This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Paddle raised $25 million in debt financing to support global expansion, product development, and executive growth.
The funds, which come from CIBC Innovation Banking, bring Paddle’s total funding to $318 million.
Along with the investment announcement, Paddle also unveiled new hires and plans to open an office in Austin.
Payments infrastructure company Paddleannounced this week it has raised $25 million in debt financing from CIBC Innovation Banking and others. The investment, which follows a $293 million round in 2022 from FTV Capital, KKR, 83North, and Notion Capital, brings Paddle’s total funding to more than $318 million.
“We are delighted to fund Paddle as it continues on an impressive growth trajectory,” said CIBC Innovation Banking UK & Europe Managing Director Sean Duffy.
Paddle plans to use the funding to support global expansion, accelerate growth, and promote product development.
Paddle was founded in 2012 as a Merchant of Record (MoR) to handle payments, sales tax, refunds, fraud, and compliance for its clients. The UK-based company’s payment infrastructure replaces SaaS companies’ complex payment stacks by managing global payments, currencies, refunds, and sales tax compliance for 6,000 SaaS, AI, and app companies.
Along with today’s funding, Paddle also announced key executive hires. The company is adding to its 300+ employees with the appointments of Rich Mason as CRO International, Stephen Wilcock as CTO, and Ben Aronsten as CMO. Paddle is also opening a new office in Austin, adding to the company’s existing offices in London, Lisbon, Toronto, and New York City.
“In an ever-connected world, it’s important that digital product companies can receive payment from customers in any location without the hassle of navigating multiple payment processes in different geographies. We are excited to support Paddle as it continues expanding its global footprint,” Duffy added.
Paddle has seen rapid growth in 2025, which it attributes to growth in new AI products and Apple opening its app ecosystem to web payments. The company has also recently unveiled new capabilities through a partnership with Vercel and integration with RevenueCat. Previously, the company has experienced 40% year-over-year growth and these factors will build on that.
“We are incredibly excited about the momentum Paddle has experienced so far in 2025,” said Paddle CEO Jimmy Fitzgerald. “We only win when those we serve win, and the growth we’re seeing across the market reflects that shared success. We are seeing a huge increase in the number of consumer app businesses choosing Paddle to manage their web monetization, and will continue to invest in this space with the new financing and strengthened leadership. We look forward to building on these achievements through the rest of the year and beyond as we continue to serve thousands of digital product companies worldwide.”
Paddle’s growth and fresh funding is an indication that SaaS and digital product companies are taking a new approach to global payments. As Gen AI and mobile-first implementation accelerate, companies need flexible infrastructure that handles compliance, tax, and localization without adding complexity. Paddle’s MoR approach is emerging as an alternative to fragmented payment stacks, especially as regulations tighten. Ultimately, today’s funding round and executive expansion show how Paddle is positioning itself not just as a payment provider, but as a strategic player in SaaS payments.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from France.
Spiko secured $22 million in Series A funding
French fintech platform Spiko has raised €18.9 million ($22 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by Index Ventures and featured participation from White Star Capital, Frst, Rerail, Bpifrance, and Blockwall. Spiko will use the funds to power its go-to-market strategy and to make investments in sales, marketing, product development, and new partnerships.
Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Paris, Spiko offers a cash management platform designed to democratize access to money market funds and treasury yields. Spiko leverages tokenization technology to enable individuals and businesses to earn interest on their cash by investing in Treasury bills.
“In Europe, there’s a mistaken belief that your money won’t earn interest unless you lock it away or take on risk,” Spiko Co-founder Paul-Adrien Hyppolite said. “But as long as central bank rates are above zero, sitting on idle cash means European businesses are missing out on returns that US competitors routinely receive. With Spiko, we’re changing the game by making it easy for anyone to put their cash to work.”
Spiko’s business is based on what the company says is €21.5 trillion in European bank deposits that are “missing out” on higher yields. These funds also lack essential capital protection and contribute to capital inefficiency. This is unlike in the US where systems for managing liquidity are more sophisticated, enabling both small companies and large enterprises to earn interest on their cash holdings without fear of losing liquidity. Meanwhile in Europe, more and more companies have been seeking better cash optimization strategies, as well as ways to diversify their cash deposits. As a former economist at the French Treasury, Hyppolite—and his co-founder Antoine Michon, who was a technology advisor to France’s Minister of Public Sector Transformation—have had a front-row seat to this challenge.
After a year in operation, Spiko has more than €344 million ($401 million) in AUM and has processed more than €775 million ($902 million) in working capital from 1,000+ businesses. Spiko anticipates achieving €862 million ($1 billion) in AUM by the end of the year.
Paris-based Qonto seeks banking license
Financial management solution provider Qonto is looking to grow its lending, savings, and investment capabilities and has applied for a banking license from France’s Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) in an effort to make it happen. The company, which is headquartered in Paris, currently holds a payment institution license. But securing full bank authorization would enable the firm to expand its offerings to its customers across Europe.
“SMEs need comprehensive financing solutions, and while we already serve many customers through partnerships and our Pay Later service, a banking license will enable us to expand these capabilities with complete independence,” Qonto CEO and Co-Founder Alexandre Prot said. “This application builds on our proven financial performance, having achieved profitability ahead of schedule in 2023, and supports our mission to create financial freedom for two million SMEs and freelancers across Europe by 2030.”
Qonto offers a B2B account for finance management that provides businesses with automated tools to help them manage their finances, adhere to regulations, and make better financial decisions. Businesses can use Qonto to make and receive payments, send invoices, manage expenses, seek financing, and monitor cash flow. Currently operating in eight European markets including France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, Qonto could also be positioning itself before new payment regulations in the EU—specifically Payment Services Directive 3 (PSD3) and Payment Services Regulation (PSR)—become fully implemented.
Founded in 2017 by Prot and Steve Anavi, Qonto has raised more than €600 million in funding.
Skarlett raises €8 million to bring financial services to seniors
In a funding round led by 115K, the venture capital arm of La Banque Postale, French fintech Skarletthas raised €8 million ($9.3 million) in seed funding. The Parisian-based company offers a financial services platform designed for adults over the age of 60. Nearly a third of the French population meets this qualification, yet Skarlett founders Townley Le Guénédal, Benjamin Gaignault, and Aurélien Gouttefarde have wagered that these seniors are being underserved by conventional financial institutions.
“We want to bring simplicity, transparency, and negotiation power back into the hands of this generation,” CEO Le Guénédal said. “Retirement doesn’t make you invisible. People want to live fully, invest, and protect their loved ones. Skarlett is here to help them do that.”
To this end, Skarlett offers a number of products—such as personalized health insurance, mortgage, and credit options—that are designed for the unique circumstances of older borrowers and savers. The company also offers senior-focused life insurance through a partnership with Generali.
The round also featured participation from Raise Seed for Good and Alven, which led Skarlett’s pre-seed funding round in 2023, the year the company was founded. Skarlett will leverage the proceeds of its latest capital infusion to launch its own tailor-made financial solutions for adults over the age of 60 and to invest in AI to enhance the customer experience with more personalized recommendations.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
Singaporean fintech Chocolate Finance integrated transaction enrichment technology from Snowdrop Solutions into its mobile app.
Mobile payments platform QwikPay launched in Australia.
Philippine National Bank (PNB) partnered with Japan’s Digital Wallet Corporation to enhance its money transfer services.
Sub-Saharan Africa
MoneyBadger, a bitcoin payments startup based in South Africa, raised $400,000 in pre-seed funding.
South African fintech Stitch has acquired digital payments company Efficacy Payments.
Network International teamed up with Ghanian fintech and mobile money aggregator Blu Penguin.
Central and Eastern Europe
Lithuanian Electronic Money Institution Genome teamed up with Huch for real-time payment alerts.
French fintech Silvr announced plans to enter the German market.
Walletto, a payments platform based in Lithuania, announced a partnership with financial consultancy Fintech Poland.
Paytech Global Payments renewed its partnership with Banamex to enhance payment solutions for the Mexican acquiring and banking services market.
The Trump Administration has called for an investigation into Brazil’s digital trade practices, including its instant payment system Pix, over alleged unfair treatment to US companies.
Paychex is partnering with SoFi to offer employees access to personal finance tools like loan refinancing and debt management through its digital benefits marketplace.
Employees cover the cost of the tools via payroll deduction, which means the employer gets to offer the tools at no cost.
This move helps even small businesses stay competitive in a tight labor market by delivering enterprise-grade perks that support employee financial well-being and retention.
Human capital management (HCM) company Paychexannounced this week that it is teaming up with financial platform SoFi to bring end users access to SoFi’s personal finance tools.
Specifically, users of Paychex Flex Perks can connect to SoFi’s solutions via Paychex’s digital employee benefits marketplace. With this access, employees of Paychex customers can use SoFi’s solutions to support their journey to financial independence, including personal loans, student loans, loan refinancing, and more.
“Employees today expect their employer to help support their financial well-being—it’s no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ benefit,” said Paychex Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Business Development, and Investor Relations Cory Mau. “Businesses that provide access to financial wellness benefits often increase employee productivity, recruit and retain talent more effectively, and ultimately drive positive business outcomes.”
Paychex FlexPerks is available in Paychex Flex, a cloud-based HCM SaaS platform that makes it easy for employees to enroll in benefits. Paychex Flex Perks allows even small businesses to offer enterprise-level benefits to entice and retain employees. Launched in 2024, the marketplace has helped more than 230,000 employees purchase at least one benefit from the marketplace.
Employees can use Paychex’s benefits marketplace to select additional benefits based on their own needs. The employees pay for the additional benefits via payroll deduction, meaning they do not pose additional cost to the employer.
The benefits are made possible by SoFi at Work. Launched in 2016, SoFi at Work aims to help employers offer their workforce student loan refinancing, repayment options, a debt navigator tool, financial education resources, and more.
“Our partnership with Paychex marks a major milestone in SoFi at Work’s mission to help more Americans achieve financial independence,” said SoFi EVP for Spend, Invest, Protect, and Save Kelli Keough. “Financial tools and top-tier benefits should be available to everyone, not just employees of large companies. That’s why we’re partnering with Paychex, to make it easier for companies of all sizes, to support their workforce with meaningful and actionable benefits. Embedding SoFi’s financial well-being tools directly into Paychex will help millions of users nationwide take more control of their financial futures.”
As more employers recognize that financial stress impacts productivity and retention, embedding financial wellness tools directly into HR platforms is nearly becoming table stakes rather than a differentiator. The integration between Paychex and SoFi allows small and medium-sized businesses to offer the kind of high-quality financial tools and benefits that were previously only accessible at enterprise scale. In a tight labor market, that is a big deal where benefits can make or break acquiring quality talent.
Financial crime prevention innovator BioCatch has launched its behavior-based scam-fighting solution, BioCatch Scams360.
The new offering helps financial institutions deal with social engineering-based scams such as authorized push payment (APP) fraud.
Founded in 2011, BioCatch made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.
Financial crime prevention company BioCatch recently unveiled the latest edition of its behavior-based scam-fighting solution: BioCatch Scams360. Designed especially to deal with the challenge of authorized push payment (APP) fraud, BioCatch Scams360 enables financial institutions to spot and stop most APP fraud in real time.
APP fraud leverages psychological manipulation to entice victims into transferring their funds to accounts owned by fraudsters. These sophisticated social engineering-based scams can range in tactics from romantic overtures and investment pitches to business email compromise and impersonation of friends or loved ones. To fight this, BioCatch Scams360 uses behavioral and device intelligence to give financial institutions the contextual knowledge they need to distinguish legitimate user behavior from indications that the user may be under some form of manipulation by a nefarious party.
Examples of this can include the rate of the user’s typing, the speed with which they respond to prompts, prolonged periods of in-session inactivity, and/or making a phone call during an online banking session. BioCatch is able to track up to 3,000 different behavioral and device-based datapoints to help distinguish behavior that is genuine from behavior that may be criminally manipulated.
“Already we’re seeing a 50% improvement in our ability to detect non-impersonation scams,” BioCatch Chief Product Officer Ayelet Eliezer said. “Scams360’s current alert rate—the percentage of total transactions requiring banks to intervene—is also best-in-class, helping banks deploying Scams360 to keep their operational costs low while stopping more scams in real time, before any money leaves the would-be victim’s account.”
The new offering builds on the company’s previous success in combatting impersonation-based scams; BioCatch noted that it had helped a regional bank stop $100 million in impersonation scam payments in 2024 alone. BioCatch recently teamed up with The Knoble, a Tennessee-based alliance of financial service professionals, law enforcement, and regulators dedicated to fighting crimes such as human trafficking, financial scams, child sexual exploitation, and elder exploitation. Together, the two organizations launched an anti-scam guide and cost calculator that underscores the fact that the cost of fraud often exceeds direct financial losses to include customer churn, reputational risk, compliance exposure, and more.
“We are excited to see more innovation out of BioCatch to combat the global increase in scams,” The Knoble Founder and Board Chair Ian Mitchell said. “BioCatch is leading a growing list of solution providers working to protect banking customers and communities from the increased complexity of scams.”
Founded in 2011 and headquartered in New York, BioCatch made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. Today, the company counts more than 250 financial institutions—including 34 of the world’s largest banks—among its customers. BioCatch’s technology analyzes 15+ billion user sessions every month, helping more than 525 million people worldwide defend themselves against fraud and cybercrime.
BioCatch’s product news comes at the same time that the firm reported topping $160 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in Q2 of this year, the best second quarter in the company’s history. In May, BioCatch announced that it was partnering with identity and fraud prevention platform provider Alloy to integrate its account opening solution into Alloy’s platform. Alloy is an alum of Finovate’s developer conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016.
What does it take for financial institutions interested in AI technology to move from the point of experimentation to actual execution?
In this Streamly Snapshot interview, conducted at FinovateSpring in San Diego, California earlier this year, Global Director of VASS Financial Services Javier Pérez García talks about what financial institutions need to know in order to make the most of their investments in AI and how VASS is leveraging AI to transform and enhance financial services. García also talks about the value of execution relative to experimentation and shares his thoughts on real-world AI technology deployment in fields such as fraud prevention and compliance.
“You only get to that space where you are jumping from experimentation to execution if you align three major skills: one, deep knowledge of the technology … the second is knowledge of financial services, something the financial entities already have covered. But they don’t have enough experience, this is the third skill, of deploying AI. Why is this important? You might decide the right use case, but maybe you don’t have enough data, maybe the expectations that have been generated inside the organization are too high … You need the experience of someone else to help you … to define and identify if that investment is going to come in the first weeks of the project.”
VASS is an international digital transformation company that helps people, organizations, and businesses around the world provide best-in-class digital solutions to customers in banking, insurance, telecommunications, retail, media, public administration, and more. Founded in 1999, the company is based in Madrid, Spain.
Javier Pérez García is Global Director at VASS Financial Services, a team of experienced professionals with track records in helping fintechs, banks, and insurers modernize and reach their technological transformation goals. García has deep expertise in financial services IT architecture, AI deployment, and compliance-driven digital transformation strategies. He leads global modernization programs for banks and fintechs, aligning complex tech initiatives with regulatory requirements and helping institutions scale AI from pilot to production.
Anthropic launched a Financial Analysis Solution for its LLM Claude.
The Financial Analysis Solution will enable finance professionals to analyze markets, automate workflows, and make investment decisions using integrated data from platforms like Databricks and Snowflake while keeping user data secure and private.
With strategic partnerships spanning data providers and consulting firms, Claude is positioning itself alongside industry-specific LLMs like BloombergGPT to become an indispensable enterprise tool in financial services.
Anthropic announced this week that it is bolstering the resume of its LLM Claude. The California-based AI research company launched a solution for financial analysis that helps finance professionals analyze markets, conduct research, and make investment decisions.
Rather than require users to manually type details in to Claude, the Financial Analysis Solution creates a portal that unifies users’ financial data such as market feeds and internal data stored on third party platforms like Databricks and Snowflake. Analysts can use the new solution to modernize trading systems, develop proprietary models, automate compliance, and run complex analyses. Teams can monitor portfolios and compare performance and do not need to worry about inputting data into the platform, as users’ financial data is kept secure and is not used to train generative AI models.
The move into financial services tools lowers the barrier for mid-sized banks, asset managers, and even fintechs to build sophisticated tools without needing to hire large internal data science teams.
“Our strategic partnership with Anthropic is foundational to our success and our strategy to become a global leader in AI innovation in banking,” said Commonwealth Bank of Australia Chief Technology Officer Rodrigo Castillo. “Claude’s advanced capabilities, combined with Anthropic’s commitment to safety, are central to our purpose of harnessing AI responsibly, as we drive for transformation in critical areas like fraud prevention & customer service enhancement.”
With this launch, Claude is differentiating itself by forming partnerships with data providers that offer users access to the latest financial information via Box, Daloopa, Databricks, FactSet, Morningstar, Palantir, PitchBook, S&P Global, and Snowflake. Additionally, the new tool offers data access and implementation expertise through consultancy partners that provide tailored solutions across compliance, research, and enterprise AI adoption. These partners include Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, Slalom, TribeAI, and Turing.
Claude said that Financial Analysis Solution gives users a leg up on both speed and quality. The partnerships help analysts identify opportunities faster than traditional methods. And, when its client FundamentalLabs deployed it to build an Excel agent, Claude passed five out of seven levels of the Financial Modeling World Cup competition and scored 83% accuracy on complex Excel tasks.
“Claude has fundamentally transformed the way we work at NBIM. With Claude, we estimate that we have achieved ~20% productivity gains, equivalent to 213,000 hours,” said Norwegian sovereign wealth fund (NBIM) CEO Nicolai Tangen. “Our portfolio managers and risk department can now seamlessly query our Snowflake data warehouse and analyze earnings calls with unprecedented efficiency. From automating monitoring of newsflow for 9,000 companies to enabling more efficient voting, Claude has become indispensable.”
Anthropic isn’t the first LLM-owner to create an industry-specific solution. Others have launched AI specialization tools for industry verticals, including OpenAI’s GPTs, Google’s Gemini 1.5 for code and finance, and domain-specific LLMs like BloombergGPT. With its Financial Analysis Solution, Anthropic is making the move to compete more directly with its enterprise use cases.
With the first half of 2025 behind us, it’s a good time to look forward to what the second half of the year will bring. The first two quarters were packed with change: from the stablecoin frenzy and cuts to the CFPB in the US, to new regulatory crackdowns across Europe and the reversal of Section 1033, reshaping the future of open banking. Meanwhile, banks and fintechs are ramping up their use of AI, navigating new regulatory requirements, and adapting to global momentum around real-time payments and digital identity.
With all of this change, it’s hard to imagine the surprises that the next two quarters will bring. And while I can’t predict all of the surprises, there are five trends that banks and fintechs should not ignore as we move into the second half of the year.
The open banking conversation evolves
In the EU, PSD3 and the Financial Data Access (FIDA) framework are being finalized and the UK is moving forward with Open Banking 2.0 under the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC). In contrast, the US is in a period of regulatory uncertainty. The CFPB is pulling back from Section 1033 and JPMorgan revealed to data aggregators that it plans to increase the cost for them to pull consumer data. Banks need to keep a close eye on the evolving conversations around open banking as ripple effects take place across the globe.
AI becomes an arms race in financial services
AI is quickly becoming table stakes for financial services organizations. AI-native fintechs are setting new expectations around service, automation, and personalization. And firms are no longer stopping at chatbots and GenAI technologies. Instead, banks across Europe, the US, and Asia are increasingly integrating agentic AI, and even hiring AI agents for tasks like underwriting, compliance, and customer service. Expect the second half of the year to bring a continued rise in AI literacy programs and internal tooling as firms upskill teams and reduce reliance on third-party vendors by turning instead to agentic AI.
Tokenization takes over
In the first half of 2025, we saw major pilots for tokenized deposits, treasuries, and real-world assets (RWAs). In the latter half of the year, we can expect to see real world implementations, particularly in wholesale payments, interbank settlement, and liquidity management. Regulatory clarity is also beginning to transpire. Jurisdictions like the EU, Hong Kong, and Singapore are starting to define legal frameworks for tokenized financial products. This may prompt US regulators to clarify the treatment of tokenized deposits and securities.
Identity verification becomes a battleground
With rising fraud, easy-to-create deepfakes, and an increase in embedded finance, financial institutions are shifting from one-time identity checks to continuous, context-aware identity verification. The second half of this year will bring increased adoption of reusable digital IDs, decentralized identity frameworks (DID), and advanced biometrics tied to behavioral signals. As always, the challenge will be balancing a low-friction user experience with high security.
Real-time payments reshape expectations
FedNow is gaining traction in the US, ISO 20022 began rolling out earlier this week, and stablecoin-powered cross-border projects are on the rise. All of these aspects, plus an increase in stablecoin adoption are making real-time payments the norm and are raising customer expectations. Banks that can’t meet those expectations risk losing ground to more nimble players.
Lithuanian ICT security and compliance automation platform CyberUpgrade has introduced its free DORA self-assessment tool.
The new offering provides two ways for firms to assess their DORA readiness and make the necessary changes in order to comply with the new EU regulations on financial resilience.
CyberUpgrade made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London.
Lithuania-based regtech CyberUpgrade recently launched a free DORA self-assessment tool designed to help fintechs meet the European Union regulatory requirements of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). DORA is a new EU-based mandate designed to ensure the security and operational resilience of companies in the financial sector, specifically by focusing on the networks and information systems that financial operations rely on. The regulation impacts not only banks, investment companies, and insurers, but also third-party ICT providers, as well.
“DORA has introduced a complex and urgent set of requirements that many financial institutions and their third-party providers have been struggling with,” CyberUpgrade CEO and Co-Founder Aurimas Bakas said. “Our tool helps organizations get clarity on where they stand and what actions they need to prioritize—without needing prior in-depth DORA knowledge.”
DORA mandates that companies must maintain essential operations even during major disruptions; provide robust defense against fraud and cyber threats; and log, monitor, and report major ICT incidents. Although DORA was enacted in January 2023 and went into effect at the beginning of this year, only 1% of EU companies are fully DORA-compliant. Reasons for this vary from a lack of in-house expertise on regulatory requirements to simple uncertainty and confusion as to how to begin the process.
In response, CyberUpgrade DORA Self-Assessment Tool is free, anonymized, and helps everyone from technical cybersecurity and compliance specialists to executives and managers quickly assess their DORA readiness. The solution is available in two modalities: firms can choose a Fast Track Mode that provides a five-minute, high-level snapshot of their current DORA readiness status, or a Full Scope Mode that includes a 25-minute “deep dive” that spots compliance gaps and produces a detailed readiness score, along with actionable insights.
Using the tool is straightforward. Firms only need to go to the CyberUpgrade DORA Self-Assessment Tool website, select a mode (Fast Track or Full Scope), complete the assessment questionnaire, and download the resulting report that details DORA readiness, any compliance gaps, and recommended next steps. There is no sign-up required and there are no hidden fees or obligations.
“Financial institutions falling short of DORA’s standards face serious regulatory risks, including administrative fines, business restrictions, or even losing operating licenses,” CyberUpgrade General Counsel Nojus Bendoraitis wrote on the company’s blog. “The risks are even sharper for third-party ICT service providers, who are directly supervised by European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and face strict oversight and penalties.”
CyberUpgrade made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. At the conference, the ICT security and compliance automation platform demonstrated how its AI-driven co-pilot CoreGuardian works with its vendor management solution VendorGuard to provide comprehensive cybersecurity and compliance. CoreGuardian engages workers one-on-one through channels like Slack and Teams to provide real-time education, assessment, and alerts. VendorGuard streamlines vendor management by handling risk assessments, incident planning, and prioritization.
CyberUpgrade’s technology automates up to 80% of compliance tasks, reduces compliance costs by more than €60,000 each year, and keeps companies audit-ready around the clock. Founded in 2023, CyberUpgrade is headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping every corner of the financial services world, and auditing is no exception. As firms look for smarter ways to manage repetitive, manual processes, AI-powered tools are stepping in to reduce risk, save time, and improve accuracy.
Filmed at FinovateSpring earlier this year, this Streamly video features Aman Kaur, Sales Director at DataSnipper, discussing how DataSnipper transforms how auditors work. Kaur shares how the company is helping audit teams evolve their workflows through embedded automation. By eliminating repetitive tasks like copying data, matching documents, and performing manual verifications, DataSnipper frees up auditors to focus on higher-value analysis, which results in a smarter, faster audit process.
“We’re seeing that finance and audit professionals are spending too much of their valuable time on very repetitive, very menial tasks,” said Kaur. “So our mission at DataSnipper is to resolve that with automation, and we want to meet them where they’re spending that time, which is in Excel. So we’re working in building tools that are going to help eliminate a lot of the repetitive work and give them time back to focus on more strategic work.”
Founded in 2017, DataSnipper is a smart automation platform built directly into Excel that helps auditors, finance teams, and consultants work more efficiently. The company’s AI-powered tools automatically match and extract data from supporting documents such as invoices, contracts, and bank statements to save time and reduce human error. Today, DataSnipper is used by over 500,000 professionals in 125+ countries, including the Big Four and top-tier audit firms around the world.
Aman Kaur brings experience in enterprise SaaS sales, working across industries to introduce transformative technologies. At DataSnipper, she focuses on helping audit and finance teams embrace automation and rethink what their workflows can look like.
San Francisco, California-based embedded finance platform Highnote has launched its Instant Payments capability.
The new addition to its unified product platform will enable businesses to provide near real-time payments from Highnote-issued cards to eligible debit and prepaid cards.
Founded in 2021, Highnote made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022.
Embedded finance platform Highnote, which began the year with a $90 million Series B funding round led by Adams Street Partners, has announced the latest addition to its unified product platform. The company launched its Instant Payments capability this week to empower businesses to provide near real-time payouts from Highnote-issued cards to eligible external debit and prepaid cards.
Instant Payments enables businesses to push funds to debit and prepaid cards in the US. This not only gives users faster access to their earned wages, but also boosts liquidity and enhances payout operations. By embedding instant payments functionality directly into its product platform, Highnote believes its solution compares favorably to “stitched together” legacy infrastructures by giving users built-in access to seamless, intelligent money movement. Use cases for the technology include gig worker payouts, employee tips, insurance reimbursements, merchant settlements, refunds, and more.
“Instant Payments reflects both where our subscribers are today and where the market is headed,” Highnote CTO Kin Kee said. “By embedding on-demand disbursements directly into our issuing stack, we are helping businesses move money faster and more intelligently, all within a single, unified product experience.”
Highnote’s Instant Payments is supported by Mastercard’s portfolio of money transfer solutions, Mastercard Move, as well as by Visa Direct, and is currently available to all Highnote’s US subscribers.
Visa SVP for Money Movement North America Yanilsa Gonzalez-Ore underscored the ability of the technology to help businesses “leverage Visa’s scale and robust security infrastructure to deliver faster and more reliable payouts.” Stefany Bello, SVP for Digital Partnerships, Fintech & Enablers for Mastercard, North America, highlighted the company’s “longstanding relationship with Highnote” and the importance of the collaboration in ensuring “businesses can securely access critical funds in near real-time to keep their operations up and running.”
Headquartered in San Francisco, Highnote made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022. The company offers a unified, embedded finance platform, designed for modern card issuance, acquiring, credit, and real-time money movement. The platform features built-in ledgering, integrated payment capabilities and complete program management to help fintechs, vertical SaaS providers, and businesses launch their own embedded payments experiences.
Highnote has raised more than $140 million in funding courtesy of a Seed and Series A round in 2021 and a Series B round at the beginning of 2025. John MacIlwaine is Co-Founder and CEO.
AI debt collection startup Murphy raised $15 million in pre-Seed and Seed funding to scale its autonomous, multilingual AI agents that help organizations recover hard-to-collect debt across sectors like banking, BNPL, utilities, and healthcare.
Murphy differentiates itself with agentic AI that offers human-like, behavioral, and empathetic voice interactions that operate 24/7 in over 30 languages.
Murphy plans to use the new capital to expand into the US, grow its team, and further disrupt the $300 billion global collections industry.
Debt collection startup Murphy announced this week that it closed $15 million in pre-Seed and Seed funds. The investment was led by Northzone, while ElevenLabs, Lakestar, Seedcamp, and existing investors also participated.
Founded in 2024, Murphy seeks to transform debt servicing by leveraging autonomous AI agents to help debt collection agents from utility companies, telcos, banks, BNPL companies, microlenders, healthcare firms, and more recover debt that would have otherwise been untouched or written off. The company uses voice agents and behavioral personalization techniques that work across channels, 24 hours per day and in more than 30 languages.
“We’re building AI-native infrastructure that replaces traditional call centers with a scalable, multilingual solution,” said Murphy Co-founder and CEO Borja Sole. “It helps companies recover more, faster, and more cost-efficiently, while staying compliant and treating debtors with respect.”
Murphy is tackling an often overlooked industry, as there has long been a disconnect between consumers’ digital behavior and how collections are handled. Bringing AI into the equation may help organizations collect previously unrecoverable debt, especially in high-volume, low-value cases. Murphy differentiates its product by taking a unique approach to AI implementation. It doesn’t simply use chatbots and scripted voice technologies, but rather employs agentic AI that is capable of multilingual, empathetic, and behavioral interactions that bring a human-like nuance to conversations that can scale without adding labor costs.
Since launching less than a year ago, Murphy is already managing hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. The company has acquired clients across Europe and plans to use today’s funding to accelerate its expansion across Europe and the US, scale its product, and expand its team.
“Debt servicing is a $300+ billion global industry that is ripe for disruption. After reviewing countless verticals, this stood out as a space where AI can make a major impact,” said Northzone Partner Jeppe Zink. “Given their experience and relentless development speed, Borja and his team are uniquely positioned to transform this space.”
Murphy is part of a larger wave of AI-powered services in the financial services space. Investors are pouring money into these companies in anticipation that AI-native vertical SaaS companies like Murphy will replace legacy systems in high-friction industries such as collections, compliance, and insurance.
“This is the turning point for AI in community finance—we’ve moved beyond experimentation,” Eltropy VP of Product and Head of AI Saahil Kamath said. “Our AI certification program proves that credit unions and community banks can build, deploy, and benefit from AI, not tomorrow but today. In under one hour, participants were able to create real bots on real channels, not just slides and ideas. That’s what practical AI looks like, and that’s how we close the gap between innovation and impact.”
The self-paced, online program will go live later this summer. The course is designed for workers in both the front- and back-office, and will provide foundational knowledge in AI, practical applications for Agentic AI, and how to use the technology in a safe, compliant way in regulated environments like banking and finance. Participants will get hands-on experience building live AI agents for telephony, website, and internal knowledge systems. The course will also provide instruction in AI-based technologies such as Large-Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), prompt engineering, and Quality Assurance (QA) automation.
The hands-on nature of Eltropy’s program differentiates it from other AI training programs that can be more theoretical, the company noted in a statement. Participants who successfully complete the program will receive an Eltropy AI Practitioner Certificate and advanced learning materials and tools that will enable them to put their practical AI skills to use at their own institutions.
“Our goal is to demystify AI,” Eltropy Head of AI Engineering Rahul Prakash said. “By the end of the course, every participant should have a working solution—whether for voice, web, or internal operations—while gaining clarity on responsible AI usage in regulated environments.”
Eltropy’s announcement follows the successful training the company held at its annual user conference EMERGE 2025, where 130+ credit union and community bank professionals earned their practitioner certificates. The course was completed in less than an hour and was credited for being “insightful and educational” and for “making AI real and doable” by participants.
“We came in curious and walked out certified,” said one participant, who hailed from a Midwest credit union.
The announcement also follows news that the company has fully integrated video banking into its Unified Conversations Platform. Eltropy’s video banking solution enables credit unions and community banks to offer secure, face-to-face banking services to members and customers around the clock. The integration helps promote financial inclusion, providing greater reach into underserved communities where physical branches may be distant or unavailable. The solution also enables institutions to connect members and customers with interpreters during a video banking session to make sure that language differences are not an impediment to accessing financial services.
“What started as a pandemic necessity has become a competitive advantage for community financial institutions,” Eltropy Co-Founder and CEO Ashish Garg said. “Our customers are seeing remarkable results—from 84% growth in booked loans to 70% reduction in lost opportunities. They key is that Video Banking isn’t replacing personal service, it’s extending it. CFIs can now deliver that same high-touch experience whether someone walks into their lobby or connects from their kitchen table.”
Founded in 2014, Eltropy made its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demoed Eltropy One, its all-in-one omni channel solution that enables financial institutions to manage both inbound and outbound communications from a universal console. Eltropy One supports communication via text, secure chat, video, audio, cobrowsing, and conversational bots.
Eltropy’s AI certification course comes weeks after the company unveiled its desktop app, which delivers faster access with less resource usage. The solution provides 20% faster launch times and combines full feature parity with browser-based access. Also this summer, Eltropy launched its Collections 2.0 Suite to help community financial institutions deal with rising delinquency rates while maintaining positive customer and member relationships. Note that Eltropy acquired collections technology company Lexop at the beginning of the year.
Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Eltropy counts more than 700 credit unions and community banks among its clients, and has powered 200 million conversations since inception.
