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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
SESAMm is a fintech company specializing in big data and artificial intelligence. It provides analytics and investment signals from over 20B web data points using NLP.
Features
Broad coverage: includes 20B articles covering 5M public and private companies
Timeliness: provides near-live web data
Transparency and expertise: delivers detailed alerts and 90 pre-built ESG risk categories
Why it’s great
TextReveal® Alerts & Monitoring helps companies keep track of potential controversies and positive-impact events on companies of interest.
Presenter
Sylvain Forté, CEO Forté is the CEO & Co-Founder of SESAMm. His passion for artificial intelligence and finance led him to create SESAMm in 2014. Forté holds a double degree in engineering from Germany and France. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
Little Blocks is a fintech platform for SMB manufacturers. It facilitates access to risk capital for machinery purchases by leveraging industrial IoT data and blockchain technology.
Features
Risk capital – repayments linked to machine usage
Industrial IoT data on blockchain – single source of truth
Machine tokenization – distributed digital ownership
Why it’s great
Invest in a machine, why just lend? Little Blocks is a technology platform designed to build trust for SME manufacturers – trust unlocks value and enhances investor return.
Presenter
Hanu Panchakarla, Co-Founder & CEO Panchakarla comes with over 15 years of experience in finance and technology during which he worked with Bank of America and several technology startups in India. He is an alumnus of IIT Madras and a CFA. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
Refine Intelligence is transforming AML by ‘catching the good guys’ using AI to automatically identify the life stories behind anomalous transactions.
Features
Explains 80% of alerts in minutes
Delivers 90% reduction in triage time
Provides clear evidence, consistency and explainability
Why it’s great
By ‘catching the good guys’ in anti-money laundering, companies identify their customer’s life stories, keeping customers happy and saving the bank time and money.
Presenters
Uri Rivner, CEO Rivner is a technology innovator who has been fighting fraud and financial crime for decades. He founded Refine Intelligence to disrupt the current paradigm. LinkedIn
Gillie Natra, Product Manager Natra is a talented visual communicator and user experience expert. She is the Product Manager at Refine Intelligence, an innovative company in anti-money laundering. LinkedIn
Payoneer received its e-money license from the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority.
The license will enable the digital commerce company to continue serving its U.K.-based customers.
Having earned the license, Payoneer now plans to grow its footprint in the U.K. region.
Global digital commerce company Payoneerreceived its e-money license from the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) this week. The license will enable Payoneer to continue to provide its e-money services to U.K.-based businesses.
“The FCA traditionally sets the tone of financial regulation globally and therefore we are extremely proud to be receiving our e-money license in the U.K., said Payoneer Payment Services CEO and SVP of Payoneer Europe James Allum. “We’re excited to be able to continue serving our customers in the U.K. and with our relationship with the FCA. Our customers in the UK now have confidence in Payoneer’s consistent ability to provide regulated financial services of the highest standard.”
With the new U.K. money license, Payoneer will grow its footprint in the region, offering its digital money services to U.K.-based businesses.
Payoneer was founded in 2005 and offers multi-currency accounts to five million customers ranging from marketplaces, sellers, freelancers, gig workers, manufacturers, banks, suppliers, and buyers. With a mission to “democratize access to financial services and drive growth for digital businesses of all sizes from around the world,” Payoneer helps users pay, get paid, and manage funds on a global scale. The company also offers working capital– providing advances to Amazon and Walmart sellers, as well as to small businesses.
In 2021, Payoneer went public via a SPAC merger with FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp. The company listed on the NASDAQ in June 2021 under the ticker PAYO. Scott Galit is CEO.
QUODD has agreed to acquire fellow market data company Xignite.
Combined, the two companies will serve more than 2,200 firms, ranging from large banks and wealth management platforms to smaller digital investment tools.
QUODD said the purchase reinforces its commitment to become “the premier cloud-based global financial market data and content provider.” Company CEO Bob Ward added, “Xignite is well known for being an early adopter of delivering high-quality market data solutions via the cloud as well as for its extensive API-driven data catalog. I look forward to working with Stephane Dubois, CEO of Xignite, and his team to help us fuel our next chapter of growth delivering the most accessible and reliable data for our customers.”
Combined, Xignite and QUODD will serve more than 2,200 companies, ranging from large banks and wealth management platforms to smaller digital investment tools. QUODD will leverage Xignite’s technology to enhance its QUODD Fuel, which will integrate Xignite’s content catalog; and Universe+, which will leverage Xignite’s market data.
QUODD’s technology enables clients to stream, embed, look up, and download pricing data for global equities, fixed income, indices, options, futures, and end-of-day pricing for global mutual funds. The company is owned by NewSpring Holdings’ Financeware, a probability-analysis technology and marketing strategies provider, which acquired QUODD in 2019 for an undisclosed amount.
NewSpring Holdings has lofty ambitions for the Xignite buy. “Our goal for the combined organization is to create the industry’s leading provider in centralized market data augmented with superior customer service, anchored in the strength of long-standing relationships and supported by leading technologies, which is why this transaction was a perfect fit,” said NewSpring Holdings General Partner Jim Ashton. “2022 was another year of strong organic growth for QUODD and, combined with Xignite, we are continuing to raise the bar in transforming the digital adoption of financial data for market participants.”
Founded in 2000, Xignite offers market data APIs to its brokerage, wealth management, and fintech clients. The company’s APIs offer a range of market data– including real-time stock prices, historical stock prices, options prices, futures prices, mutual fund prices, ETF prices, foreign exchange rates, bond prices, and more. Combined, the company’s customers use Xignite’s APIs more than half a trillion times each month.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
ebankIT enables banks and credit unions to future-proof their digital strategy and to offer a proactive, interactive, and consistent experience through every banking channel.
Features
Includes a new tool to anticipate clients’ needs
Provides back-office ratings of each user experience
Uses data so banks know the best way to address each customer
Alerts clients when a bug is solved and why it happened
Why it’s great
A tool that assesses the banking app performance of each client and uses that data to give customers an experience tailored to their unique needs and past experiences. That’s what ebankIT does.
Presenters
Pete Atkinson, VP of Global Sales Atkinson has spent much of his career working at the convergent point of technology, business, and consumers. He is VP of Sales at ebankIT and for the last 15 years has helped FIs to digitally transform. LinkedIn
Joana Lucas, Sales Development Representative Lucas is a financial industry enthusiast, experienced in Financial Markets, Banking, and Fintech space. Her current mission: Help FIs humanize their digital banking worldwide via ebankIT´s omnichannel capabilities. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
Storied Data’s platform creates and distributes smart digital documents. Get rid of PDFs and transform all digital communications with in-document UI/UX, data interactivity, and analytics.
Features
Replaces PDFs and static documents with smart digital documents
Create a transformational user experience with Hybrid DocuApps
Improves cost, time, and ESG efficiency by 90%
Why it’s great
Documents are companies’ most frequent stakeholder touchpoints. UX should be similar to mobile and web apps and remain portable and accessible – online and off.
Presenters
Rado Kotorov, Founder & CEO Kotorov is a business leader and innovator with many patents, articles and books. He is passionate about data and digital technologies that create new business models and revenue streams. LinkedIn
Antoine Chausson, CRO EMEA Chausson is a senior banking executive with over 30 years of international banking management. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on March 14. Register today and save your spot.
Finshape delivers ready-to-use, customisable digital banking solutions for retail, corporate, and SME clients in Europe, Africa, and MENA regions.
Features
Includes a mobile banking app with data-driven business insights
Creates informative and swipeable stories about the SME’s finances
Delivers relevant and actionable notifications to provide more sales opportunities
Why it’s great
Finshape is a digital banking solution provider that boosts digital engagement, loyalty, and sales among companies’ customers with actionable insights through mobile banking platforms.
Presenters
Tamás Braun, Head of International Sales Braun is a stakeholder and the head of the international sales team at Finshape. Braun has more than 20 years of experience in the digital banking field. LinkedIn
Christian Hanke, Regional Sales Director Hanke is a regional sales director at Finshape. He has more than 10 years of experience in the digital banking field. LinkedIn
Experian announced a partnership with Envestnet | Yodlee to help lenders in Australia take advantage of open data.
The collaboration will help Experian manifest its open data strategy in the country following its application to be an Accredited Data Recipient.
Both Experian and Envestnet | Yodlee have been Finovate alums since 2012 and 2016, respectively.
Information services company Experian has picked a partner as its official Open Data API provider in Australia. The company is teaming up with data aggregation and analytics platform Envestnet | Yodlee in an alliance that will allow Experian to access data under the Consumer Data Right (CDR) from data holders including Australia’s Big Four banks and more than 70 Australian FIs.
“Open Data solutions have the capability to solve two of the biggest challenges for Australian lenders: the accuracy of data to support responsible lending and streamlining the customer experience to get a faster decision,” General Manager of Experian Digital Simone Jemmett explained. “The more consumers that opt in to share data through Open Banking, the faster it will deliver the value it has in more mature data markets spurring innovation and greater competition among lenders,” Jemmett said.
The partnership news comes in the wake of Experian’s application to the Australian Competition ad Consumer Commission (ACCC) to become an Accredited Data Recipient under the CDR back in December. This is key step in becoming a part of Australia’s open banking ecosystem, and enabling Experian to focus on delivering fast and accurate affordability assessments. By leveraging Envestnet | Yodlee’s APIs, Experian will be able to help lenders shift to an emphasis on using Open Data sources rather than the traditional credit application process that requires manual uploads and data entry, as well as other inefficient practices.
“Lending is a valuable use case for Open Data with tangible benefits for lenders and borrowers,” Envestnet | Yodlee A/NZ Country Manager Tim Poskitt said. “With Experian coming into the CDR ecosystem, Australian Open Banking is reaching a tipping point and we’re ready for adoption to accelerate in 2023.”
A Finovate alum for more than a decade, Experian made its most recent appearance on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall in 2018. More recently, the company has partnered with fellow Finovate alum Zopa, which integrated Experian Boost into its credit-decisioning process. Experian began the year teaming up with decentralized and secured lending portfolio provider Credefi, and launching a new solution called CreditLock. This new feature enables customers to lock their Experian Credit Report to defend themselves against fraud and identity theft. “Our goal is to create products that help improve people’s financial wellbeing and give them more control over their finances,” Experian Head of Product Management Jayne Sankoh-Beacom said. “With this new feature we can now give our customers that extra layer of protection against identity fraud.”
Making its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall 2021, Envestnet | Yodlee finished 2022 with news of a “deeper integration” between its Redi2 BillFin client billing solution and Schwab Advisor Services. This deeper integration gives advisors on Schwab’s platform who are using BillFin to access capabilities such as flexible billing setup and standardized templates, as well as reminders and alerts. “This deeper level of integration will allow even more data to seamlessly flow back and forth between the BillFin and Schwab platforms,” Envestnet Head of Billing Technology Fermin Garcia explained.
PhonePe raised $100 million in funding from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds, bringing its total funding to $2.2 billion.
The investment values the company at $12 billion.
PhonePe will use the funds to scale its existing payments and insurance businesses and to enter new financial services sub-sectors.
Digital money app PhonePe just raised $100 million in funding from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds. The investment follows a $350 million round PhonePe received last month and brings the India-based company’s total funding to $2.2 billion.
Today’s round, which values PhonePe at $12 billion, contributes to the company’s $1 billion capital raise target. Within six weeks of benchmarking the $1 billion goal, PhonePe is almost halfway there. The company has already raised $450 million and “expects further investments from leading global, as well as prominent high net worth Indian investors in due course.”
The mobile payments innovator will use the investment to scale its existing payments and insurance businesses. The funds will also fuel PhonePe’s entry into new businesses like lending, stockbroking, ecommerce, and account aggregators, which it plans to begin pursuing in the next few years.
“Our investment in PhonePe reinforces our conviction on backing best in class Founders while betting on the financial digitization of the next 450 million Indians,” said TCF Chairman and Managing Director Gopal Srinivasan. “We view this more as an opportunity in a population scale business for New India, driven by an outstanding management team with razor sharp focus, as driven by execution.”
PhonePe was founded in 2015 and now facilitates payments for its 440+ million registered users. The company’s end-to-end payments solution offers businesses a no-code payment gateway platform and provides consumers with a payment app where they can pay bills, send money, buy gold, invest, and shop online and in-person.
The company, which was acquired by Walmart-owned Flipkart in 2016, distanced itself from the Flipkart brand in 2020 via a financing round that dropped Flipkart’s ownership of PhonePe from 100% down to 87%. Earlier this month, the company began facilitating international transactions through Unified Payments Interface (UPI), enabling Indian travelers to make UPI transactions to foreign merchants using PhonePe platform.
The decision by digital asset platform Bakkt to pivot toward B2B technology solutions and away from consumer-based crypto products appears to be part of the greater re-evaluation that many fintechs are doing in the wake of the crypto crash of 2022. The company, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall last September, announced this week that it was turning the page on its consumer-facing app, launched in March 2021. Instead, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based fintech will focus on helping businesses provide crypto and loyalty experiences to its customers via SaaS and API solutions.
“As we continue to gain traction with our B2B2C strategy, we are laser focused on providing our partners and clients with seamless solutions that best serve their needs,” Bakkt President and CEP Gavin Michael said. “The discontinuation of the app ensures we are supporting the relationship our partners and clients have with their customers. With this move, we are focusing our investment on our core solutions that have product-market fit and are positioned to scale quickly.”
Bakkt’s decision to shutter its consumer-based crypto app comes in the wake of the company’s agreement to acquire crypto trading platform Apex Crypto from Apex Fintech Solutions back in November 2022. With more than 30 fintech partners and more than five million customers, Apex Crypto is expected to help support Bakkt’s B2B2C strategy of bringing more crypto-based solutions to clients in a range of verticals.
Bakkt’s consumer crypto app is set to sunset just over one month from now, on March 16. Current users of the app will continue to be able to access their crypto and cash on the platform courtesy of a new online, device-agnostic solution. The new experience will enable users to check crypto balances, as well as access transaction reports for tax purposes.
Founded in 2018, Bakkt demoed its Crypto Connect technology at FinovateFall last year. The solution helped consumers use their current financial services institution’s mobile app to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies in a secure, trusted environment. In December, Bakkt laid off 15% of its exempt employee base in a bid to better control costs as the cryptocurrency downturn and FTX scandal soured the much of the public – as well as investors – on the space.
A publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange since the fall of 2021, Bakkt is listed under the ticker “BKKT.” The firm has a market capitalization of $433 million.
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.
