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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Automated reconciliation software company AutoRek has joined the Swift Partner Program.
The partnership will enable companies to have greater integration between their operations and third-party data sources.
Scotland-based AutoRek made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023.
AutoRek, an automated financial controls platform based in Scotland, has joined the Swift Partner Program. The move will enhance the consolidation and reconciliation of financial data and provide greater integration between companies’ operations and their third-party data sources. Leveraging its predefined catalog of API connections, AutoRek will consume messages directly from the Swift network, making the reconciliation process more efficient and providing wider data management. This will eliminate the need for AutoRek customers to both source and manage files and statements from the third-parties they are working with. Futhermore, AutoRek will investigate the creation of additional solutions to help its customers maximize the company’s connection with the Swift network.
“AutoRek is on a mission to set the benchmark in trust for finance operations and controls,” AutoRek Head of Strategic Partnerships Alastair MacKenzie said. “As a member-owned organization, we believe this collaboration with Swift will allow us to gain in-depth insights to help meet the needs of the world’s leading financial services firms.”
SWIFT, which stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, offers a network that enables financial institutions to communicate and exchange information about financial transactions in a secure manner. Launched in 1973 and owned by the banks and member institutions that use the messaging network, the Belgian-based cooperative connects more than 11,500 banking and securities organizations, market infrastructures, and corporate customers in 200+ countries and territories.
AutoRek made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope last year. At the conference, the company’s Kashif Aslam demonstrated how AutoRek’s technology helps financial institutions — including banks, asset managers, insurers, and payments businesses — manage high-volume reconciliation challenges. “Some of the benefits include a significant reduction in cost through automation of otherwise manual and intricate business processes, an increase in control over your data through increased transparency so you can see and track everything that’s happened to your data throughout its lifespan within the system, and an increased ability to demonstrate compliance with financial regulation,” Aslam explained.
In the months since then, AutoRek has forged partnerships with J.P. Morgan Payments, global funds network Calastone, and French IT services and consulting firm Capgemini. The company’s customers include fellow Finovate alums eToro and Marqeta.
Founded in 1994, AutoRek is headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland. Gordon McHarg is CEO.
Customer interaction technology company Glia launched its Unified Interactions Index Online Calculator this week.
The new offering is based on the company’s Unified Interactions Index, and enables financial services companies to benchmark the quality of their customer interactions against that of their peers.
A multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Glia most recently demoed its technology at Finovate’s all-digital conference in 2021.
Leave it to customer interaction technology innovator Glia to take the idea of “Knowing Your Customer” to another level.
This week, Glia unveiled its Unified Interactions Index Online Calculator. Based on the company’s Unified Interactions Index, the new tool enables financial services companies to benchmark themselves against more than 500 peer companies in terms of the efficiency, effectiveness, and overall experience in customer interactions.
“Customer interactions are the new litmus test for loyalty, but until now financial institutions haven’t had an accessible way to compare their interaction strategy with peers and relate it to tangible KPIs,” Glia Co-Founder and CEO Dan Michaeli said.
Glia’s calculator gives financial institutions apples-to-apples benchmarking data on how they compare against peers and competitors. From the answers to 14 questions, the calculator provides a score that categorizes respondents into one of three areas –front runner, pacer, or straggler — based on the efficiency, effectiveness, and experience of their customer interaction strategy. With this information, Glia provides customer recommendations to help the institution improve its interaction strategy, and improve business results based on their own unique circumstances.
“Our calculator offers a quick, simple way to evaluate where an institution stands and then provides actionable steps on easy areas of improvement,” Michaeli added. “This ultimately helps deliver the information and tools necessary to modernize and enhance customer interactions and drive successful business outcomes.”
Headquartered in New York, Glia made its Finovate debut (as SaleMove) at FinovateFall in 2015, earning its first of several Best of Show awards. Most recently, the company demoed its technology before Finovate audiences at our all-digital conference in the spring of 2021. Today, Glia has partnered with more than 500 banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and other financial institutions around the world to help them improve the customer experience, boost loyalty, and drive revenues. The Glia Interaction Platform unifies voice, digital customer service, and AI in an architecture that eliminates data siloes and enables companies to shift traffic between channels, enabling customer interactions to evolve naturally.
The launch of Glia’s new offering follows the introduction of the company’s ChannelLess AI-powered Interactions for Financial Services experience. This platform, in the words of Glia Chief Product Officer Jay Choi, combines a best-in-class virtual assistant, back-end AI tools, and a data analysis solution for managers to help them “find new ways to drive efficiency, performance, and increase the value delivered by the contact center.”
Plaid has launched a pay-by-bank tool for bill payments in the U.S., allowing consumers to securely pay bills directly from their bank account without manually entering their account details.
The tool provides offers billers cost savings and lower risk with fewer returned payments through its risk engine, Signal.
Plaid’s pay-by-bank tool is already being used across industries like telecommunications and property management, integrating seamlessly with existing payment processors like Adyen, Nuvei, and Checkout.
Pay-by-bank is back in the news cycle today– this time in the United States. Fintech infrastructure player Plaidunveiled a pay-by-bank tool for billpay.
The new tool, which is powered by Plaid’s network, provides businesses with a lower cost, more secure option for consumers to pay bills directly from their bank account with less friction. Because it leverages Plaid’s bank network, the new pay-by-bank tool does not require consumers to find their checkbook, manually enter their account and routing numbers, and wait for verification. Instead, the solution, which is embedded into a biller’s existing payments flow, connects to consumers’ accounts by securely entering their bank login credentials.
“Plaid provides both market-leading authentication through online banking and traditional account and routing number validation in the background,” the company explained in a blog post. “There’s no need to stitch together multiple vendors, so no matter how the user prefers to pay with their bank account, Plaid’s end-to-end Pay by Bank solution can securely accept it. Plaid Pay by Bank is available across all channels: online, in-app, in-store, and hosted contact center solutions.”
Plaid’s pay-by-bank is available as an all-in-one solution that includes processing, or it can be integrated with a biller’s existing payment processor such as Adyen, Nuvei, Checkout, and others.
Pay-by-bank offers two major benefits to billers. The first is cost savings. Plaid estimates that payments made directly from the consumer’s bank account offer a 40% lower processing cost when compared to credit card payments. The second benefit is lower risk. Plaid’s risk assessment results in fewer returns for recurring payments.
To decrease the risk of returned payments, Plaid leverages Signal, its risk engine that uses machine-learning-driven network insights that mitigate failed payments, connecting to closed accounts, or accounts with insufficient funds. Signal offers a feature called Smart Retries that provides guidance on when to retry failed payments. Plaid reports that this decreases non sufficient funds (NSFs) on first payments by up to 80%.
Plaid’s pay-by-bank tool is already in use with a handful of customers across telecommunications, property management, insurance, automotive, and other industries. One such company, a digital rent payment business Domuso, has integrated Plaid’s new bill pay experience into its existing payments platform.
Back before regtech was cool, a Brooklyn, New York-based company called Alloy was introducing Finovate audiences and others to its technology that enables banks and other financial institutions to build fully-customizable APIs for customer identification and compliance. Even more, the company demonstrated how its graphical rules engine implements compliance rules in a way that actually optimizes conversions and coverage. Alloy’s technology empowers companies to choose which data sources are used and how they are applied. This lets companies decide how to customize and optimize this aspect of their own onboarding processes.
We first met Alloy in 2016, when the company demoed its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley. In the years since then, Alloy has grown into an end-to-end identity risk management platform with more than 600 banks, credit unions, and fintechs using its technology to manage fraud, credit, and compliance risks. The company has raised more than $207 million in funding according to Crunchbase. Glia most recently secured an investment of $52 million in follow-on Series C funding in September 2022 from Avenir, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and other investors.
Alloy was founded in 2015 by Tommy Nicholas (CEO), Laura Spiekerman (President), and Charles Hearn (CTO) who met while working at a payments startup. In their mission statement they note that, in the company’s early days, they faced skepticism from investors, but were heartened by client feedback, which they said was “overwhelmingly positive” and inspired the founding trio to forge ahead.
These days, more and more companies are getting the message. In the past few days, Alloy announced partnerships with commercial lending platform Numerated and embedded finance and payment solutions provider Sonovate.
Alloy’s strategic partnership with Numerated will enable the latter’s customers to conduct robust fraud checks seamlessly from within their own lending operations. The partnership will bring streamlined onboarding, enhanced fraud prevention, and a unified digital experience to Numerated’s platform. This will help Numerated’s customers capture deposits and offer competitive lending products to their SME and commercial borrowers.
“Fraud prevention and lending automation are crucial in today’s financial landscape,” Numerated CEO Dan O’Malley said. “By partnering with Alloy, we are ensuring that our platform not only meets but exceeds the expectations of financial institutions looking for secure, scalable lending solutions. This partnership allows us to deliver the best of both worlds — top-tier risk management combined with the efficiency and speed of automation.”
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Numerated leverages advanced data and AI to help companies automate their business lending operations — from application to closing. With 500,000+ businesses and 30,000+ lenders among its customers, Numerated processes $400 million in loan volume every hour and, since inception, has processed more than $50 billion in loans on its platform.
With Sonovate, Alloy’s identity risk technology will be deployed to help the company combat rising fraud trends in the U.K. as it seeks to scale its operations. In a statement announcing the partnership, the companies noted a report from UK Finance that underscored the challenge of more sophisticated, AI-powered tools that fraudsters are using against financial institutions. The report discovered that $1.5 billion (£1.17 billion) was lost to financial criminals in 2023 alone.
“With its network of data sources, Alloy gives us the power to protect our business and customers from financial crime and the flexibility to make adjustments as needed as our business scales,” Sonovate Global Head of Risk and Compliance Tom Wilson said. “We are excited for this next step in our global growth.”
U.K.-based Sonovate serves recruitment businesses, consultancies, and labor marketplaces with embedded finance and payment solutions for their workforces. Sonovate provides swift credit decisioning, same-day funding, credit insurance, collection services, and both timesheet and workflow automation. Founded in 2014, the company has funded nearly $8 billion in invoices, supporting 3,300 businesses and 50,000 workers in 44 countries.
In addition to its partnerships with fintechs, Alloy announced last month that it was working with Meridian Credit Union, to help Canada’s second largest credit union enhance its user experience and reduce fraud risk for its 380,000+ members. Also this year, Alloy published its 2024 State of Embedded Finance report which examines trends in embedded finance risk management and compliance.
We all know that the VC investment scene is nothing like it was in 2021 and early 2022. With Q3 of 2024 behind us, we now know that fintech is still experiencing a funding downturn. In fact, both deal numbers and funding totals are down from Q2 of this year, with 179 fewer deals and $2.4 billion less in funding volume.
While the drop is sobering, however, there are a few bright lights in recent funding data that may signal the potential start of a positive turnaround. I took a look at CB Insights’ recent State of Venture Q3 ’24 Report, and here are my major takeaways.
Areas of micro growth
As mentioned previously, there are a few aspects of CB Insights’ recent data that offer signs of potential recovery:
Deal size The drop in the average size is leveling off. So far in 2024, the average deal size is currently $12.7 million, and compared the 2023 average size of $13.2 million, deal size falls around $500,000 short. This is much smaller than the $3.2 million drop that took place from 2022 to 2023, and looks quite favorable when compared to the $11.6 million drop from 2021 to 2022.
Even better news is that the median deal size has increased for the first time since 2020. Thus far in 2024, the median deal size has increased by $1 million. This comes after the median deal size dropped by $700,000 from 2022 to 2023 and decreased by the same amount from 2021 to 2022.
Resilience in early-stage investment The data regarding deal stage distribution shows that 71% of deals are still going to early-stage companies. This suggests that investors remain optimistic about long-term innovation in fintech, even if they are currently more conservative with growth-stage investments. Investors’ focus on early-stage companies could signal that they are planting the seeds for future growth, and may be anticipating a recovery in the fintech sector.
Areas of concern
There are, of course, still some less positive aspects of the Q3 investment data, notably, M&A activity and unicorn valuations.
M&A environment
The data indicates that interest in acquisitions is dropping. In the third quarter of this year, we saw 146 exits made via M&A. While this is an increase of six acquisitions when compared to the same quarter last year, it is down from both the first and second quarters of 2024, which were 161 and 159, respectively.
Increased M&A activity often suggests that the market is stabilizing, so the decrease suggests that investors are either still concerned about market conditions or are holding out for lower interest rates.
New unicorns
The number of new unicorns has dropped. In the third quarter of 2024, there were just two newly minted unicorns. This level is equal to what we saw in the first quarter of last year. The number of new unicorns has dropped from three in the second quarter of last year and from seven in the first quarter of this year.
Is this the bottom?
Looking at the data, it would appear that we are pretty close to the bottom of the fintech funding slump. And while I said that last year at about this time, this year, we have small signals to back it up. Specifically, the first increase in the median deal size since 2020 is quite encouraging and may indicate the potential for increased investor appetites.
Property data innovator Chimney announced a new collaboration with digital banking solutions provider Jack Henry.
The collaboration will make Chimney’s product suite available on Jack Henry’s digital banking platform.
Chimney won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2023 in New York. Previously known as Signal Intent, the company also won Best of Show at our online FinovateSpring conference in 2021.
A collaboration between property data innovator Chimney and Jack Henry will help financial institutions empower their homeowners with actionable advice about their home value, home equity, borrowing power, and more. That’s because Chimney has made its product suite, including its latest offering Chimney Home, available via Jack Henry’s digital banking platform.
Chimney’s embedded financial tools enable banks and other financial institutions to engage more account holders digitally, generate more deposits, and fund more loans by leveraging intelligent recommendations to guide customers to the products that are most appropriate for them. Chimney Home, the company’s latest product, gives homeowners actionable information about the value of their home, potential borrowing power, and the availability of pre-qualified offers — all embedded within the bank’s digital channels.
“For many years, financial institutions have lacked the resources needed to personalize product recommendations for homeowners,” Chimney Co-Founder and CEO Matthew Covi said. “At the same time, getting approved for a home equity loan is a big feat, sometimes taking months and causing frustrations for many consumers. That’s why we created Chimney Home.”
Among the financial institutions currently using Chimney’s tools via Jack Henry’s digital banking platform is Financial Plus Credit Union. The technology will help the institution better serve members who are homeowners with the data they need to maximize their home’s value and equity. Chimney’s offering also replaces the credit union’s previous, more cumbersome cross-departmental strategy in favor of an omni-channel approach that makes access easier for homeowners and the process more efficient for the credit union’s mortgage services team.
“By combining financial health data and blending it with a homeowner’s property data, we’re empowering financial institutions to make more personalized loan recommendations in the fiercely competitive home equity space and allow account holders to take action on those recommendations right within their digital banking app,” Covi said.
Jack Henry first demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall 2010. Today, the Monett, Missouri-based company provides banks and credit unions with an ecosystem of modern technology solutions developed internally as well as the ability to integrate with leading fintechs. Founded in 1976, Jack Henry is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ under the ticker JKHY. The company has a market capitalization of $13 billion.
TrueLayer secured an additional $50 million in funding, bringing its Series E round total to $180 million.
TrueLayer’s valuation has dropped to $700 million from its peak of $1 billion in 2021.
Despite the downround, TrueLayer remains optimistic about its future, stating its intentions to work toward profitability.
Open banking platform TrueLayer is proving that it is not just AI companies that are receiving VC investor attention. The London-based company recently received a $50 million extension of its $130 million Series E round.
Today’s follow-on round was led by existing investor Northzone with contributions from Tencent Holdings, Tiger Global, Temasek Holdings, and Stripe. According to Bloomberg, the recent round reportedly values TrueLayer at $700 million, which is notably lower than the $1 billion valuation the company received during its 2021 Series E round.
Despite TrueLayer’s recent raise being a downround—reflecting a valuation drop of $300 million—this trend has been common across the fintech sector in recent years. TrueLayer remains optimistic, viewing the new funding as a vote of confidence in its future growth and ability to achieve profitability. “Separately to this fundraise, we have taken important steps to chart our path toward profitability. This funding is yet another vote of confidence in our company, our technology,” said TrueLayer CEO Francesco Simoneschi.
Founded in 2016, TrueLayer offers an open banking payments network that processes $40 billion across 120 million transactions annually. The company has 10 million users located among 21 European countries. In addition to its payments and payouts products, TrueLayer also offers Signup+, a streamlined onboarding tool, and VRP, its variable recurring payments tool.
TrueLayer appointed its first Chief Strategy Officer, Lisa Scott, earlier this year. The company has raised a total of $321 million. Francesco Simoneschi is Co-founder and CEO.
TrueLayer, which counts Revolut, Coinbase, and Robinhood among its clients, is well-known for facilitating pay-by-bank transactions. Pay-by-bank has seen increased interest among merchants, as they have multiple benefits in comparison to credit card payments. The benefits include fewer fees, faster settlement, and reduced chargebacks. While there has been some movement in pay-by-bank usage in the U.S., pay-by-bank has seen more growth in Europe where open banking is regulated and consumers don’t rely on credit cards as much.
As October gets underway in earnest, Finovate’s Fintech Rundown shares news of expedited payments to help those impacted by hurricane Helene, another partnership to help new Canadians secure credit, as well as a major investment in cross-border payments and a big acquisition in the fraud prevention space.
Be sure to check back all week long for more fintech news and updates!
Tyfone has partnered with FinGoal to deliver personalized banking solutions.
Tyfone will leverage FinGoal’s Insight Platform to help its clients transform transaction data into detailed personas and next-best actions for users.
FinGoal’s Next Best Actions has already been adopted by a portion of Tyfone’s clients, and more plan to join soon.
Digital banking solutions provider Tyfone has teamed up with FinGoal this week to help banks deliver personalized products and tools to account holders.
Tyfone will leverage FinGoal’s Insight Platform that turns transaction data into detailed personas and offers next-best actions for each account holder. Specifically, Tyfone clients will have greater access to FinGoal’s Next Best Actions, a tool that increases conversion rates, lifetime value, and engagement. Currently, a portion of Tyfone’s client base is already using Next Best Actions, and more plan to join soon.
Showcased at FinovateSpring 2023, FinGoal’s Next Best Actions can help increase conversion rates, lifetime value, and engagement across digital banking solutions by leveraging digital banking and personal financial data. With that data, FinGoal’s clients can better understand users and provide actionable insights.
“Today’s account holders want more than just banking—they’re looking for personalized insights and a seamless experience that helps them make better financial decisions,” said Tyfone Director of Strategic Partnerships Jared Kopelman. “By integrating FinGoal into our platform, we’re equipping our clients with powerful tools like transaction cleansing and categorization and clear merchant logos. This partnership empowers financial institutions to deliver a more intuitive and tailored experience that helps institutions better understand its customers and deepen relationships.”
Tyfone was founded in 2004 and provides digital banking and payment solutions. The Oregon-based company’s digital banking solution, nFinia, is an enterprise solution that allows CFIs to deliver a hyper-personalized digital banking experience to both retail and commercial customers. The configurable solution offers more than 300 financial functions and provides an open ecosystem with direct integrations with more than 160 players.
Headquartered in Colorado, FinGoal was founded in 2018. In addition to its personalized offers technology, the company offers transaction enrichment and account aggregation and verification tools.
“The better an institution knows its users, the better it can serve those users,” said FinGoal CEO David Nohe. “Tyfone is known for its modern and sophisticated banking solution, and this partnership gives banks and credit unions a modern platform with actionable insights to power better engagement. FinGoal will arm our joint clients with data analytics and enhanced user experience.”
This week’s edition of Finovate Global features recent fintech news and headlines from the Netherlands.
Netherlands-based digital banking platform Plumerysecured $3.3 million in funding this week. The investment came from of early-stage investor DN Capital and Fontes, managed by international VC firm QED Investors, and raises the company’s total funding to date to $7.8 million. Plumery added that it is preparing for a larger Series A round next year.
“Our commitment to product excellence and expansion into key markets (are) central to our roadmap, and this funding will propel us even further,” Plumery Founder and CEO Ben Goldin said. “We look forward to working with our partners in this next phase of our evolution and sustained growth in today’s competitive market.”
Plumery will put its new capital to work in a variety of ways. The company plans to expand its sales and marketing efforts, bolster international partner management, and enhance its platform’s capabilities for SMEs, consumers, lenders, and microfinance companies. Plumery will also look to add talent, particularly in product, engineering, and commercial roles.
Founded in 2022, Plumery offers a digital banking platform that enables businesses to rapidly customize and deploy their banking operations. The firm’s platform enables mobile and online banking interfaces and experiences to be built on top of legacy core platforms at a lower cost and at up to 80% faster than traditional methods. In its funding statement, the company noted that it plans to launch additional features including conversational banking and AI-driven automation and insights as part of its expansion plans.
It’s hard to imagine a Finovate Global look at fintech in the Netherlands that didn’t include a nod to Engagement Banking Platform Backbase. Especially upon hearing news that the company has moved to new headquarters in Amsterdam.
This week, Backbase celebrated the grand opening of its 5,000 square-meter, international headquarters at Oosterdoksstraat 114. Backbase CEO and Founder Jouk Pleiter said in a statement that the new HQ was “more than just a building,” noting that “it represents the outcome of a 20-year journey fueled by entrepreneurship, perseverance, and focus on innovation and customer success — all driven by our people.”
And at a time when many companies are struggling to encourage workers to spend more time in the office, it is hard not to be touched by the comments of Carolien Roos, partner at Firm Architects and designer of Backbase’s new headquarters. “Our vision was to create a space that not only inspires innovation but also brings people together,” Roos said. “The design encourages the kind of serendipitous encounters and discussions that often lead to groundbreaking ideas — a key ingredient in Backbase’s recipe for success.”
Backbase has been putting that recipe to good use of late. Also this week, the company announced that it was teaming up with business identity platform, and fellow Finovate alum, Middesk to enhance KYB verification for both banks and credit unions. Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform, integrated with Middesk, will give financial institutions access to real-time verification data sourced from multiple databases including the offices of all fifty Secretaries of State, the IRS, the USPS, OFAC, and more.
“Businesses today want a seamless verification process that meets compliance standards while limiting delays during the onboarding process,” Backbase VP of Product Robert Soetens said. “Together with Middesk, Backbase is continuing to implement modern, flexible, scalable, and API-first solutions (for) banks and credit unions, helping them deliver the best-in-class digital experiences to their business clients.”
Headquartered in San Francisco and founded in 2019, Middesk made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demoed its Verification solution that provides a complete and accurate view of customers — from entity names to watchlist screening. Middesk counts Affirm, Brex, and fellow Finovate alums Plaid and Gusto among its customers. Kyle Mack is CEO and Co-Founder.
In addition to forging new partnerships, Backbase launched its Intelligence Fabric Layer last week. The new offering is a set of data/AI infrastructure and development capabilities that embed natively in the Enterprise Banking Platform. These capabilities, which include Agentic AI, help banks realize “significant productivity gains” in both customer servicing and sales. The Intelligence Fabric leverages Backbase’s Grand Central Integration Platform-as-a-Service, which unifies data from multiple sources, including core banking systems, payment gateways, fintechs, and non-fintech systems such as CRMs.
“We see a future where AI Agents will work autonomously in the background, handling tasks, managing processes, and collaborating with customers and employees,” Pleiter said. “The adoption and evolution of these new-gen, super-powerful agents will dramatically reduce internal and external labor spend on overheads such as sales, marketing, customer service, and compliance operations.”
A Finovate alum since 2009, Backbase most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall in 2021. The four-time Finovate Best of Show winner was founded in 2003 and counts more than 150 financial institutions around the world as users of its Engagement Banking Platform.
For more on Agentic AI, check out our primer from Senior Research Analyst Julie Muhn.
Finovate has been happy to introduce our audiences to a number of fintech innovators based in the Netherlands over the last decade-plus. Check out this roster of Dutch fintechs that have demoed their innovations on the Finovate stage.
Indian neobank Jupiter is reportedly in talks to acquire a stake in SBM Bank India, according to TechCrunch.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Binance secured Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license to operate in Argentina.
Trinidad and Tobago inked an agreement with NPCI International Payments to build a real-time payments system based on India’s UPI.
Paysendpartnered with Mastercard to launch Paysend Libre in Mexico to promote financial inclusion.
Asia-Pacific
Malaysia’s Maybank partnered with China’s Bank of Hangzhou to enhance cross-border financing and innovation in AI.
Worldline teamed up with Bank of China Hong Kong to launch an open platform card solution for customers in Hong Kong.
A coalition of banks and other financial institutions in Malaysia have launched a new, integrated platform, the National Fraud Portal (NFP), to fortify the capabilities of the country’s National Scam Response Centre (NSRC).
Sub-Saharan Africa
Kazang Pay launched its card acceptance solution for merchants in Zambia.
African payment infrastructure company Fincra secured a Third Party Payment Provider (TPPP) license in South Africa.
How can companies take advantage of the opportunity of AI to grow revenues, help develop new products, and better engage customers? Our latest Streamly interview features Chris Brown, President of Intelygenz, who shares strategies for businesses to effectively implement AI.
In this interview, conducted by Finovate Senior Research Analyst Julie Muhn, Brown talks about Intelygenz’s engagement models that quickly deliver measurable ROI. Brown also discusses Intelygenz’s “Day Zero” promise, successful use cases in financial services, and explains what the metrics for success are when it comes to AI projects.
“There are a few things actually that I think organizations can do: I think the first thing is try and get yourself out of the AI buzzword, out of that AI hype, and really try to understand where you can apply AI within your business. Try and cross match your strategy, your challenges to the art of the possible of AI.”
“Don’t get hung up and leave that technical jargon. Leave all those hype words to the machine learning engineers and data scientists. Really focus on ‘What are the challenges I’m facing in my industry?’ ‘What will make a difference to my business?’ And if you do that, I can promise people from our vantage point that over many years you will put yourself in a really good position.”
Headquartered in San Francisco, California and founded in 2002, Intelygenz provides expert AI consultancy and implementation services. Specializing in AI, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, and other enabling technologies, Intelygenz guides businesses and organizations through their AI journeys – from conceptualization to implementation.
Identity verification solution and infrastructure company IDVerse announced a partnership with Hastings Direct Loans.
The U.K.-based lender will leverage IDVerse’s technology to enhance the accuracy and reliability of its identity verification process.
IDVerse, as OCR Labs, won Best of Show at FinovateAsia in 2017. The company rebranded to IDVerse in 2023.
Hastings Direct Loans is working with IDVerse to further automate the customer journey by adding IDVerse’s identity tools to its offering. The lender will put IDVerse’s identity tools to work to boost the accuracy and reliability of its identity verification process.
Calling IDVerse’s technology a “perfect match,” Hastings Direct Loans Head of Digital, IT and Change, Sam Kerr added, “Hastings prides itself on giving our customers a fair, easy to understand loan process by implementing innovative technology solutions into our stack, which also enable our ambitious growth plans. The API approach from IDVerse has allowed us to ingest more data to further insights in our decision process leading to better outcomes for our customers and business.”
IDVerse’s tools and infrastructure empower businesses to verify identities within seconds using only their face and smartphone. IDVerse’s identity verification technology covers more than 16,000 identity documents, and works with more than 140 different languages and typesets to produce face matching accuracy of 99.998%. Equipped with Zero Bias AI Tested technology, IDVerse enables businesses to verify a wider range of identities, ensuring greater accessibility, for example with those with disabilities.
Additionally, the technology leverages light refraction analysis to determine liveness, removing the need for users to turn or move uncomfortably or endure unnatural lighting in order to establish their identity. Zero Bias AI also means normalizing user photos to account for individuals that may not have the most modern smartphone camera technology or high-speed data connection. In addition to integrating and testing within a month, Hastings Direct Loans noted that it had experienced a 4x ROI within a month of launch based on the amount of fraud the company has caught.
IDVerse Commercial Director Adam Desmond complimented the Hastings team for its eagerness to embrace enabling technologies. “They understand the need for fintechs to use the latest technology and data to drive improved outcomes in customer experience – which led to better business outcomes. Being able to exchange information at speed during the integration has allowed us to show the true value of the tech (in) near instant time.”
Headquartered in the U.K., Hastings Direct Loans has offered personal loans to consumers for more than three years. To date, the firm has financed nearly $655 million (£500 million) for more than 50,000 customers, and currently processes more than $39 billion (£30 billion) worth of loan quotes per month. Hastings Direct Loans is part of the Hastings Group, a U.K.-based digital insurance provider with more than 3.1 million live customers policies.
Founded as OCR Labs, the company won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateAsia 2017 in Hong Kong. The firm rebranded as IDVerse in May 2023. More recently, the company has forged partnerships with data and compliance infrastructure company Prembly, age and identity verification solutions provider Veratad Technologies, and identity verification and fraud prevention specialist TrustID.
Last month, IDVerse announced the beta launch of its real-time face matching solution, Face Access, that offers 99.998% accuracy and instant, secure user authentication. Face Access features both Zero Bias AI and the company’s Deepfake Defender protection, which provides 100% liveness video fraud assessment with ISO 30107-3 compliance for presentation attack detection (PAD).
IDVerse has raised $45 million in funding according to Crunchbase, and includes Equable Capital and OYAK among its investors. The company is headquartered in London. John Myers is CEO.
