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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Worldpay plans to acquire AI-driven fraud detection company Ravelin.
The acquisition will help Worldpay enhance its e-commerce offerings by adding fraud prevention technology and improve business clients’ authorization rates.
Ravelin’s cloud-based platform helps merchants combat online fraud, secure accounts, and improve payment authorization rates through partnerships with data providers like Ekata and Ethoca.
Payments and banking services company Worldpayannounced plans today to acquire fraud detection company Ravelin. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close later this quarter.
“Our acquisition of Ravelin aligns with our strategy to invest in innovation and AI technology, enhancing the value we provide customers and accelerating our e-commerce growth,” said Worldpay CEO Charles Drucker. “In today’s online world, equipping merchants with next-generation AI-powered fraud prevention products is vital, and we believe Ravelin’s technology and expertise will significantly enhance Worldpay’s overall value proposition to the marketplace. We look forward to partnering with Ravelin’s leadership and their talented team to help our customers address their most complex challenges.”
Ohio-based Worldpay anticipates that buying Ravelin will complement and enhance its existing portfolio of solutions. The company will also leverage Ravelin’s cloud-based AI platform to help its merchant clients improve authorization rates.
Worldpay was founded in 1971 and enables merchants of all sizes to grow faster and protect their businesses as fraud activity accelerates globally. The company offers processing solutions that allow businesses to take, make, and manage a variety of payments, including online, in-person, and embedded payments. The company processes over 50 billion transactions each year across 146 countries and 135 currencies.
Fraud prevention and payments optimization company Ravelin helps ecommerce merchants combat online payments fraud, implement account security, accept returns while blocking fraudsters, and set limits on promotional redemptions. The company also performs 3D Secure identification. Ravelin works with third parties including Ekata, Ethoca, and Chargebacks 911 to bring a wealth of data and disputes, and can integrate with other external data sources, as well.
“Ravelin is thrilled to be joining Worldpay, a true global leader in the payments industry,” said Ravelin Co-Founder and CEO Martin Sweeney. “Worldpay’s scale and reach, including processing approximately $2.5 trillion in payments volume and more than 50 billion transactions in 2024, will be an immense asset as we accelerate Ravelin’s momentum and advance our mission to eradicate fraud from the internet. Together, we will be able to deliver innovation at scale, driving the adoption of our industry-leading fraud solutions to customers as they respond to increasingly sophisticated threats and rising fraud-related costs.”
In a world where consumers are demanding faster payments, fraud is taking place at a faster rate, as well. The methods of fraud are also evolving as AI tools become more advanced, making fraud more sophisticated and harder to detect. By integrating Ravelin’s fraud prevention tools with its payment processing services, Worldpay will provide businesses with the ability to protect themselves against fast-moving fraud.
New leadership for digital banking solutions provider nCino and the fallout from the recent ouster of CFPB director Rohit Chopra are among the major fintech headlines as the first full week of February begins.
Be sure to check back here at the Fintech Rundown all week long for the latest updates and announcement in fintech!
Digital banking
nCinointroduces new President and Chief Executive Officer Sean Desmond.
Uphold, an infrastructure provider for on-chain payments, banking, and investments resumes staking services for its UK customers who hold cryptocurrencies.
This week’s edition of Finovate Globalhighlights recent fintech headlines from Ireland.
Dublin-based regtech Fenergo has inked a partnership with Caribbean-based PROVEN Bank. The financial institution will leverage Fenergo’s transaction monitoring solution to enhance and streamline its anti-money laundering (AML) compliance operations.
PROVEN Bank Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nikita Kissoon underscored increasing regulatory pressure on financial institutions as one of the reasons the bank sought the partnership with Fenergo. Kissoon praised the company’s “excellent reputation for expertise in both AML regulations and cutting-edge compliance technology,” and said that enhanced AML compliance “aligns with our commitment to combat financial crime and remain future-proofed against fast-evolving regulatory changes across our offshore locations.”
Fenergo’s technology will help boost operational efficiency for the Caribbean-based financial institution. PROVEN Bank will benefit from the automation of multiple manual AML processes, which will reduce the number of false positives and free up compliance resources to focus on more complex situations and higher-risk customers. The bank will begin deploying the technology at its Cayman Islands location and subsequently expand the solution to its offices in St. Lucia and its affiliate company, PROVEN Wealth, based in Jamaica.
The partnership is especially timely. The Cayman Islands, where PROVEN Bank is based, was only recently removed from the Financial Action Task force’s AML grey list and the European Union’s black list earlier this year.
Fenergo Chief Strategy Officer Stella Clarke pointed out that banks like PROVEN that operate in multiple jurisdictions often struggle to keep up with local regulations with regards to AML. “Our transaction monitoring solutions offers PROVEN Bank the flexibility to seamlessly adapt to fast-evolving regulatory environments, while empowering it to more effectively cross-sell services to existing customers based on rich data insights,” Clarke said.
Fenergo made its Finovate debut 12 years ago at FinovateEurope in London. The company has raised more than $760 million in funding, and includes TLG Capital and Bridgepoint among its investors. Fenergo’s partnership news comes at the same time that the firm announced that it had formed an alliance with Deloitte Ireland to help deliver Fenergo’s CLM solutions to financial institutions throughout EMEA.
The Bank of Ireland wants you!
If you are a technology specialist looking to drive fintech innovation in the Republic, that is.
The Bank of Ireland just announced that it is recruiting for 100 technology roles in a variety of digital projects, including fighting fraud and advanced data analytics. The Bank is specifically looking for talent with experience in data, delivery management, engineering, resilience and cybersecurity. Open banking, cloud computing, APIs, and AI are also among the areas of emphasis.
“We continue to invest in our talent, technology, and infrastructure to ensure customers have the very best banking services,” Bank of Ireland Group Chief Operating Officer Ciarán Coyle said, “We’re currently progressing a range of innovative digital projects across the Group and we want to recruit talented specialists who can enhance the banking experience for our customers.”
The bank’s search for tech talent comes as the institution has increased its investment in financial technology. After making more than 60 enhancements to its mobile banking app, including biometrics and fraud monitoring, the bank saw an 18% year-on-year increase in active digital users. The bank announced the largest single investment in ATMs in the last decade earlier this year, as well as an investment of €15 million on new fraud prevention technology.
“We are looking for the very best talent to join our technology team as we continue to deliver improvements for customers and colleagues across the organization,” Coyle said.
Ireland’s PTSB has extended its agreement with Worldpay, giving the bank’s customers access to an additional range of services from the company, including e-commerce and ePOS. PTSB will also gain access to Worldpay DCC, a dynamic currency conversion solution that allows cardholders to pay in the currency of their choice.
PTSB Head of Personal Banking at PTSB Jeff Harbourne said that the ability to offer “a best-in-class merchant services solution” was key to the bank’s “ambition of becoming Ireland’s best personal and business bank.” Harbourne added, “By partnering with Worldpay, we’re offering a competitive advanced payments solution to our existing and new customers that enables them to grow their businesses and accept payment across all channels.”
With more than 1.2 million customers, PTSB has a presence in 98 locations throughout Ireland. Founded in 1816, the financial institution rebranded from Permanent TSB last fall following its acquisition of a sizable portion of Ulster Bank, including the firm’s Retail, SME, and Asset Finance businesses.
A Finovate alum since 2015, WorldPay today is a major payments technology and solutions company that processes more than 40 billion transactions across 146 countries and 135 currencies. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and founded in 1971, WorldPay announced an extension of its strategic partnership with fellow Finovate alum ACI Worldwide in July, and inked a new partnership with another Finovate alum, American Express, in May.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Colombian payment orchestration platform Yuno teamed up with Medellin-based financial services app Nequi.
Mexico City-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitso partnered with blockchain company Coincover for its non-custodial disaster recovery service.
Peruvian investment and asset management arm of Credicorp, Credicorp Capital, went live with Temenos’Multifonds accounting and investor servicing solution.
Financial Times profiled Kim Beom-su, founder of Kakao and one of the richest men in South Korea, who was recently arrested on stock manipulation charges.
Digital identity verification provider ADVANCE.AI signed an agreement with the Credit Information Corporation (CIC) to become the newest credit bureau in the Philippines. Read more about fintech in the Philippines in last week’s edition of Finovate Global.
Estonian payments and e-commerce solution provider Montonio introduced its new CEO Johan Nord.
Payments infrastructure company Kevin has been blocked from serving new clients by the Bank of Lithuania, which has also appointed a “temporary representative to oversee” the firm’s activities.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Singapore’s Prytek bought a controlling stake in Israeli fintech Tip Ranks, giving the company a valuation of $200 million.
This week’s Fintech Rundown features partnership and expansion news from a handful of Finovate alums, as well as some interesting fundings in the cryptocurrency and charitable giving space.
Our final Finovate Global column of 2023 celebrates the conversations we’ve had this year with fintech innovators from around the world.
Stay tuned in 2024 for more interviews with some of the most interesting founders, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders in fintech and financial services.
“We developed BehaviorQuant because every financial decision is ultimately made by a person or a team. BehaviorQuant solves a core problem that underlies the entire investment industry: we don’t have systematic knowledge about the people and teams behind investment decisions. And that’s true for financial professionals and clients alike.” Dr. Thomas Oberlechner, founder and CEO of BehaviorQuant. Interview.
“Moniepoint solves the problem of fragmented, inaccessible, and low-quality financial services for businesses in emerging markets. It is a full-service business banking platform seeking to provide all the digital financial services a typical business needs.” Tosin Eniolorunda, founder and CEO of Moniepoint. Interview.
“Eight hundred million voice conversations are recorded daily in Europe and many more worldwide. A tiny 1% of these conversations are checked for quality control, employee training, and business results improvement. Ender Turing is a conversations intelligence and automation platform to close 99% of the conversation gap for business growth.” Olena Iosifova, CEO of Ender Turing. Interview.
“Capital raising is broken. Private companies spend months and even years in the fundraising process, learning how to raise capital and repeating the same mistakes, approaching the wrong investors and often spamming them with irrelevant investment opportunities.” Ulyana Shtybel, CEO of Quoroom. Interview.
“At Refine intelligence, our mission is to help banks regain that superpower of really knowing their customers’ life stories, so their financial crime teams can quickly clear AML or scam alerts triggered by legitimate customer activity. We work with Risk, Financial Crime, BSA and AML teams. Fraud teams look at our technology to help with scam operations.” Uri Rivner, co-founder and CEO of Refine Intelligence. Interview.
“It was an honor to be ranked by CB Insights in its Fintech 250 list and, as one of only seven African start-ups featured, it speaks to the pioneering approach we are introducing to the world – revolutionizing payments and creating a financial services ecosystem for Africa.”
“As sub-Saharan Africa gains recognition on the global stage, we are seeing innovative and pioneering products emerge and rise in popularity amongst consumers, diversifying the products they can choose from.” Tayo Oviosu, founder and CEO of Paga. Interview.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
Singaporean fiat-to-crypto payment gateway Alchemy Pay forged a partnership with Worldpay from FIS.
Indonesian P2P fintech JULO added insurance coverage with the launch of its JULO Cares solution.
Hungary’s OTP Bank partnered with Intellect Global Consumer banking (iGCB), the consumer banking arm of Indian banking technology copany Intelltect Design Arena.
FIS-owned Worldpay is integrating Alipay+ to broaden the payment acceptance tools it offers merchants.
The rollout will begin with AlipayHK, a standalone e-wallet that is limited to Hong Kong dollars.
“By tapping into Worldpay’s market leading footprint, together we can help more merchants globally accelerate their growth journeys and expansion into strategic markets,” said General Manager of Ant Group in Europe and the Middle East Guoming Cheng.
Worldpay revealed its latest partnership today. The FIS-owned electronic payment and banking company announced it will integrate Alipay+ as an option among its e-commerce and POS offerings.
To initiate the rollout, Worldpay will start by enabling its merchant clients to support Alipay’s AlipayHK e-wallet. AlipayHK will be available to Worldpay’s clients in phases. Alipay launched AlipayHK as a standalone app in 2017. The AlipayHK wallet differs from Alipay because, as the name suggests, it is limited to transactions that are made and settled in local Hong Kong dollars.
“To stay competitive, merchants must understand and offer the payment methods that their customers prefer. Local wallet providers are extending their dominance in several APAC markets,” said Worldpay from FIS General Manager for Global E-commerce, APAC Phil Pomford. “We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Ant Group to provide our global merchants access to the Alipay+ platform starting with the AlipayHK wallet.”
Developed by Ant Group, the wider Alipay+ brand provides global cross-border mobile payment tools that help merchants enable Alipay’s one billion active consumers to pay with apps they’re already using, including MPay, Kakao Pay, GCash, and more. Alipay+ also offers merchants digital marketing tools to better target and serve customers.
“The collaborative effort with Worldpay will empower merchants to sell globally and contribute to our mission of providing more open, digitalized, and inclusive financial services to global audiences,” said General Manager of Ant Group in Europe and the Middle East Guoming Cheng. “Alipay+’s suite of innovation solutions is connected with more than one billion consumers worldwide. By tapping into Worldpay’s market leading footprint, together we can help more merchants globally accelerate their growth journeys and expansion into strategic markets.”
Originally acquired in 1971, Worldpay now processes $130 million daily for more than one million merchants across the 146 countries. FISacquired the company in 2019 for an estimated $34 billion. Earlier this year, FIS sold a majority stake in Worldpay to private equity firm GTCR.
Fintech giant FIS announced that it will sell a majority stake in Worldpay to private equity firm GTCR.
The move comes just over four years after FIS acquired Worldpay in a deal valued at $43 billion.
The transaction is the largest to date for GTCR and the biggest leveraged buyout of 2023.
Four years after acquiring payments company Worldpay, fintech titan FIS has announced plans to sell a majority stake in the firm. Private equity company GTCR is the purchaser, and will gain 55% of Worldpay, which is currently valued at $18.5 billion. Note that when FIS acquired the company in 2019, Worldpay was valued at $43 billion.
The sale is expected to close by the first quarter of 2023. Former Worldpay CEO Charles Drucker will be re-appointed as Chief Executive.
The transaction is the largest to date for the PE firm. The deal is also the largest leveraged buyout of the year. GTCR will finance half of the transaction with equity financing and the other half via borrowed capital. GTCR also has committed to an additional investment of as much as $1.25 billion in Worldpay to facilitate future acquisitions. According to Reuters, GTCR was able to outbid Advent International, a rival firm that was also interested in a major stake in Worldpay.
FIS will use the capital raised from the sale to retire debt and buy back shares from its current shareholders. The sale comes after months of strategic review and pressure from activist investors concerned with what they have referred to as “underinvestment,” “operational missteps,” and an overall “unsuccessful integration” of Worldpay into FIS. The acquisition will help Worldpay reduce its debt from $20 billion at the end of March to $10 billion when the deal closes next year. The strategic review, led by FIS CEO Stephanie Ferris, is designed to help the firm cut costs by $1.25 billion.
Sans Worldpay, FIS will continue to operate its core processing systems business for banks and FIs, as well as its capital markets division for investment firms. FIS’ capital markets business represents just under 25% of the company’s revenues. The company’s banking technology division provides 46% of revenues and its merchants business accounts representing approximately 30%.
Founded in 1968, FIS has been a Finovate alum since 2010. Worldpay is an alum of our developers conference, presenting its technology to FinDEVr audiences in 2015 and again in 2016.
FIS is letting go of its Merchant Solutions business, along with the Worldpay brand, which it originally acquired for $34 billion in 2019.
The company states that Worldpay needs a different capital allocation strategy to enable the brand “to pursue more aggressive investment opportunities, including M&A.”
The spin-off is expected to take 12 months.
FISacquiredWorldpay for $34 billion in 2019, and after rumors of a break-up swirled last week, the Florida-based firm announced plans to let go of and restore the Worldpay brand. Specifically, FIS is spinning out the Merchant Solutions business it created from the Worldpay acquisition.
Jeffrey A. Goldstein, FIS Chairman of the Board, said that “… the spin-off of Worldpay will unlock shareholder value by improving both companies’ performance, enhancing client services, and simplifying operational management. We are confident that this is the right time for the separation of Worldpay.” Goldstein added that the Merchant Solutions business requires “increased investment in growth and a different capital allocation strategy” than FIS.
In its press release announcing the change, FIS explained that this different capital allocation strategy will enable Worldpay “to pursue more aggressive investment opportunities, including M&A.” The long-term goal of the spin-off is for Worldpay to expand geographic coverage of its eCommerce tools, strengthen its enterprise offerings, and shift toward software-led payments.
After the split, which is expected to be completed in the next 12 months, FIS and Worldpay will retain strong ties. As a result, FIS’ Merchant Solutions business will take on the Worldpay brand, which will be restored. Originally founded in 1971, Worldpay conducted $2 trillion in payments volume in 2022. Charles Drucker, who was Worldpay CEO from 2004 until the acquisition in 2019, will oversee the spin-off and will once again serve as the company’s CEO when the separation is finalized.
Founded in 1968, banking technology company FIS has acquired a total of 17 companies, two of which were purchased after the Worldpay acquisition in 2019. The company offers 450+ solutions and processes more than 110 million transactions each day. FIS is publicly listed on the NYSE and has a current market capitalization of almost $40 billion.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at recent fintech developments in Germany where green banking, embedded finance, and open banking are the themes at the top of this week’s fintech headlines.
First up, Berlin-based Sustainability-as-a-Service innovator ecolytiqannounced that it was teaming up with Slovakian financial institution Tatra Banka. The climate engagement fintech will provide Tatra Banka with the technology the firm needs in order to launch new green banking functionality on its online banking brand, Blue Planet. The new feature, which will be made available to Tatra Banka’s more than 600,000 customers, will enable users to monitor the impact their transactions may have on the environment (for example, with CO2 emissions), provide users with ideas on how to reduce their environmental impact, and offer rewards for spending that is environmentally friendly.
Founded in 2020, ecolytiq demonstrated its technology at Finovate’s developer event, FinDEVr 2021, which was held as a part of FinovateSpring that year. Putting accurate data at the center of the ability to move toward greater environmental sustainability, ecolytiq demonstrated how its open knowledge graph and streaming technology keep its data relevant and current. More recently, the company announced a strategic partnership with exceet Card Group, makers of sustainable payment cards made from wood and, the following month, teamed up with French sustainable neobank Green-Got.
Peter Golha, a director at Tatra Banka said that the institution believed it had a a role to play in the transition toward a more environmentally sustainable economy. “Not only have we a chance to change our own trajectory, but also a chance to live the topic of sustainability alongside our clients,” Golha said.
Founded in 1990, Tatra Banka was the first private bank to be established in Slovakia. Winner of the TREND Bank of the Year award for two years in a row, Tatra Banka announced this spring that it had achieved its greatest profit to date, reporting $164 million (EUR 162.1) in consolidated profits for the financial year 2021.
Second, German financial management platform for businesses Airbank inked a deal with Klarna Kosma this week. Klarna Kosma is an open banking platform launched by Swedish e-commerce innovator Klarna this spring. Seen as a rival to fellow Finovate alum Tink and its open banking platform, Klarna Kosma offers financial institutions, fintechs, and merchants connectivity to more than 15,000 banks in 24 countries around the world via a single API. Kosma was made possible in many ways by Klarna’s acquisition of direct, bank-to-bank payments company SOFORT in 2014, and Klarna has been developing and expanding the service ever since.
“Over the past year, the demand for Open Banking services from financial institutions and fintech startups has reached a tipping point,” Klarna Kosma VP Wilko Klaassen said. “(This) is why we have built a dedicated business unit which brings together engineering, product management, sales and marketing all together in the same team to focus on this $15 billion, fast-growing market.”
Airbank will leverage its new relationship with Klarna Kosma to “accelerate” its expansion into European markets and beyond. Airbank enables businesses to consolidate their bank accounts in a single location, allowing them to more easily automate bill management, make payments, and manage their finances. Companies also can use Airbank’s platform to track their financial transactions and forecast future liquidity. The partnership with Klarna Kosma will make it possible for Airbank to securely access account information from thousands of banks around the world, expand more aggressively, and better serve its SME customers that have global requirements.
“By the end of this year, we will serve over 50 counties, making Airbank the most comprehensive global banking solution for SMEs in the industry, with the ability to connect bank accounts from almost anywhere in the world,” Airbank founder and CEO Christopher Zemina said. “We are delighted to have Klarna Kosma as an experienced and dynamic partner that shares our ambition to shape the future of B2B financial management.”
Lastly, early in the week we learned that Berlin-based embedded finance startup Monite had teamed up with Codat, a U.K. firm that offers a universal API to enable access to consented business data from banking, accounting, and ecommerce platforms. The partnership will enable both SaaS platforms and financial institutions to integrate invoicing and billing functionality into their apps. This will allow platforms and institutions to offer businesses a unified solution for managing their financial operations.
In a statement, the CEOs of both Monite and Codat praised the great variety of financial apps and platforms dedicated to serving SMEs. The challenge, according to both Monite CEO Ivan Maryasin and Codat CEO Pete Lord, is that the variety can be overwhelming for many small businesses. “What’s still missing are the ‘super apps’ that bring everything together,” Maryasin said. “It can be time-consuming to manage and get the most out of them all,” concurred Lord.
Founded in 2020, Monite has raised $7.8 million in funding for its technology that empowers financial institutions and platforms to offer financial services such as multi-banking, AP automation, invoicing, and more to their customers. London, U.K.-based Codat neared unicorn status last month upon raising $100 million in Series C funding. The investment took the company’s total funding to more than $176 million and gave Codat a valuation of $825 million. The round was led by JPMorgan Partners, and featured participation from Plaid and Shopify.
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.
Entrepreneur.com featuresXero in its round up of solutions to help companies better control their business expenses.
SaaS banking engine Mambuinks deal with its first Brazilian client, Acesso.
Worldpay to deployUP eCommerce Payments solution from ACI Worldwide as part of new international partnership.
Czech Republic’s Twistoannounces plans to expand to Poland this fall, with expansion to Romania to follow.
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.
