Finovate stage, open banking platform Tink has raised $63 million (€56 million) in new funding. The investment, the largest for the Stockholm, Sweden-based fintech, was led by Insight Venture Partners and will help power the company’s growth plans.
Also participating in the Series C were current investors Sunstone, SEB, Nordea Ventures, and ABN AMRO Digital Impact Fund. New investors Christian Clausen, former Chair of the European Banking Federation, and Nikolay Storonsky, founder of fellow Finovate alum, Revolut, were involved in the round, as well.
“This funding round allows us to accelerate our European roll-out but also invest further in our data services,” Tink co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellén said. “As Europe gradually embraces open banking, our platform has proved to be its rails and brains – delivering the technology that makes it possible.”
Kjellén also credited the company’s success to being “the first platform provider to combine Account Aggregation and Payment Initiation, the scale of our connectivity and our smart data products that make it all understandable.”
In addition to the funding news, Tink also announced that it is live in five new markets in Europe, making it possible for developers in the Nordics, the U.K., Austria, Germany, Belgium, and Spain to get access to financial data via Tink’s account aggregation API. The company said it plans to add four more offices this year to accommodate growth, doubling its European workforce to “around 300,” and hopes to have a presence in 20 markets by the end of 2019.
Calling Tink a “category leader” in the field of financial services API providers, Insight Venture Partners Managing Director Teddie Wardi praised the company’s “impressive list of current customers in both fintech and traditional banking” and said Tink was “well positioned” for continued expansion in Europe. “We are excited to welcome Tink into our portfolio and look forward to helping the company drive continued growth,” Wardi said.
Tink demonstrated its platform, which combines aggregation, account information, and payment initiation services to create a virtual banking experience in line with PSD2 regulations, at FinovateEurope 2017, winning Best of Show. Founded in 2012, the company launched its developer platform last spring to make it easier for developers to take advantage of its Account Aggregation and Categorization solutions. Tink also announced a partnership with BNP Paribas Fortis in the first half of 2018, integrating its aggregation, PFM, and payment initiation technology into the bank’s mobile app.
Join Tink as it demonstrates its latest technology live on the Finovate stage next week at FinovateEurope. For more information, including how to get your ticket and save your spot, visit our registration page today.
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Swedish fintech Tink introduced its API developer platform today. With Tink’s API, developers will be able to take advantage of the company’s Account Aggregation and Categorization solutions to design and launch products for end users. The offering from the two-time Best of Show winner provides unanimous access to financial data from 300 FIs – all from a single API. By managing authentication and the customer-bank interaction, Tink’s platform frees developers to focus on the creative work of building and deploying new solutions for customers.
“Businesses can now come to us and implement something new in just a day, instead of having to wait for banks to open their APIs in two years time,” Tink CTO Fredrik Hedberg said. “By democratizing access to financial data, Tink is tearing down the barriers to innovation, and becoming the missing link that has stopped these ideas from becoming reality.”
The developer platform initially will support Nordic banks, with a broader European roll-out anticipated “soon.” The technology is already being used by firms like SBAB, which is leveraging the API to launch a “mortgage challenger” solution to help would-be homebuyers get the best deal on financing a new home.
Tink’s API will also help developers maximize the opportunity of PSD2, new Europe-wide regulations that will enable third-parties to access consumer financial data upon consent in order to deliver innovative, new products to consumers. And while PSD2 regulations will not be in full effect for another year and a half, companies like Tink have been preparing themselves for this kind of relationship between FIs and third party developers since inception.
“At Tink we have been trailblazing PSD2 since 2012,” Hedberg said. “The ability to aggregate data is what has enabled Tink to grow into the business it is today. We know from experience that there are countless developers out there with brilliant ideas – but innovation has been held back by the lack of access to financial data.”
The company noted in its announcement that because it aggregates more than PSD2 payments data, its platform can be effective for developers in a variety of sectors who want to leverage financial data to better enhance their customer-facing products.
Founded in 2012, and based in Stockholm, Tink demonstrated its account aggregation technology at FinovateEurope 2017, winning Best of Show for a second time. Last month, Tink announced a partnership with BNP Paribas Fortis that will integrate its account aggregation, PFM, and payment initiation technology into the Belgian bank’s mobile app. The company was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list last June. In October, Tink picked up $16.5 million in funding which took the company’s total capital raised to more than $30 million, and set the stage for further expansion into the European market. Tink also announced a trio of new bank customers: Nordea, Nordnet, and fellow Finovate alum, Klarna.
Daniel Kjellén, Tink co-founder and CEO, participated in our FinovateEurope 2018 debate: Who Will Seize the Day & Really Profit from the Open Banking Revolution? at FinovateEurope 2018.
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Best of Show winner Tink has forged a partnership with BNP Paribas Fortis that will integrate its aggregation, PFM, and payment initiation technology into the Belgian bank’s mobile banking applications. The integration will enable the aggregation of all financial data typically available on mobile banking apps and pave the way for new offerings for customers pursuant to the EU’s new, payment services directive (PSD2).
“We are beyond excited to partner with such a forward leaning bank as BNP Paribas Fortis,” Tink CEO Daniel Kjellén said. “Our product is in great hands since we share the view on how the future of open banking will be.”
In a statement, Tink said the first stage of the partnership will include the release of a new, multi-banking app for Hello Bank! in the summer of 2018. Tink and BNP Paribas Fortis will collaborate on updating the bank’s Easy Banking mobile app by the fall.
“The partnership is proof of a retail banking market that is becoming fully transparent and customer centric, where the innovators who choose to invest early in technology will gain insights that can attract new customers and expand existing ones,” Kjellén said.
BNP Paribas Fortis CEO Max Jadot said that collaboration with “successful FinTechs” and integrating those technologies into their ecosystem was “part of the DNA” of the bank. “We strongly believe that technology and changing legislation, such as PSD2, offer exciting opportunities for banks and their clients,” Jadot said. “Clients of banks can expect increased convenience and remain at all times in control of their data.”
A subsidiary of BNP Paribas founded in 1990, BNP Paribas Fortis is the largest bank in Belgium, and is the latest bank to partner with Tink. The Swedish fintech made agreements with Nordea, Nordnet, and fellow Finovate alum Klarna in 2017, and added SEB and ABN AMRO as partners in 2016.
Tink demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2017, winning Best of Show for its independent PFM app that combines aggregation and account information with payment initiation services. Last fall, the company picked up an investment of $16.5 million in a round that brought its total capital to $30.5 million. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Stockholm, Tink earned a spot on CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list last summer. The company has 50 employees and more than 400,000 Swedish users of its app.
On Finovate.com
Around the web
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.
On Finovate.com
Around the web
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.