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Norway-based biometric startup Mobai won $3.16 million (EUR 2.8 million) in funding to enhance the protection of personal biometric data in coalition with Vipps BankID, Sparebank1 Østlandet, KU Leuven, and NTNU. The project, named SALT for “Secure privacy preserving Authentication using faciaL biometrics to proTect your identity,” will bring new functionalities to Mobai’s facial recognition Read more…
Selling nearly 290 million shares priced at $9 in its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange this week, Brazilian digital bank Nubank has raised $2.6 billion, reaching a market value of $41 billion. An alumni of Finovate’s developer’s conference FinDEVr in 2016, Nubank is now the most valuable financial institution in Latin Read more…
With plans to launch initially in Mexico before expanding to Colombia and Central America, fintech startup Jefa is out to do what even the most innovative challenger banks have so far failed to do: bring better financial opportunities to women in Latin America. Company CEO and founder Emma Sanchez Andrade Smith highlights the fact that Read more…
An investment of $35 million will enable Solutions by Text (SBT), a compliant text messaging platform for consumer finance companies, to power broader adoption of its solution across the consumer finance lifecycle. The growth financing round was led by Edison Partners, and featured the participation of Stifel Venture Bank, a division of Stifel Bank. In Read more…
Payment card startup Slice received a $220 million Series B investment today, bringing its total funding to $291 million and boosting its valuation to over $1 billion, unicorn status. This is an impressive jump in valuation. According to TechCrunch, the India-based company was valued at under $200 million less than six months ago when it Read more…
Ozow, a payment gateway based in South Africa, has secured $48 million in Series B investment in a round led by Chinese fintech Tencent. The funding boosts the company’s total capital raised to more than $51 million. The company said the funding will be used to promote fintech regulation – particularly open banking – to Read more…
In a round led by Warburg Pincus, Insight Partners, and Bow Wave Capital Management, Philippines-based mobile payment company Mynt has secured $300 million in new funding. The investment, which also featured participation from Itai Tsiddon, Amplo Ventures, Globe Telecom, and Ayala Corporation, gives Mynt a valuation of more than $2 billion and solidifying the company’s Read more…
At a time of almost unprecedented financial liquidity, being able to separate the investment-worthy wheat from the chaff may be more important than ever. Additionally, knowledge of where the so-called “smart money” is investing within the growing field of fintech is an invaluable aid for those attempting to better understand where fintech is right now Read more…
The concept of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) is already familiar to most in the banking and fintech industry. However, the idea that the U.S. will have a functioning CBDC of its own in the near future still seems far-fetched. PwC’s CBDC global index ranks the U.S. 18th in the globe when it comes to Read more…
This week marks the beginning of Phase 3 of Brazil’s embrace of open banking. Phase 3 is the second-to-last stage of the implementation plan set out by the Brazilian Central Bank. According to reports, Phase 3 arrives about one month late – the original date was September 30th – but the changes that the newest Read more…
This week’s Finovate Global List Series feature takes a look at the roster of Southeastern Asia-based technology unicorns compiled by Credit Suisse’s ASEAN research team in a recent report to see how many of these 35 billion-plus valuation companies are fintech firms. “The number of unicorns in ASEAN has continued to increase over the last Read more…
Insurtech has already taken off across the globe. What’s more, the fintech subsector is finally beginning to heat up in the U.S. as consumers become increasingly comfortable with digital financial services. According to CB Insights, fintechs in the insurtech subsector raised $7.4 billion in the first half of this year alone. This figure already surpasses Read more…