Tink Completes Acquisition of FinTecSystems

Tink Completes Acquisition of FinTecSystems

Visa-owned open banking platform Tink has finalized its purchase of FinTecSystems. The acquisition, which was initiated prior to Visa purchasing Tink, was first announced in May of last year. The integration of the two companies combines Tink’s open banking platform and FinTecSystems’ product suite to offer a more complete solution when partnering for open banking technology.

Additionally, FinTecSystems brings Tink new customers including N26, DKB, Santander, Solarisbank, and Check24. The Germany-based open banking firm will help Sweden-based Tink build on its growth strategy and expand into the DACH region, where FinTecSystems is currently powering over 150 banks and fintechs.

“Germany is a key market for Tink, and we are excited to have acquired an innovative leader with a strong reputation for the quality of its bank connectivity and payments services,” said Tink Co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellén. “We have followed FinTecSystems for many years and are impressed by what they have achieved. Through this acquisition, we are taking a big step into the DACH region, and we look forward to supporting the FinTecSystems’ team to further accelerate their growth.”

FinTecSystems was founded in 2014 and facilitates data analytics, digital account checks, account aggregation, and open banking payments. The company connects to more than 99% of the banks in the DACH region, and in Germany specifically, three in every four online credit decisions involve FinTecSystems’ technology.

FinTecSystems’ 78 employees have joined Tink’s team, which now sits at almost 600 employees. FinTecSystems will continue to function as an independent, regulated company in Germany.

Today’s deal comes two years after Tink landed $103 million (€85 million) in a funding round that boosted its total raised to $308 million. The acquisition also comes after Tink itself was bought out by Visa in June of 2021 for $2.1 billion (€1.8 billion).

Tink, whose open banking platform is used by more than 10,000 developers, was founded in 2012 and currently serves 18 markets from its 13 offices. The company is a two-time Finovate Best of Show Award winner, and most recently demoed at FinovateEurope 2019.

FinovateEurope 2022 is right around the corner. If you are an innovative fintech company with new technology to show, then there’s no better time than now and no better forum than FinovateEurope. To learn more about how to demo your latest innovation at FinovateEurope 2022 in London, March 22 to March 23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!

Bank of Charles Town to Digitize its Commercial Lending Experience in Partnership with Jack Henry

Bank of Charles Town to Digitize its Commercial Lending Experience in Partnership with Jack Henry

The latest chapter in Bank of Charles Town’s digital transformation was written today. The West Virginia-based financial institution announced that it is collaborating with Jack Henry & Associates to digitize its commercial lending operations.

“We selected Jack Henry’s lending platform because it supports our broader digital banking strategy,” Bank of Charles Town (BCT) Vice President Anthony J. Ranghelli said. “The platform will help us grow with scale and efficiency while improving everyone’s experience. Our immediate goal for the next few years is to expand our digital lending footprint geographically to support businesses in neighboring communities and diversify our portfolio.”

Bank of Charles Town has spent the past few years investing in digital banking solutions, including a new website, digital wallets, and mobile deposit functionality. This week’s announcement will enable the FI to move away from the manual backend processes that have governed its previous loan origination system. The new technology from Jack Henry & Associates will bring new efficiencies, an improved customer experience, and streamlined workflow for employees. Ranghelli noted that the partnership will enable BCT to better serve its small and medium-sized business customers, especially “niche industries” such as dentist offices and law firms which he called “a priority for our bank.”

Founded in 1871 by a coalition of Jefferson County, West Virginia farmers and business leaders, Bank of Charles Town has grown into a $511 million-financial institution serving communities in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia; Loudon County, Virginia; and Washington County, Maryland. BCT was named a Best Bank to Work For by American Banker in 2020 for a second year in a row. Alice Frazier is President and CEO.

A Finovate alum since 2011, when the company showcased its ProfitStars division, Jack Henry & Associates finished 2021 with new partners and new functionalities for its solutions. The company announced a collaboration with Envestnet | Yodlee in December and also reported that its Jack Henry Lending platform, the centerpiece of its partnership with Bank of Charles Town, has been upgraded to include tax return spreading capabilities. This move will further reduce the amount of manual work that typically burdens the lending process and will accelerate the time to loan fulfillment.


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The Conversation Continues: Catching Up with Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast

The Conversation Continues: Catching Up with Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast

Miss an episode of the Finovate Podcast during the holiday rush? No need to fear; the Finovate blog has got your back.

From insights into the rise of embedded finance and prospects for “technosocialism” to discussions with innovators in the field of personal finance and roboadvisory, the Finovate Podcast is your one-stop-shop for fascinating, in-depth conversations between Finovate VP Greg Palmer and fintech’s finest analysts and entrepreneurs. Today we’re sharing some end-of-year episodes of the podcast that might have slipped beneath your radar as 2021 drew to a close.

Find the Finovate podcast at Soundcloud and follow Greg Palmer on Twitter for the latest in programming news and updates.


Chris Karageuzian, CEO and Co-founder, Help With My Loan. Host Greg Palmer and Chris Karageuzian talk about how the Finovate newcomer is making the lending process more pleasant for borrowers.

“I was in the industry for 20+ years so I felt the frustration – that’s why I left and created this company. (There’s a) lack of technology and fragmented software – you have to use almost seven to ten pieces of software just to deal with one file. That’s really not productive in my opinion. We closely work with banks right now. We have 300+ banks signed up in our database and in our software. So deals get automated and matched and we are within an earshot of every deal.”

Vivek Krishnamurthy, Principal, Commerce Ventures. Host Greg Palmer sits down with Vivek Krishnamurthy for a conversation on “embedded finance” and an overview of the field’s opportunities and pitfalls.

“There’s a split between the infrastructure layers that enable third parties to launch financial services products. And then there are the instances in which financial services products are launched inside of other ecosystems. We think that latter aspect, that latter space of being able to turn on a financial services product in the customer journey inside of a non-financial services ecosystem, that’s what we think about as ’embedded finance.'”

Ned Phillips, Founder and CEO, and Mike Larsen, Head of Sales, Bambu. Host Greg Palmer talks about the challenges facing the automated investment business with Ned Phillips and Mike Larsen of Best of Show winning roboadvisor Bambu.

“We are a B2B wealthtech. So what does that mean? We design, build, and deploy those roboadvisor, savings and investment apps for financial institutions. So if a financial institution wants its own Betterment or its own Wealthfront, they come to us for the tech and we build it. And at Finovate, we built one on stage in seven minutes!”

Will Graylin, Chairman and CEO, OV Loop; CEO, Indigo Technologies. Host Greg Palmer chats with serial entrepreneur Will Graylin about contactless payment adoption, super apps, and the future of mobile payments.

“Why haven’t we adopted (contactless payments) in much more mass given that Apple Pay has been out for over seven years, and Samsung Pay has been out for six years, and Google Pay has been out there for seven years – eight years now? Why haven’t we adopted en masse? (Our situation is) unlike China’s WeChat/WeChat Pay/AliPay. For those solutions, they are adopted to the order of about 83% of all consumer transactions, whereas we’re still in single digits in the United States. Why?”

Brett King, Author, The Rise of Technosocialism; Founder of Moven. Host Greg Palmer and Brett King talk about King’s latest book, The Rise of Technosocialism: How Inequality, AI, and Climate Will Usher in a New World.

“When you think about why it is that we haven’t been able to tackle (climate change) and get agreement on this, part of the core problem is that we tend to be quite short-term focused in our planning as a species. We’re focused on the next quarter, the next year, in terms of financial reporting, or maybe the next two years or four years in terms of political cycles. But when it comes to planning out things for 20 years in our future or 30 years in our future, the big problem is we just ask ‘who’s going to pay for it?'”

Lindsay Holden, Co-founder and CEO, Long Game. Host Greg Palmer discusses loyalty, education, Millennials, and gamification with Lindsay Holden, founder of FinovateFall Best of Show winner, Long Game.

“Long Game is a mobile game. It’s an app that sits on top of your bank account and rewards customers for learning about financial literacy and for positive financial behaviors like saving. For banks, we are helping them have a branded experience that’s super-fun for customers, they can acquire new customers with us, and also increase their customer LTV through promoting their products, increasing savings, and increasing direct deposits.”

CRIF Partners with Swoop Funding to Help Small Businesses Unlock Working Capital

CRIF Partners with Swoop Funding to Help Small Businesses Unlock Working Capital

Late last month, credit management solutions provider CRIF announced plans to team up with Swoop Funding, a business funding and savings platform. CRIF anticipates the partnership will help the U.K.’s community of 5.9 million SMEs access more funding and ultimately grow.

Swoop will leverage CRIF’s Credit Passport business credit scoring technology that provides real time credit scores for SMEs. This tool will benefit both Swoop and the small businesses themselves. Swoop will help match businesses with funding and savings products. For businesses with lower credit scores, this will help them potentially find previously unavailable sources for working capital. The partnership will also offer SMEs insights into their businesses’ financial performance and viability, and help them see how lenders view them.

“We designed Credit Passport to remove friction in the lending decisioning process and help SMEs get the right funding for them, when they need it, as well as to help educate businesses so they can build the most financially healthy and resilient companies,” said CRIF Realtime Chief Product Officer Glen Keller. “CRIF’s partnership with Swoop puts us at the heart of the U.K.’s SMEs with useful information at a time when they need it the most and will really make a difference to the market.”

CRIF’s Credit Passport helps bridge the gap between the financial industry and business owners. The tool leverages open banking to offer lenders a view into SME’s credit quality and will give Swoop’s SME clients insight into their own business credit score.

Swoop was founded in 2018. The company’s business funding and savings platform helps SMEs discover the right funding solution– ranging from loans to equity to grants– to fit their need. Swoop also has a business financial management (BFM) spin, and offers tools to help businesses identify savings opportunities. The company has matched its more than 79,000 customers with over $187 million in funding.

Italy-based CRIF was founded in 1988 and has more than 5,500 employees working across 70+ subsidiary companies on four continents. The firm counts 10,500+ financial institutions, 600 insurance companies, and 82,000 businesses as clients. In all, one million consumers in 50 countries use CRIF’s services. In 2020, CRIF acquired PFM company Strands to complement its customer acquisition, portfolio management, and credit collection tools. Last year, CRIF participated as an investor in nine fintech funding rounds.


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Acorns Co-Founder Secures $20 Million in Funding for New Venture, Ant Money

Acorns Co-Founder Secures $20 Million in Funding for New Venture, Ant Money

Embedded finance platform Ant Money has secured $20 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Franklin Templeton’s Franklin Venture Partners, RX3 Ventures, SteelBridge Laboratories, Steelpoint Capital Partners, and Ant Money founder Walter Cruttenden. The company, whose founder also launched micro-investing platform Acorns in 2012, also completed its stock-for-stock merger with Blast. A financial services platform for gamers, Blast went live in 2018 with its Game-Based Savings technology that leverages gameplay as a way to help individuals passively fund a free savings account.

The deal brings the total number of apps on the Ant Money platform to three: ATM, Blast, and Learn & Earn. Together the trio of offerings enables users to earn money and easily fund investment accounts.

“Building an investment account early in life can help people on the road to financial success, but many people don’t start because they lack the knowledge or funds,” Ant Money’s Walter Cruttenden said. “My hope is that Ant Money, which helps people generate small amounts of money to seed accounts, can foster new growing accounts and provide increased financial security for millions.”

ATM enables users to earn micro-income by engaging anonymously with leading worldwide brands. That income can be saved or invested in the stock market via Ant Money Advisors, a registered investment company and robo advisor that is embedded in the ATM app. Users can earn a minimum of $10 for the first month of participation, and more than $100 a month afterwards if enrolled in the ATM rewards program. Learn & Earn was developed in partnership with Junior Achievement USA. The app helps users earn money by completing lessons on concepts like budgeting, launching a business, and the power of compound interest. The money earned from Learn & Earn, like the money earned via ATM, can be automatically invested in the stock market, enabling users to start saving for the future at the same time as they are learning how to be good investors.

Ant Money co-founder Michael Gleason said that the merger of the companies made sense because they shared “similar visions for helping people enter the financial investment world.” Combined with what Gleason called “overlapping management,” the companies seemed ripe for consolidation. “(It) seemed like the logical next step was to merge the companies and build a larger one together,” Gleason said.


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Credix Raises $2.5 Million

Credix Raises $2.5 Million

Decentralized credit platform Credix landed $2.5 million in early stage seed funding this week. The Belgium-based company will use the fresh capital to speed up the release of its alpha version and launch its protocol on the Solana mainnet.

DRW Cumberland and ParaFi Capital led the round. The Transfero Swiss BRZ Solana Ecosystem Fund, Solana Ventures, Parrot Finance, MGNR, Mercurial, Petrock Capital, Fuse Capital, and several angel investors also contributed.

Credix was founded just last month by Thomas Bohner, Maxim Piessen, and Chaim Finizola. The team is seeking to bridge the gap between decentralized finance and real-world assets, bringing uncollateralized loans to emerging markets, starting with Latin America.

“The rise of DeFi, crypto, and stablecoins provided Credix with all the required lego blocks to rethink the end-to-end debt capital markets flow,” said Bohner. “Credix is democratizing access to credit investing for both borrowers and investors by connecting them through a decentralized credit marketplace.”

Along with today’s funding announcement, Credix also appointed four new members to its advisory team. Chike Ukuagbu, Head of Crypto Strategy-Emerging Markets at Visa; João Bezerra Leite, Former Managing Director and CTO at Bank Itaú; Reginald de Wasseige, Investor at Augmentum; and Kenneth Bok, Managing Director Blocks, ex-Goldman Sachs will all serve as advisors to the Credix team.

In the next few weeks, Credix will launch its first credit lines for Latin American borrowers. In the first quarter of 2022, the company will extend access for underwriters and liquidity providers and will open the pool to the community within the first half of next year.


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Finovate Alums Raised $1.2 Billion in Q4; $8.4 Billion for the Year

Finovate Alums Raised $1.2 Billion in Q4; $8.4 Billion for the Year

Finovate alums notched their biggest fourth quarter fundraising since 2014, securing $1.2 billion in equity investment. The strong Q4 gives Finovate alums a 2021 fundraising total of $8.4 billion, more than double the capital raised in any previous year.

Previous Annual Comparisons

2021’s fundraising strength comes courtesy of $3.3 billion raised in Q1, $2.8 billion raised in Q2, and $1.1 billion raised in Q3. Fundraising in this year’s fourth quarter is also significantly higher than that raised in previous Q4s, and by a significant margin. The fact that Q4’s sizable fundraising totals came as a result of investments in only six alumni makes the current quarter’s accomplishment all the more remarkable.

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q4 2020: More than $472 million raised by 17 alums
  • Q4 2019: More than $876 million raised by 21 alums
  • Q4 2018: More than $800 million raised by 19 alums
  • Q4 2017: More than $730 million raised by 23 alums
  • Q4 2016: More than $700 million raised by 26 alums

Four of this quarter’s fundings were at or above the $200 million mark. This marks a first for Finovate alums. The biggest investment received in Q4 of 2021 was the $450 million secured by Socure, a fundraising total that has never been met by a Finovate alum in the final quarter of the year.

Top Quarterly Equity Investments

  • Socure: $450 million
  • Zopa: $304 million
  • Mambu: $266 million
  • Thought Machine: $200 million

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q4 2021.

October 2021: More than $329 million raised by two alums

November 2021: More than $650 million raised by two alums

December 2021: More than $266 million raised by two alums


If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the fourth quarter of 2021, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.


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Rocket Companies Acquire TrueBill

Rocket Companies Acquire TrueBill

Rocket Companies, the parent company of tech-driven real estate, mortgage, and financial services businesses, acquired personal finance app TrueBill today. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year for $1.28 billion in cash.

“We are very impressed with what Truebill has created – providing a simple, intuitive client experience to help its users save significant money,” said Rocket Companies CEO Jay Farner. “The company is a perfect fit for the Rocket platform. Truebill’s work helping Americans keep track of their finances and providing guidance that leads to better financial outcomes follows the same philosophy as Rocket Companies – leveraging the power of technology to remove the friction from complex transactions – and applies it to everyday life.”

Founded in 2015, TrueBill helps its 2.5 million members manage subscriptions, improve credit scores, track spending and renegotiate bills. The company analyzes $50 billion in transactions each month and has saved consumers a total of $100 million.

For Rocket Companies, the purchase will push the subsidiaries toward their goal of creating a centralized destination for consumers to manage their entire financial lives. Rocket Companies will also benefit from Truebill’s recurring revenue, which is on track to generate $100 million each year. This figure is more than double the annual revenue the company generated in 2020.

As for its own operations, Rocket Companies generates $1.3 billion each year from the monthly payments made by the organization’s 2.5 million clients for mortgage servicing.


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Fintech in the Nordics: Innovations in Authentication and Opportunities in Acquisition

Fintech in the Nordics: Innovations in Authentication and Opportunities in Acquisition

Norway-based biometric startup Mobai won $3.16 million (EUR 2.8 million) in funding to enhance the protection of personal biometric data in coalition with Vipps BankID, Sparebank1 Østlandet, KU Leuven, and NTNU. The project, named SALT for “Secure privacy preserving Authentication using faciaL biometrics to proTect your identity,” will bring new functionalities to Mobai’s facial recognition solution, and improve the quality of the technology to help firms meet eiDAS and AML regulations.

The project will drive innovation in the field of facial biometrics, particularly in the areas of biometric template protection, face quality assessment, and presentation attack detection. Mobai CEO Brage Strand noted in a statement that innovation in facial biometrics is especially urgent insofar as vulnerabilities in current authentication strategies such as passwords and even two-factor authentication increasingly have been exploited by fraudsters and cybercriminals.

“Our aim is to offer consumers a unique opportunity to prove who they are, as a way to combat the surge in phishing and identity theft we currently experience,” Strand said. He added the goal of the project was to move “beyond comparing a photo you store on a device with a selfie” to bring the same level of trust found in ePassports “into a digital domain.” Strand also emphasized the importance of leveraging “privacy-preserving technology” to ensure GDPR compliance and the integrity of personally identifiable information.

Mobai’s partners represent an interesting cross-section of the country’s financial services industry. Sparebank1 Østlandet is the fourth largest savings bank in Norway. Vipps is a payments and electronic ID provider with more than four million electronic ID users. NTNU is the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the largest university in the country with more than 40,000 students; Mobai was spun out of NTNU’s Norwegian Biometrics Laboratory in 2019. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is a research and educational institution, one of the oldest universities in Europe, with a reputation for pioneering scientific research.

“We see face recognition as a very promising and effective way to add an extra layer of security that will help combat identity theft, fraud, and money laundering,” Sparebank1 Østlandet EVP for Innovation and Business Development Dag Arne Hoberg said. “Imagine a situation where you may actually sign a mortgage electronically and use a ‘selfie’ as part of this process to confirm that your are the right person to sign.”


Meanwhile, in nearby Denmark, leading business automation software and services provider Visma announced its acquisition of expense management company Acubiz. Term of the transaction were not immediately available.

Visma will integrate Acubiz’s expense management solution into its Visma Enterprise HRM, but Acubiz will continue to function as an independent brand. The company, which has a 20% market share in Denmark and more than 200,000 users, offers solutions to help businesses better manage employee and travel expenses, as well as mileage reimbursement, invoice management, and time registration.

“I am excited to welcome another strong, Danish company into the Visma family,” Visma Enterprise A/S Managing Director Monika Juul Henriksen said. “There is no doubt that Acubiz is a perfect match not only businesswise but also in their culture and DNA. Acubiz wants to be the best – and so do we. Together, we will be even better.”

Founded in 1997 by Lars de Nully, Acubiz is based in Birkerød north of Copenhagen. This year, the company has forged partnerships with accounting firms Tal & Tanker and Tietotili, as well as with financial administration services provider Fiscales, HR software company Sympa, and Jutlander Bank.

In a year-end statement published on the Acubiz blog, the company noted that, in addition to its acquisition by Visma, it plans to unveil a new financial interface in 2022. The new UI will feature upgrades in performance, user-friendliness, and the ability to customize.

“By becoming a part of Visma, we do not only get a shortcut to new customers, markets, segments, and partners, we will also benefit from the knowledge and skills within legal, HR, marketing, and sales,” Acubiz Managing Director Henrik Malling said. “Being able to counsel with these experts is immensely valuable for us as a relatively small organization. So we honestly cannot wait to get started and to get to know all our new colleagues within Visma.”


FinovateEurope 2022 is right around the corner. If you are an innovative fintech company with new technology to show, then there’s no better time than now and no better forum than FinovateEurope. To learn more about how to demo your latest innovation at FinovateEurope 2022 in London, March 22-23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!


Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean


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Data Storytelling Innovator Narrative Science Acquired by Salesforce

Data Storytelling Innovator Narrative Science Acquired by Salesforce

Narrative Science reported on Wednesday that its acquisition by Salesforce – and integration into Saleforce’s Tableau team is complete. First announced last month, the closing of the acquisition this week will combine Narrative Science’s automated data storytelling capabilities with Tableau’s analytics platform.

“Bringing the Narrative Science award-winning, world-leading AI in analytics team and their innovations to Tableau will help us reach millions more people who are underserved with data,” Tableau President and CEO Mark Nelson wrote on the company’s blog this week. “It will help close the data literacy gap, reimagine an entirely new analytics experience, and set people up for success in this digital-first world.”

Salesforce acquired Tableau Software in 2019 in a deal that combined “the world’s #1 CRM with the world’s #1 analytics platform” Tableau announced in a press release that August. The goal of the acquisition was to enable Salesforce customers to “unlock even greater value from their data” using Tableau’s combination of diverse visualization, analytics, and AI. By adding Narrative Science’s data storytelling technology, Tableau and Narrative Science move closer to their shared goal of “making data more available to everyone, everywhere.”

A Finovate alum since 2013, Narrative Science is a leading provider of automated business analytics and natural language communication technology. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the company is an innovator in the field of data storytelling. As a strategy for delivering business intelligence, data storytelling transcends both data visualization and static dashboards by translating insights into easy-to-understand stories and giving business users a personalized data digest. The company’s Lexio solution, its latest iteration unveiled in the fall of 2020, serves both businesspeople who require data insights in order to do their jobs, but do not have the time or skills to become data analysts, as well as leaders of analytics teams who need to ensure that insights are accessible to and understandable by employees who can translate them into action.

“Unlike today’s typical BI tools, Lexio anticipates what employees need to know so they can make faster and better data-driven decisions,” Narrative Science co-founder and CEO Stuart Frankel said. “Data without context is useless, and Lexio brings that context and understanding to every single employee in plain language and in a consumer-like experience.”

As of this fall, Narrative Science has raised nearly $43 million in funding from investors including Jump Capital, Sapphire, and Battery Ventures. In October, the company earned a #1 ranking in Crain’s Chicago Business Most Innovative Companies 2021 roster. Over the summer, Narrative Science’s Lexio won the “AI-Based Analytics Innovation Award” at the AI Breakthrough Awards.


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Worldline Chief Market Officer on the Evolution of Payments

Worldline Chief Market Officer on the Evolution of Payments

With the new year just two weeks away, it’s a good time to reflect.

We spoke with Justin Passalaqua, Chief Market Officer of North America for Worldline, on what he has seen in the payments space this year and the payments trends he anticipates taking over in 2022.

Were there any payments trends that emerged this year that you didn’t expect to see?

Justin Passalaqua: I wouldn’t say any trends caught me by surprise necessarily. However, I did not expect how quickly businesses started adopting payment methods like contactless, e-commerce, and order ahead payments.

These trends have been in the works for a while. But the accelerated growth of these payment methods due to the pandemic, I think, caught everyone off guard. Not only have we seen tremendous growth in contactless and online payment options, but the more we see these used in the market, the more enhancements are made to make payments seamless.   

How have embedded payments altered the course of fintech thus far? 

Passalaqua: Users can make payments anywhere, at the touch of a button and, as a result, the industry has seen an increase in conversions by almost 40%. The fewer steps it takes a user to make a payment, the more likely they will complete a purchase. And if they have a great experience shopping with a merchant, they are more likely to shop there again.

Loyalty has become a huge growth driver, especially in the order ahead/food industry. The rise of mobile apps makes it easy for businesses to offer more rewards for repeat customers, establishing trust between the business and consumer. When software and app providers implement the right tools that simplify the checkout process and strengthen loyalty, everyone benefits.

What payments trends do you anticipate dominating in 2022?

Passalaqua: One trend I have seen a lot of over the years that I expect will evolve in 2022 is Integrated Software Vendors (ISVs) building their own payment gateway or leveraging a Payments-as-a-Service (PaaS) platform and white labelling it with their own brand. As ISVs aim to be an all-in-one solution for their customers, owning the end-to-end payments piece essentially transforms them into a payment provider.

Another trend that will continue to dominate next year is the further decline of cash and the increased adoption of cards and mobile wallets. In 2021 we saw a 12% global decline in cash payments due to COVID-19. People will continue to adopt card and mobile wallets at a faster rate, and not just for safety and sanitary reasons. With the more rapid and convenient experience offered by cards and mobile wallets, we will probably never see a backwards shift to cash again.   

What’s in the pipeline for Worldline in 2022 and beyond?

Passalaqua: Without giving away our secret recipe, we have big plans for expansion next year. First, we are investing heavily in the U.S. market. Although Bambora and Ingenico are well known in Canada and the U.S., Worldline is relatively new to North America. Our goal is to make Worldline a trusted household name for ISVs and the payments industry.

We are also focusing on growing our contactless/card-present payment solutions with new technologies to make card-present payments even more effortless. We are enhancing our bank-to-bank technologies to expand our payment types, focusing on our ACH solution, which aligns with our plans for the U.S. market.   


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Help with My Loan: Fixing More Than Just the Time Problem in Lending

Help with My Loan: Fixing More Than Just the Time Problem in Lending

Greg Palmer, VP at Finovate, takes five minutes with Chris Karageuzian, CEO & Co-Founder of Help with My Loan, to explore some of the pain points that still exist for both customers and bankers when it comes to getting loans approved, and how Help with My Loan is cutting through the noise and coming to the rescue.

Want to know more? Listen in the the Help with My Loan Podcast episode.