Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Responsive Tiles from Geezeo Help Banks Build Personalized Digital Experiences.
  • Accenture Acquires Verax to Boost Canadian Operations.
  • Urban FT Bids to Acquire Digiliti Money [UPDATE: Bid Rejected]

Around the web

  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews David Vélez, founder of Nubank.
  • Visa to encourage Australian banks to embrace biometric authentication in new security roadmap.
  • InComm buys distribution rights to American Express’ prepaid reloadable and gift card business in the U.S.
  • Flywire Simplifies Compliance with New Cross-Border Education Payment Requirements in Ireland.

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.

Urban FT Bids to Acquire Digiliti Money [UPDATE: Bid Rejected]

Urban FT Bids to Acquire Digiliti Money [UPDATE: Bid Rejected]

Update: August 29, 2017

According to a press release issued this morning, Urban FT reports that its bid to acquire Digiliti Money has fallen through after Digitili rejected the offer. This occurred after Digitili proposed alternate terms to the contract, which Urban FT and its lawyers considered “unreasonable and unacceptable under the circumstances.” The rejected bid valued Digitili Money at $10.5 million on a net equity basis.

Kasey Kaplan, Urban FT president said, “We will leave our offer on the table for acceptance by Digiliti until close of business on August 31.” He added, “Placing Digiliti into bankruptcy, if that’s what the Board is considering,” continued Kaplan, “would be a great loss to all of those stakeholders and would truly disrupt so many organizations that rely on Digiliti’s services every day.”


Digital banking platform Urban FT is eyeing its second acquisition this summer. The New York-based company has made an all-cash offer of an undisclosed amount to buy Digiliti Money, which rebranded from Cachet Financial Solutions earlier this year.

It is no secret in the fintech community that Digiliti Money has undergone financial difficulty as of late. The company, which is publicly traded on the NASDAQ with a market cap of $2.2 million, saw its CEO resign earlier this month. Digiliti appointed interim CEO Bryan Meier, who said that the company is “reducing [its] cash burn to improve [its] bottom line performance, which [it is] demonstrating with the implementation of [its] recent cost-cutting initiatives intended to reduce [its] annual operating expenses by nearly $3 million.” In a statement on August 14, Digiliti made it clear that it is “actively reviewing strategic options to restructure the company, including the potential sale of the company or potentially filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.”

Despite Digiliti’s struggles, Urban FT believes the acquisition will be beneficial on both sides. Urban FT maintains it can help Digiliti reduce operating costs attributed to data expenditures and offer more value to the company’s client base with its robust mobile features. To Urban FT’s benefit, Digiliti has an appealing roster of client and strategic relationships. “We are looking to grow organically by expanding our base of users on our existing platform, which we think is exceptional, but we also want to grow acquisitively,” says Urban FT CEO Richard Steggall.

The move to buy Digiliti Money comes after Urban FT acquired mobile banking technology provider iParse in July and Wipit in 2015.  Urban FT COO Glen Fossella said the company is able to move quickly toward the acquisition “because of the support of the Urban FT board of directors and investors, and because [it has] a clearly defined acquisition strategy that focuses on businesses with strong client relationships, recurring revenues and technologies that deliver an additional competitive advantage to our core products and services.” He adds, “we hope Digiliti Money will match our speed and commitment to completing this transaction.”

At FinovateFall 2016, Urban FT debuted the Workshop, a real-time, mobile app management platform that enables banks to quickly configure, brand, and launch mobile banking apps without coding. The company was founded in 2013 and has 40 employees.

Digiliti Money demoed its Select Mobile Money prepaid suite at FinovateFall 2014 in New York. The company was founded in 2010 and went public July 18, 2014. It is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Urban FT Bids to Acquire Digiliti Money.

Around the web

  • First Tennessee Bank goes live with mobile banking app from D3 Banking.
  • Alpha Payments Cloud partners with Australia Post to launch Alpha Commerce Hub.
  • IBM Singapore inks memorandum of understanding with Pacific International Lines to trial blockchain-based, supply chain solutions for businesses.
  • Trulioo’s Global Gateway earns first place in the Verification/Identity Checks category of Market Fintech Limited’s 2017 RegTech Performance Report.
  • FICO Customer Communications Services helps China Guangfa Bank Credit Card Center lower collection costs.
  • Liferay launches initiative to provide new resources for its open source developer community.
  • Featurespace selected by IATA to provide leading fraud protection solution.
  • Bluefin Payment Systems and ACEware Systems Partner for PCI-Validated P2PE.

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.

Urban FT Acquires iParse

Urban FT Acquires iParse

B2B digital banking platform Urban FT acquired Oregon-based iParse today. Urban FT plans to leverage iParse’s technology and its mobile banking-related patents.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Operations will continue as usual for iParse, which will function as a separate division from Urban FT. All staff (except for the founders, who are retiring) will continue as employees of Urban FT’s new unit. The company’s CEO, Richard Steggall, is calling the new deployment a “mobile banking plug-in solution” because it empowers financial institutions of any size to compete in the mobile banking space by plugging directly into their core, simulating integration. Urban FT estimates the mobile plug-in option will be available to clients within the next couple of months.

In the press release, Steggall said:

“The iParse tech strategically complements Urban FT’s suite of white-label mobile banking solutions by providing a proprietary way to bypass core processor integration, while delivering a robust mobile banking service for financial institutions to offer to their customers…. now credit unions and banks of any size can play—and play competitively—in the mobile banking space.”

Founded in 2013, Urban FT expects the number of bank clients it serves to double to more than 150 within the next year. Kasey Kaplan, Urban FT President said, “On the bank side, we size the market at approximately 12,500 potential targets, and we know that almost 42 percent of credit unions have yet to launch any form of mobile banking.”

At FinovateFall 2016, Urban FT debuted the Workshop, a real-time mobile app management platform that enables banks to quickly configure, brand, and launch mobile banking apps without coding. The company has 40 employees and, in addition to financial institutions, also serves clients in telecommunications, insurance, and travel. Among the New York-based company’s partners are Sprint, Boost Mobile, Yelp, Banc of California, and Sunrise Banks.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Expensify Announces Five New Receiptburner Partners.
  • Flybits Raises $6.5 Million to Help Banks Put Data to Work

Around the web

  • Jumio introduces eyeball tracking to the “liveness” check of its biometric authentication solution, Netverify.
  • NYMBUS adds executive talent, opens center of strategic excellence in Glastonbury, Connecticut.
  • Co-founder Kristo Käärmann takes the helm at TransferWise.
  • PayPal announces strategic partnership with Samsung Pay.
  • ThreatMetrix named the Leader in The Forrester Wave: Risk-Based Authentication, Q3 2017.

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

  • Where is Banking Prime?
  • Currencycloud Collects $25 Million in New Funding.

Around the web

  • Blackhawk Network launches same-day rebate reward fulfillment.
  • BancVue’s John Waupsh discusses book, Bankruption, on this BankNXT podcast.
  • Idea Bank’s Tax Care accounting network builds bookkeeping app for Uber drivers.
  • Urban FT offers users faster prepaid wireless service top-ups via partnership with T-Cetra.
  • BBVA Compass unveils BBVA Momentum, a seven-month accelerator for socially-minded entrepreneurs.

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

  • Lights! Camera! Action! Demo Videos from FinovateEurope Now Available.
  • BlueVine Lands $75 Million Line of Credit.

Around the web

  • Yoyo marks 10 millionth transaction milestone.
  • Jack Henry & Associates‘ Symitar division unveils its account opening self-service hub, SymApp.
  • New APIs from Citi to help clients access network with existing treasury applications. See Citi at FinDEVr New York in March.
  • Credit Union of Southern California ($1.2 billion) chooses Fiserv’s Architect digital banking platform.
  • SuiteBox introduces multi-signing of document functionality to its digital workspace technology platform.
  • Ledger releases the Nano S firmware 1.3.
  • Stoneham Bank to leverage Insuritas to launch insurance agency platform to drive fee income.
  • Report highlights Urban FT, Misys, Kony, Backbase, Infosys, Cachet Financial Solutions, and Nymbus, as key digital banking players.

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.

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: UrbanFT

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: UrbanFT

UrbanFT_homepage_Aug2016

FF2016-Logo-wdate-largeA look a the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on 8/9 September 2016. Register today.

Urban FT will be presenting the Service Integration Director (SID): the first real-time, multi-tier, mobile app-management platform for the financial services industry.

Features

  • Rapidly configure and launch apps without coding
  • Reconfigure apps and change features on the fly
  • Leverage Urban FT’s platform: the richest set of capabilities available

Why it’s great
By eliminating the coding/launching bottleneck, SID ushers in a new era in app development. Users can deploy and manage unlimited apps within the SID UI.

Presenters

UrbanFT_RichardSteggallRichard Steggall, CEO, Co-founder
A successful serial entrepreneur, Steggall co-founded Urban FT, which he leads as CEO. In 17 years in IT&T, he honed skills in global growth strategies and led IPOs on three continents.
LinkedIn

 

Glen Fossella, EVP of Enterprise Growth
UrbanFT_GlenFossellaFossella is responsible for all business-development initiatives, including client and channel partner sales. He has more than 25 years experience building early- and mid-stage technology companies.
LinkedIn

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • PayNearMe Powering Cash Payments for Comcast
  • Lendio by the Numbers: $250 Million in Loans to 10,000+ Small Businesses
  • Azimo Launches Money Transfers on Facebook Messenger
  • Dwolla Launches New Dashboard for White-Label Partners

Around the web

  • Trustly announces new partnership with Nordnet Bank to speed new customer onboarding.
  • Sberbank adds brokerage services to its online system.
  • Wealthfront upgrades its Android app, adding PIN and fingerprint lock and support for IRA contributions.
  • TipRanks launches new feature to allow users to Import their Online Brokerage Portfolio to TipRanks.
  • The International Swaps and Derivatives Association and Markit launch ISDA Amend 2.0.

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.

Ready for a Sneak Peek? How to Best Prepare for FinovateFall

Ready for a Sneak Peek? How to Best Prepare for FinovateFall

StageIMG

To give you a sense of the many new ideas at the upcoming FinovateFall conference in New York, we’ve launched our Sneak Peek series. Eight companies are featured each week leading up to the 8/9 September event (tickets now available).

In the meantime, here is a quick summary of the 66 announced companies (six more are in stealth mode). It’s a lot to take in; pace yourself!

  • Agreement Express offers an an end-to-end platform that helps traditional financial institutions automate labor-intensive parts of the customer onboarding process to remain compliant while quickly opening customer accounts.
  • Aleo’s marketplace uses e-procurement, e-commerce and supplier financing bundled in a single open platform to offer small and medium enterprises an online procure-to-pay solution.
  • AutoGravity’s mobile-first digital marketplace helps digitally minded customers, looking to buy and finance a vehicle, circumvent the inefficiencies of the auto-financing process by leveraging the full potential of their smartphone.
  • Avoka’s customer-acquisition platform integrates multiple fintech services to help banks, wealth managers and insurers use mobile and digital channels to onboard customers.
  • Backbase offers 60-second onboarding for financial services companies to accelerate customer acquisition with a simple, fast, and seamless omnichannel onboarding journey.
  • Bankjoy offers developers a banking API for a modern, real-time, holistic interface for credit unions and community banks.
  • Bitbond’s automated, international credit-scoring mechanism compares small business-loan applicants from different countries by using machine learning and data from the applicant’s business accounts.
  • Bluescape offers large financial services companies a highly interactive, visually collaborative platform that uses real-time, cloud-based architecture that’s ultra-scalable, all-capturing, and accessible anytime from any device.
  • BondIT offers financial advisers and portfolio managers a data-driven solution that uses machine learning advanced algorithms to manage fixed-income portfolios and solve optimization challenges.
  • brandCrowder has developed an alternative investment platform focusing on branded franchises. It leverages 45+ years of franchise-operations experience to help retail investors finance franchises, helping to bring them to market quicker.
  • Clinc’s mobile, voice-activated personal financial adviser uses artificial intelligence to help consumers get answers to financial questions and tasks.
  • Consdata offers banks and financial institutions a comprehensive platform for e-form management and customer-communication complexities.
  • Currencycloud’s dedicated API services use intelligent APIs to help businesses with the cost, limitations, and boundaries of existing payment infrastructure.
  • Daon bridges convenience and security by offering financial services companies a mobile biometric authentication platform that turns a smartphone into a mobile capture device.
  • Divy’s app and social investing community uses an approachable interface and engaging content to help first-time and emerging investors access direct marketing and financial literacy material.
  • Dynamics offers issuers and their cardholders interactive payment cards and an authorization-based, real-time loyalty processing system.
  • ebankIT’s platform offers financial institution clients an omnichannel experience.
  • Econiq’s Conversation Hub uses color-coded conversations to help bank and insurer frontline staff, and operational management and executives avoid disconnected customer conversations in branches and contact centers.
  • Envestnet | Yodlee offers millennials a solution for measuring financial health and promoting a healthy financial lifestyle.
  • Experian CrossCore is a single platform that helps manage customer identities, fraud-prevention tools, workflows and decision strategies in an easy-to-use and scalable format.
  • EyeVerify’s Eyeprint ID offers banks and other financial services companies eye biometrics via smartphone cameras for convenient, secure and private authentication.
  • Featurespace’s ARIC Engine helps financial services clients spot and prevent fraud attacks in real time using adaptive behavioral analytics.
  • Finicity offers an API for companies to build financial apps.
  • Fiserv helps financial institutions enable social finance by providing customers access to a safe, collaborative bank-secured social funding product.
  • Full Profile uses the blockchain and smart contracts for real-time settlement and reporting of physical agri-commodities to help farmers, buyers, banks and government counter party and credit-risk exposures.
  • FutureVault’s cloud-based filing cabinet helps financial service providers and their clients organize asset documents and accounts using a secure, structured and collaborative B2B2C cloud environment.
  • GainX’s SaaS platform uses decades of market research and leading-edge technology to help large financial institutions overcome innovation and adaption failures.
  • GoodData helps large banks, credit-card processing and insurance companies commercialize and monetize their data using a scalable, manageable and secure platform that is exclusively designed for data products and embedded analytics.
  • iBank Marketing offers millennials a multifunction digital wallet to help them achieve personal goals around life events by using its local eco-system that bridges consumers and small- to medium-sized enterprises.
  • identitii uses tokens and blockchain to help financial institutions with KYC, CTF and AML compliance using an information layer over legacy systems.
  • InSpirAVE’s social e-commerce platform curates advice and financial support from the user’s friends and family, financial institutions, and merchants. It helps multiply savings, for big-ticket purchases for customers who otherwise may not be able to afford them, by placing important goals for life’s special moments within reach, without the crushing burden of debt.
  • KORE’s platform transforms enterprise applications, online banking and mobile apps into personalized, conversational engagements to help financial institutions meet customer-experience expectations using the power of bots and simplicity of messaging.
  • LendingFront’s lending platform leverages a cloud-based system that furnishes small businesses with capital using their cashflow data.
  • Lidya offers African small- to medium-sized enterprises access to finance using online receivables-based lending and proprietary credit scoring.
  • Liferay’s Digital Experience offers banks a richer understanding of customers by orchestrating personalized customer experiences.
  • M1 Finance places assets held in low-yielding cash accounts into an asset-linked bank account and intuitive investment platform.
  • MapD’s Immerse helps quantitative hedge fund and asset managers query datasets with billions of rows in real-time by applying the parallel processing power of GPUs to the challenges of databases, visualization and analytics.
  • MarketX’s cross-border investment platform helps international investors with the lack of liquidity for U.S. startup shares and limited access to U.S. pre-IPO investment opportunities.
  • ModoPayments offers financial companies a digital payments hub to connect disparate sources of value to diverse destinations using Modo’s COIN technology.
  • Moonraft Innovation Labs helps banks innovate and evolve by rapidly adapting to changing market needs using Catamera, its unique customer experience delivery framework.
  • Moven’s growing platform reaches the millennial, mobile first, digital native audience by bringing banking (specifically savings) into the moment.
  • MX helps financial institutions become true advocates for their account holders by using analytics to power a revolutionary category of data-driven money management.
  • nanoPay offers a payments and loyalty solution for merchants.
  • Overbond’s digital platform offers transparency, efficiency, and liquidity in the fixed income market for corporate issuers, investors, and dealers.
  • Personetics offers financial services providers a digital personalization platform that uses real-time, ultra-scalable predictive analytics to keep customers engaged in the digital age.
  • ProActive FinTech uses a phone app and debit card featuring unlimited mini bank accounts and pre-purchase categorization to help millennial moms with cash-flow management.
  • QE Data offers commercial banking systems a real-time predictive model for net cash-flows that uses machine learning, rich visualization, speedy deployment and real-world banking experience.
  • Qumram uses 100% real-time, video-like recording of every mouse movement, keystroke and button click to help financial services organizations with compliance and transparency issues relating to digital business.
  • RightCapital’s financial and tax-planning platform helps advisers deliver unbundled, quality financial planning and tax-planning services. It works to efficiently and digitally help consumers with the lack of viable business and technology solutions.
  • SaleMove offers financial institutions a live engagement platform to help sell and service complex financial services products online. The platform uses instant video chat and guided browsing with no downloads or installations.
  • Sindeo’s self-directed consumer rate quote and prequalification tool simplifies home financing and refinancing using an integrated platform that offers consumer, real estate partner, and adviser tools that conform to CFPB regulation and ensure a simple and easy consumer experience.
  • SpeechPro’s customer onboarding solution offers multichannel access to help CTOs, developers and other technologists focus on KYC, identity and verification.
  • Swych’s mobile gifting platform offers gift-card recipients a better way to buy, gift, and manage gift cards.
  • Tango Card’s RaaS API 2.0 uses simple-yet-complete delivery technology and domain expertise to help enterprises deliver incentives efficiently and effectively.
  • TokBox’s Financial Services Accelerator Pack offers banks and financial organizations secure and easy-to-embed, real-time communications technology.
  • TransUnion’s interactive data-visualization solution uses big data and analytics to connect and interpret consumer financial data for lenders.
  • Trulioo’s GlobalGateway uses traditional and cyber ID data sources to offer banks, financial services providers, and online marketplaces secure access to reliable, global data sources for instant ID-verification.
  • Trusona’s anti-replay and TruToken technology offers an insured identity platform for sensitive assets.
  • Unbill’s API enables companies to offer bill pay in their app or technology platform without complicated integration or high costs.
  • Uniken’s REL-ID, a card-not-present approval solution, uses mobile API tool kits and DMZ software appliances to help enterprises secure mobile communications.
  • Urban FT’s enhanced, white-label digital banking platform gives financial services organizations, wireless carriers, and other consumer-facing organizations a long-term, competitive advantage that makes their brand integral to customers’ daily financial and online social activities, financial tools, and social features.
  • Xentral Station’s supply-chain funding app helps vendors of all sizes receive cash for trade financing within 24 hours.
  • Zenmonics uses a single, common platform to help banks and their customers minimize friction in customer engagement with channelUNITED.
  • Zooz offers an agnostic, cross-border payments platform to help merchants act on payment processes and save money to maintain their client base.

Stay tuned on the blog for more detailed descriptions. And don’t forget to register now to reserve your spot.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Finovate Debuts: BaseVenture’s Command Center for Fund Managers & Administrators
  • Temenos to Power Wealth Management Solution for Standard Chartered
  • CREALOGIX Adds Authentication Technology from South African FinDEVr alum, Entersekt
  • Get Your VAT Back: Xpenditure to Help Reclaim International VAT Refunds

Around the web

  • Swiss financial services firm bob Finance to deploy Netverify from Jumio.
  • IBM partners with Credit Mutuel Arkea on blockchain KYC project.
  • Urban FT joins the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI).

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

  • “Scalable Capital Scores $7.9 Million”
  • Check out this week’s FinDEVr APIntelligence.
  • “Finovate Alums Dominate The FinTech50’s Inaugural Hall of Fame”

Around the web

  • New strategic partnership connects Klarna’s checkout solution with Modo’s digital payments hub.
  • NICE Actimize unveils its Actimize AML Essentials, AML cloud solution.
  • Ixaris spins off its payment technology division, Ixaris Technologies.
  • European payment providers partnered with TSYS to get access to alerts service.
  • Misys teams up with Dorsum to enable FusionBanking Essence customers to trade directly from their accounts.
  • Payroll in Xero now available in Georgia, reaching 21 states.
  • Richard Steggall, co-founder and CEO of Urban FT, chats with PYMNTS.

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.