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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
AxwayOpen Banking provides secure, pre-configured open banking APIs for rapid adoption and rich intuitive developer experience to attract collaboration and pre-configured consent management integration.
Features
Developer Portal
APIs built to common open banking standards
Identity and consent management
Powered by a robust API management platform
Why it’s great
Axway Open Banking accelerates the secure sharing of financial data across ecosystems enabling financial institutions to unlock data from their existing infrastructure.
Presenter
Eyal Sivan, Head of Open Banking Sivan is the Head of Open Banking at Axway. He is also the host of the Mr. Open Banking podcast. LinkedIn
Today, as we near the end of our Financial Literacy Month commemoration, we’re highlighting those Best of Show winning fintech innovators and the work they do in making financial education available to a broadening range of communities.
Provo, Utah-based Banzai made its one-and-only Finovate appearance at FinovateFall 2018 in New York. At the event, the company won Best of Show for its offering that helps banks and credit unions boost customer engagement and ROI while providing financial education for their customers and members.
FamZoo demoed its technology on the Finovate stage twice – in 2011 and again in 2013 – winning Best of Show on both occasions. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California and founded in 2006, the two-time Best of Show winner offers a prepaid card and financial education for kids in a single family finance app.
When it comes to financial literacy, companies like Horizn help the financial services community help itself. Making its Finovate debut in 2017, Horizn earned a pair of Best of Show awards in its two most recent appearances in 2020 and 2021. The company offers a platform that helps financial institutions accelerate digital banking knowledge, fluency, and adoption for both customers and employees. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Horizn was founded in 2011.
Not many companies can boast of winning a Finovate Best of Show award in two different decades, but Kasasa (formerly known as BancVue) has done that and then some. The financial and marketing technology provider, based in Austin, Texas, and founded in 2004, won Best of Show in its Finovate debut in 2009. Nearly ten years later, the company picked up its third Best of Show award at FinovateSpring in 2018 (Kasasa also won Best of Show in 2011 in San Francisco). In addition to offering a variety of innovative fintech products – such as its “take-back loan” – Kasasa also launched an online game called MoneyIsland that helps instruct kids on the importance of sound money management.
One of two Best of Show winning Canadian companies with a commitment to financial literacy, Ottawa, Ontario-based Launchfire won Best of Show at FinovateSpring 2019 in its second Finovate appearance. The company specializes in game-based employee and customer engagement for financial institutions. Most notably, Launchfire offers an employee engagement solution, Lemonade, that blends gamification with micro-learning, AI, and “surgical analytics” to educate financial services employees.
Long Game is one of Finovate’s newest alums and one of our more recent Best of Show winners, as well. The company, founded in 2015 and based in San Francisco, California, won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021 last September. Long Game offers a bank-branded mobile app that combines the best practices of prize-linked savings and mobile gaming to help banks and credit unions acquire new customers, increase customer engagement, and boost financial literacy.
Earning a Best of Show award in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019, Zogo Finance leverages behavioral economic research developed at Duke University to help improve financial literacy for young people. The company’s app transforms tricky financial concepts into smaller, easier-to-understand lessons, and offers rewards and incentives to users who complete them. The company announced 31 new financial institution partnerships in Q1 of 2022 alone, bringing its total partnership tally to more than 180 banks and credit unions.
Fidelity Investments announced the launch of its gamified, metaverse-based financial education experience.
The Fidelity Stack is an eight-story, virtual building that hosts a lobby, a dance floor, a rooftop for hanging out, and an Invest Quest challenge to help users learn about ETF investing.
Fidelity Investments’ new offering comes in the wake of the launch of a metaverse-themed exchange-traded fund (ETF), FMET.
Financial Literacy Month meets the metaverse movement as Fidelity Investments unveils a new gamified financial education experience located in Decentraland, a virtual world launched in 2020. The new offering, The Fidelity Stack, features a lobby, a dance floor, and a roof top hangout, as well as an Invest Quest challenge in which visitors gather “orbs” and learn the basics of investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) while moving through eight-story Fidelity Stack facility.
“We’re part of a dynamic shift as young people take control of their finances in new ways,” Fidelity CMO and Head of Emerging Customers David Dintenfass said. “The next generation seeks out financial education in all the places they spend time, whether physical or virtual. We’re committed to serve customers in these decentralized communities as they transform and grow.”
In a preview video of The Fidelity Stack in Decentraland, Fidelity in the Metaverse, the investment firm noted that while the new experience is “not our first metaverse rodeo” The Fidelity Stack nevertheless represents Fidelity as “the first brokerage firm to have an immersive, educational metaverse experience.” Locating its new offering in Decentraland also could help Fidelity Investments reach younger audiences; Decentraland is dedicated toward users in the 18-35 age range – a cohort that Reuters noted represented 3.8 million of the Fidelity brokerage accounts opened in 2021.
The Fidelity Stack comes hot on the heels of the launch of a new ETF from Fidelity Investments that enables investors to add exposure to companies that are building the metaverse to their portfolios. FMET, as the ETF is called, includes shares of companies such as Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Adobe, and NVIDIA. Unveiled along with another new ETF – the Fidelity Crypto Industry and Digital Payments ETF, FDIG – FMET is designed to give investors the opportunity to participate in the growth of new technologies without requiring investors to have a great deal of experience in or familiarity with the complexity that accompanies these new innovations.
“Leveraging Fidelity’s decades of investment experience, we are focused on growing our broad product lineup with innovative strategies that offer choice, value, and new opportunities to investors,” Fidelity Head of ETF Management and Strategy Greg Friedman said. “We continue to see demand particularly from young investors, for access to the rapidly growing industries in the digital ecosystem and these two thematic ETFs offer investors exposure in a familiar investment vehicle.”
Personetics launched its Sustainability Insights solution this week, giving consumers visibility into the carbon emissions of their spending and investments.
The new offering is made possible thanks to a partnership with sustainability-as-a-service company ecolytiq.
The launch of Sustainability Insights comes less than a month after the company introduced new proactive cash flow management functionality on its platform.
Financial data-driven personalization innovator Personetics announced the launch of a new offering, Sustainability Insights, to help financial institutions respond to consumer demand – and increasing expectations from regulators — for sustainable, environmentally-responsible, climate-aware finance. The new solution has been made possible courtesy of Personetics’ partnership with sustainability-as-a-service company ecolytiq, and will enable customers to see their own carbon footprint, as well as suggest ways they can reduce the impact of their transactions on the climate by pursuing greener spending options and financial objectives that are support climate sustainability.
“Personetics Sustainability Insights are the next evolution in sustainable finance,” Personetics CEO David Sosna said. “Beyond just showing back customers their carbon footprint, we offer them specific actions that they can take today to reduce their carbon impact, choose climate-friendly savings goals, and push the industry in a greener direction.”
Sustainability Insights offers consumers a personalized, holistic “financial map” that graphically shows the carbon emissions of customer spending and/or investments. The solution also offers personalized insights and advice, tailored to the customer’s financial profile, to help them reduce those carbon emissions. The recommendations range from the more modest, for example, transacting with a different, more eco-conscious merchant, to the more comprehensive, such as setting up a savings plan to pay for the installation of solar panels on a home. Sustainability Insights also leverages quizzes and feedback insights to enhance the accuracy of its recommendations. In a statement, Personetics noted that the solution is based on the company’s “four pillars of sustainable finance” strategy; namely, that the technology be integrated, relatable, interactive, and actionable.
Sustainability Insights is also designed to have benefits for banks and financial institutions, as well as for their customers. For one, Sosna highlighted the ability of the solution to improve customer engagement, and open up new opportunities for cross-selling. “This will create deeper relationships with banking customers and ultimately support banks’ ESG reporting,” Sosna explained. “Every financial institution can be a leader in green banking with Sustainability Insights.”
A Finovate alum since 2016, Personetics serves more than 80 financial institutions in 30 global markets, and reaches 120 million customers. An innovator in the field of financial data-driven personalization, customer engagement, and advanced money management capabilities for financial services, Personetics is dedicated to what it calls “the future of self-driving finance” in which banks are able to serve their customers’ financial wellness needs proactively.
Speaking of which, earlier this month Personetics introduced new “proactive cash flow management” capabilities on its platform. The offering is geared toward helping mitigate liquidity issues that customers face that often lead to overdrafts. Proactive cash flow management predicts 70% of overdraft situations, reduces the frequency of low balance incidents, provides personalized recommendations to help fix overdrafts, and helps enhance customer relationships with their financial institution, leading to higher customer lifetime value (CLV).
“Progressive banks all over the world are seeking new ways to help customers with their money management,” Jody Bhagat, President of Americas at Personetics, said when the cash flow management capabilities were launched. “By adopting a data-driven, personalized approach, banks can unleash their creativity in delivering tailored solutions and treatments that put customers’ financial wellness at the center of the experience.”
The financial industry has made significant investments in document lifecycle management solutions to enhance productivity, accuracy, and flexibility. There is broad recognition that paper-based processes are a huge source of waste and inefficiency, but simply transitioning away from paper often isn’t enough on its own to achieve true digital transformation. That’s because performing a digital-based process manually still presents many of the same problems. In order to leverage the true benefits of digital document management, fintechs need to implement data capture and document generation capabilities as part of a broader process automation solution.
A Quick History of Data Capture & Document Generation
To understand how fintechs can use data capture and document generation technology to enable their digital transformation, it’s helpful to take a moment to understand the history of these tools and how they’ve developed since their origins.
Data Capture
The financial industry was an early innovator in data capture technology with the development of the specialized OCR-A font in the 1960s. This simple monospace font is still used today for the account and routing numbers on an ordinary bank check. Early data capture technology relied on pattern recognition, so an exact pixel match was needed to read the characters electronically and match them to a corresponding character in a font library. While this worked well enough for scanning printed bank checks into a computer system to track transactions, reading anything else on the check with an automated system required further developments in data capture tools.
Modern character recognition technology utilizes a more sophisticated feature detection approach that uses the component elements of each character to distinguish them from one another. An “A,” for example, usually consists of the same basic elements (two angular lines that come to a point with a horizontal line crossing them) regardless of the font used. Breaking characters down into their component elements has even made it possible for software to read handwritten characters as well as machine-printed text.
Document Generation
Document generation technology emerged in the 1970s in the form of document assembly, which was originally used by lawyers to streamline contract creation. Contracts are highly structured and rules-oriented, which made it easy to build a decision-tree logic that could be understood by the software tools of that era. Early document assembly programs used a collection of document templates that incorporated conditional fields the software could replace automatically each time it generated a contract.
Modern document assembly is typically used as part of a more robust document automation solution. Software extracts information from a database and inserts it into a template to generate unique documents quickly, easily, and accurately. These programs are much more sophisticated and flexible than early document assembly tools, allowing organizations to programmatically generate a wide range of documents without ever having to look at the contents prior to the final review process.
Data Capture & Document Assembly in Fintech Today
Despite being an early innovator in OCR technology, the financial industry has been slow to implement more robust data capture capabilities throughout their operations. According to a recent study, 63% of banks are still collecting information from documents manually, a process that’s not only time consuming, but also incredibly prone to error. They’ve been slightly faster to adopt document generation, with 49% of banks still relying on manual processes to create documents.
Ironically, fintech organizations are even more dependent upon manual practices than traditional banks. When it comes to data capture, 75% of fintechs are reviewing documents and entering their data manually rather than using an automated solution. The story is largely the same for document generation, as 79% of them are still creating documents manually.
Understandably, most of these organizations are planning to implement some form of automated data capture and document generation solution within the next two to three years. That’s because they recognize that it will be difficult to achieve true digital transformation without them.
Why Data Capture and Document Generation Are So Important for Fintech
Fintech companies have developed a wide range of innovative financial tools that allow consumers to take better control of their finances and help organizations manage their resources more efficiently. In order to deliver those streamlined solutions, however, fintechs need to have the capabilities in place to make their own processes more efficient.
Data capture and document generation work together to help these organizations maximize the value and potential of their document management systems. Financial information can be submitted in many different formats, ranging from digital forms and fillable PDFs to images, flattened PDFs, and scanned documents. Extracting information from each of these formats requires a sophisticated understanding of data capture that few software developers possess.
Once that data is extracted, it can be routed anywhere it’s needed by workflow automation tools. That could be a new document that’s being generated, but more often it will be sent to a database. When the time comes to generate a new document, previously captured information can be inserted wherever it’s needed programmatically. Multiple documents (or just sections of them) can also be merged or split apart to create entirely new ones filled with information drawn from several sources.
All of this can be done in a matter of seconds with the right software integrations, which saves a tremendous amount of time for fintech teams who have many other priorities to focus on. By incorporating robust data capture and document generation capabilities into their platforms, they can provide faster, better functionality to their customers. Rather than uploading a document and waiting for it to be processed, information can be extracted and routed wherever it’s needed instantly to facilitate faster reviews and resolutions.
Another key benefit of data capture and document generation is accuracy. Between manually reviewing information, entering it by hand into a system, and then retrieving it to create new documents, there are plenty of opportunities for mistakes to be made. In a financial context, those errors often have the potential to be systemic, creating additional errors that are time consuming and expensive to remediate. Automated extraction and assembly remove the risk of human error, which enables fintechs to accelerate and scale their processes more effectively.
Integrating Data Capture and Document Generation with Accusoft
For over 30 years, Accusoft has been a pioneer in building software integrations that expand application functionality. We provide a variety of data capture and document generation solutions that meet the needs of today’s fintech platforms. Whether you’re incorporating functionality directly into your application with an SDK or deploying a cloud-based solution that connects to one of our APIs, we have the flexibility to help you integrate the features you need to complete your digital transformation. To learn more about how Accusoft can enhance your fintech application with data capture and document generation, talk to one of our solutions experts today.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
DocFoxis the leading provider of automated business account opening software and is used by over 250 financial institutions worldwide including banks, fintechs, and credit unions.
Features
Omnichannel account opening – digital or in-branch
Customized, configurable workflows
Open API architecture, allowing for integration with other systems including core, LOS, CRM, and treasury
Why it’s great
DocFox is a cloud-based SaaS application that automates the process for opening any business account, no matter how complex, across any channel.
Presenters
Dean Benjamin, Account Executive Benjamin is in sales leadership at DocFox. Prior to DocFox, Dean was a banker at Investec for over 4 years in London, Johannesburg, and Sydney and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
VGS is a one-stop shop for data security infrastructure, compliance acceleration, and payment optimization.
Features
Own data without liability and cost
Get to market faster
Reduce PCI cost by 75%
Why it’s great
Companies can maximize the value of sensitive data without the cost and liability of securing it themselves.
Presenter
Nithin Bose, VP of Customer Success Bose is the VP of Customer Success at VGS, responsible for sales engineering, onboarding, success management, and renewals of VGS customers. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
Cion Digital has developed the world’s first blockchain orchestration platform that helps businesses transact in cryptocurrency both through payments and lending.
Features
Standalone or integrated payments and lending platform
First crypto loan marketplace
Tools to extend traditional lenders into crypto lenders
Why it’s great
Cion Digital has developed the world’s first crypto lending marketplace.
Presenters
Abir Bandy, Senior Director of Product Marketing Prior to joining Cion Digital, Bandy led the financial services marketing team at Talkdesk. He also has had a 10+ year career in financial services with Cappello Capital, Disney, Salesforce, and more. LinkedIn
Fred Brothers, President & Co-Founder Prior to starting Cion Digital, Brothers served as the EVP and Chief Innovation Officer at FIS. He also has had a 30+ year career in financial services with eCom, Checkfree, and more. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
Highnote is the world’s most modern card platform, providing all-in-one card issuer processor and program management services to help companies easily issue/process payment cards that accelerate growth.
Features
Full-stack card issuer-processer and program manager
Flexible and modular capabilities with Graph QL-based API
Purpose-built ledger for money movement visibility
Why it’s great
Highnote’s GraphQL API allows tailored, client-centric access to the platform and offers full-flexibility to build great brand experiences for customers that work with companies’ systems.
Presenter
Jody Soldo, Product Management Leader With 10+ years of product management experience, Soldo is passionate about working with customers to help build innovative business solutions. She geeks out at payment processing and money movement. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
Altro helps consumers build credit and financial power through the recurring payments and subscriptions they use every day. Build credit and financial power with the free Altro app.
Features
Boost existing credit
Increase financial literacy
Stabilize credit history
Why it’s great
One thing the audience should remember about the product: Altro doesn’t believe in barriers. Altro is in the business of empowering great people to do great things by helping them get their money right.
Presenter
Michael Broughton, Founder Broughton is the co-founder and CEO of Altro, a free-to-use app that allows anyone to build credit using nontraditional forms of payments, including rent and monthly subscriptions like Netflix. LinkedIn
Last week for Earth Day we talked about the different ways that the fintech industry is responding to the climate challenge. Since then, there’s been even more news on that front – in this case from a pair of banks that are giving their customers the ability to contribute personally to climate sustainability.
BMO Harris Bank’s policy will enable cardholders in the U.S. to donate up to 500 of their accumulated points to Conservation International. Donating points is easy; cardholders can sign up for the program via BMO Digital Banking on their mobile app or online, then select the credit card account from which the points will be donated.
“Being part of Mastercard’s Priceless Planet Coalition is just one of many actions BMO is taking to support a sustainable future,” BMO Financial Group Head of North American Personal and Business Banking Ernie Johannson said. “What we do today will determine how our world looks tomorrow. In addition to BMO’s own bold actions to grow the good, we are proud to invite customers to join us and to make action as easy as redeeming their card points. Together, our efforts can make a big impact toward sustaining a healthy environment.”
Carbon tracking, as we mentioned last week, is among the more popular ways that fintechs and financial services companies have empowered consumers to better understand the impact of their spending habits on the environment. Rabobank, a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company, just announced that it will enable 1,000 of its Rabo payments accountholders to see the impact of their consumption on the climate – courtesy of a Carbon Insights feature on their Rabo app.
“With Carbon Insights, we make consumers part of the solution, just like we do with sustainable farmers who can earn carbon credits through carbon storage in their farmland,” Rabo Carbon Bank CEO Barbara Baarsma said. “Together our eight million private customers can make a difference and combat climate change by changing their spending patterns towards a smaller carbon footprint. For example, by buying different, less carbon intensive food they also stimulate supermarkets to offer more sustainable products.”
Rabobank developed its Carbon Insights capability in partnership with green fintech Ecolytiq, which has partnered with a number of financial services companies to help them develop climate sustainability-based solutions. Ecolytiq, leveraging the European Union’s Open Payment Standard, provides Rabobank with Dutch CO2 values per euro and spending category (food, transportation, clothing, etc.). Rabobank manages the secure environment in which accountholder payment data is processed, ensuring that customer data remains with Rabobank and that data is not used for any other purpose.
Underscoring the emphasis on privacy, Rabo Carbon Bank Product Manager for Carbon Bank Retail Fadoua Ajjaji explained, “Of course we don’t know the exact products somebody buys in the supermarket, so the CO2 emissions remain an estimation. For the calculation we look at the payment itself, not the actual receipt. Customers can provide additional information, if they eat meat or own a car, which allows us to make the calculations more accurate.” Ajjaji called carbon tracking “a missed opportunity” when it comes to meeting the climate challenge “as gaining insights is the first step in making more sustainable choices.”
The new offering, MemberPass Express, will be made available via MemberPass, the first KYC-compliant, member-controlled digital identity issued by credit union cooperatives. MemberPass Express will enable credit union members to authenticate their identity during e-commerce, online, or mobile banking transactions, as well as while visiting a branch or contacting a call center. The new seamless authentication process, which provides multi-channel authentication in less than 10 seconds, is currently being piloted with a pair of credit unions.
“The joint new solution leverages artificial intelligence to protect members from fraud by analyzing the context (such as identity, behavior, location, device, and channel) of each user journey in real-time,” Entersekt CEO Schalk Nolte said. “This informs the most appropriate member authentication method that will be used, and means that members will now benefit from industry-leading authentication, while enjoying a fast and smooth user experience.”
South Africa-based Entersekt ended 2021 with a major investment from technology-based private equity firm Accel-KKR. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Joe Porten, Principal at Accel-KKR, praised the company for its “deep vertical expertise” and its record of success in the financial services industry. “As a partner, Accel-KKR is committed to helping the Entersekt team accelerate growth and continually deliver innovation in their category.”
