Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Baker Hill Brings its Cloud-Based Loan Origination Solution to First Bank.

Around the web

  • Online banking innovator Dollar Bank to upgrade its digital offerings with technology from Fiserv.
  • Brazil’s Nubank reaches milestone of 1.5 million digital account openings in six months.
  • Aire, Onfido, Trunomi, TransferWise, YoYo Wallet and Revolut earn finalist spots in TechCrunch Europas Awards.
  • Emailage announces expansion across APAC and plans to double the size of its Phoenix, Arizona office.

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

  • Risk Ident to Help Universum Protect Retailers from Fraud.
  • Dorsum Unveils My Wealth Mobile App.
  • Ondot Introduces Digital Card Services Platform.

Around the web

  • NuData Security named a “Top 100 in Tech” by Business in Vancouver.
  • ThetaRay wins ATMIA’s Next Generation ATM Security Award.
  • Tuition.io to power student loan repayment benefits for Hulu employees.
  • Standard Chartered Bank announces intentions to apply for the virtual banking license.
  • Conversation.one is Amazon Alexa-Certified for Financial Institutions.
  • Flywire and UnionPay Partner to Take the Cost Out of Cross-Border Payments from China.
  • Yoyo introduces quarterly tracker to monitor customer activity in closed catering environments.
  • U.K.-based Business Leader magazine features Wealthify and YellowDog among its 32 South West Tech Businesses That Are Shaping the Future spotlight.
  • Unblu opens offices in London.

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

Around the web

  • Opentech ranked third in the Mastercard’s worldwide Directory of Digital Wallet providers. Come see Opentech’s live demo at FinovateEurope next week.
  • Yoyo named Best Mobile Payment Solution at MPE Awards. Come see Yoyo’s demo at FinovateEurope next week in London.
  • CapitaWorld launches smart loan disintermediation ecosystem for micro, small, and medium (MSM) enterprises.
  • Unison launches 5% down payment program in conjunction with an 80% LTV mortgage.
  • Sberbank adds Google Pay and Samsung Pay services for the customers using its business cards.
  • Railsbank partners with Carta Worldwide.
  • Lendio Franchise Announced in Clemson Region.

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.

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Yoyo

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Yoyo

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on the 6 through 9 of March 2018 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

Yoyo is Europe’s fastest growing end-to-end customer engagement platform, delivering frictionless payment and loyalty for consumers alongside behavioural analytics and marketing tools for merchants.

Features

  • First-of-its-kind loyalty platform and bank account integration
  • Retailer-specific, automated loyalty when using a debit card
  • Improved spending insight for consumers with in-app itemised receipts

Why it’s great
Yoyo’s integration allows banks to retain the simplicity of card payments, whilst automatically adding loyalty, personalised offers, rewards and itemised receipts to their offering.

Presenters

Michael Rolph, CEO & co-founder
An experienced entrepreneur and business developer, Rolph was previously an advisor at Azimo before founding Yoyo, Europe’s fastest growing mobile payment and loyalty marketing platform.
LinkedIn

Dave Nicholson, VP strategic partnerships & co-founder
Nicholson has successfully co-founded 2 fintech startups: Yoyo Wallet (a ground-breaking mobile payment and loyalty platform) and Zopa (the world’s first P2P lending exchange).
LinkedIn

YoYo Wallet Appoints Michael Rolph as CEO

YoYo Wallet Appoints Michael Rolph as CEO

Mobile wallet company Yoyo announced this week it has appointed Michael Rolph, one of the company’s co-founders, as CEO. Meanwhile, former Yoyo CEO Alain Falys has shifted into the role of the company’s chairman.

Prior to the appointment, Rolph had been serving as the company’s Chief Product Officer since January of 2016 and before assuming those responsibilities he had headed up sales and marketing efforts for Yoyo. The company noted that Rolph had been “instrumental” in bringing on large clients such as Caffè Nero and Planet Organic to Yoyo’s payment and loyalty marketing platform.

In his new role, Rolph will implement Yoyo’s strategic operations as it launches into a new phase of growth. And this is not a small task. In addition to aspiring to be the loyalty marketing platform of choice, the company is aiming for a 10x increase in transaction volume in the next 18 months. He noted that he and Falys will “continue to build on Yoyo’s foundation of profitable growth, as we secure new partnerships on the high street and move into an open banking world, becoming natural leaders in omni-channel loyalty marketing, whilst helping retailers super-charge the power of their data.”

In a blog post, Falys offered high praise for Rolph, saying, “Over the past four years, Michael and I have taken Yoyo from an idea to the point where it is now recognised as the leading retailer loyalty platform in the UK and, increasingly, internationally. The Yoyo team has achieved a great deal during that time, and under Michael’s leadership as CEO, our success will only continue to grow.”

In 2013, Falys co-founded the business with Rolph and David Nicholson and has since raised $30.3 million in total funding, including a $15 million Series B round closed in June. The Yoyo platform powers almost 2 million mobile transactions every month, a figure that represents 2.5x increase in usage over the past year. Rolph debuted Yoyo on stage at FinovateEurope 2015. The company currently serves more than 2,000 retailers across the U.K. and Ireland. Last month, Yoyo partnered with Starling to enable Starling members to earn rewards when they use their payment card at retailers that are partnered with Yoyo.

Finovate Alumni News

Around the web

  • Revolut reaches one million customer milestone.
  • Starling Bank partners with Yoyo Wallet, enabling cardholders to earn loyalty points when paying with the challenger bank.
  • African Bank to deploy new technology from FICO to centralize credit decision management.

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

  • Swych Introduces Themed, Multi-Currency, Digital Gifting Options.
  • Persado Unveils Persado One, Lands $30 Million Credit Facility from Silicon Valley Bank.
  • Personetics Leverages AI to Help Chip Away at Student Loan Crisis.
  • Two-Time Best of Show Winner Finn.ai Raises $3 Million in New Funding.

Around the web

  • Actiance launches Safe Landing Program to ensure continuous compliance for stranded CA data protection customers.
  • PayNearMe helps NYC residents and visitors pay parking tickets with cash.
  • Mitek partners with handwriting-based biometric authentication service Asignio to deliver IDaaS solution.
  • Revolut announces plans to expand to Singapore.
  • Zafin launches digital origination platform and partner ecosystem, Zafin Origin.
  • Klarna expands partnership with Arcadia, adding new payment solutions.
  • Yoyo Wallet reaches processing milestone of more than 1.75 million transactions per month.

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.

Yoyo Wallet Raises $15 Million in Series B

Yoyo Wallet Raises $15 Million in Series B

 

 

In a round led by Horeca, London-based Yoyo Wallet has raised more than $15 million (£12 million) in new funding. Alain Falys, company co-founder and CEO, said the new investment “will allow us to provide the benefits of customer identification and mobile engagement to a wider array of retailers, large and small, in the U.K. and across Europe.” Horeca is the venture capital arm of German retail conglomerate, Metro Group.

Also participating in the round, which takes Yoyo Wallet’s total capital to more than $30 million, were Woodford Investment Management and Touchstone Innovations. Hansjorg Sage, Metro Group digital unit GM, highlighted Yoyo’s partnership with Caffe Nero, the #3 coffee retail chain in the U.K., as evidence of the company’s “strong track record of deploying digital technology at the customer interface.” Sage said the the trend toward greater digitization in the food and beverage segment of the hospitality industry gave companies like Yoyo Wallet the chance to make a “meaningful positive impact on a wide spectrum of retail businesses.” As part of the investment, still subject to FCA approval, Metro Group partner James Hook will join the Yoyo Wallet board of directors.

Pictured: Yoyo co-founder and COO Michael Rolph demonstrating the Yoyo mobile app at FinovateEurope 2015.

With more than 400,000 registered users and an acceptance network of more than 1,700 outlets, Yoyo Wallet combines payments and loyalty into a seamless mobile experience. The company leverages QR code technology to enable PoS payments, providing SKU-level digital receipts for each transaction while also recording and applying any rewards or loyalty points the purchaser is due into the Yoyo app. Available on iOS and Android platforms, Yoyo wallet features the ability for users to send rewards (“yo-yo’ing”) to others via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or other social media. Merchants can then tie other rewards to their customers who “yo-yo” the most. “Yoyo is now delivering proven benefits to a rapidly growing number of merchants and their customers in universities, corporate campuses, and the High Street,” Falys said.

Yoyo allows retailers build their own branded app, establish a branded presence within the Yoyo app, or use Yoyo’s acceptance rails and SDK to power their own solution. This gives retailers great flexibility in designing the specific mobile experience that is relevant to their customers. In their funding announcement, for instance, the company used the example of a restaurant chain providing customer experience-enhancing options such as being able to order and pay from the table with a Yoyo-powered app. Yoyo Wallet also provides an analytics and campaign generation platform for retailers to enable them to operationalize their insights into customer behavior and better personalize rewards and marketing campaigns.

Founded in 2013, Yoyo demonstrated its mobile app at FinovateEurope 2015. This spring, the company hired former PayPal GM Simon Moran as its first VP of Commercial. In February, Yoyo marked its 10 millionth transaction,  having “helped retailers across the U.K. and Ireland award over 1.2 billion loyalty points and 1.8 million coffee stamps.” Yoyo began the year with the introduction of its AI-powered, marketing automation platform, Yoyo Engage at Davos in January.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Yoyo Wallet Raises $15 Million in Series B.
  • Flywire Teams with PayPal for Cross-Border Payments Method.
  • Fintonic to Use $28 Million Round to Move Beyond Loans and Insurance.

Around the web

  • IdentityMind Global to offer Confirm.io’s document authentication technology to its financial services customers.
  • transcosmos to integrate with Tradeshift Japan to help businesses digitalize their indirect operations and accelerate transactional speed
  • Coinbase is reimbursing losses caused by the Ethereum flash crash.
  • Backbase scores fintech deal in Norway with SSF Bank.
  • Fiserv partners with GoldBean to provide a digital adviser offering extra assistance.
  • Meniga & Islandsbanki partner to deploy new card-linked offer platform reaching more than 30% of households in Iceland.
  • Jumio partners with Monzo for strong identity verification.
  • mBank moves into fintech vendor space with new digital banking system.
  • JCB International partners with iSignthis to enable SEPA transactions.

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

  • LendUp Lands $100 Million Credit Facility.
  • LikeFolio Begins Licensing Brand-Mapping Database.
  • Euronext Invests $10 Million in Algomi; Expands Joint Venture Agreement.

Around the web

  • Yoyo hires former PayPal GM Simon Moran as first VP of Commercial.
  • Fiserv expands its Florida contact and servicing center by 22%.
  • Trustly partners with UATP to enable online bank payments for airfare.
  • NICE extends real-time authentication across all voice channels.
  • The Asian Review covers Ayondo’s upcoming listing on the Singapore Exchange.
  • Signifyd wins Finance Monthly’s 2017 Fintech Award for Fraud.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • First Oklahoma FCU to deploy core account processing technology from Fiserv.
  • Yoyo unveils marketing automation platform, Yoyo Engage, at Davos.
  • Misys adds crowdlending module to FusionBanking platform.
  • United Nations FCU chooses digital banking platform from Jwaala.
  • OnDeck and payment solutions provider WEX team up to provide small business financing.
  • ABA Banking Journal column on biometric authentication features Daon and EyeVerify.

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.