Email

RightCapital Launches Dynamic Retirement Spending Strategies

RightCapital Launches Dynamic Retirement Spending Strategies
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, RightCapital

Financial planning software company RightCapital unveiled new dynamic retirement spending strategies on its platform this week. The new offering gives investors the ability to better plan their finances once their working days are done.

“The industry has been using a rather simple retirement expense approach in the financial planning process for many years,” RightCapital CEO Shuang Chen said. “The ability to offer multiple options for retirement spending within our comprehensive planning tool is a significant step forward.”

Traditionally, financial planners have relied on an inflation-adjusted retirement spending model which focuses on a single input – the rising cost of living – to anticipate an increase in retirement spending each year. One criticism of this approach is that it does not account for changes in an individual’s portfolio that might significantly affect how much they are able to spend in retirement. RightCapital’s new offering factors in changes in portfolio value, reducing retirement spending projections when the portfolio loses value and giving investors the option to spend more in retirement should their portfolio significantly increase in value. The two dynamic strategies – referred to as guardrail and floor and ceiling – enable retirement spending to adjust in sync with portfolio performance and investment strategy parameters rather than being limited to tracking the rate of inflation.

Dynamic strategies such as those now available on the RightCapital platform more accurately reflect how individuals respond to changes in their investments in the real world. As Michael Kitces, Chief Financial Planning Nerd for Kitces.com and Head of Planning Strategy for Buckingham Wealth Partners explained, “as advisors, we cannot eliminate the uncertainty of markets themselves, but tools like RightCapital’s dynamic spending can help eliminate the uncertainty for clients of what they’d have to do in response to those market events, facilitating better client conversations about how to keep their retirement on track.”

Other features of RightCapital’s dynamic retirement spending strategies include the ability to customize spending levels by age, anticipating a higher level of spending early in the investor’s retirement life and tapering off as the investor ages. The strategies can also incorporate changes in healthcare expenditures over the course of the investor’s retirement, as well.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut, RightCapital demonstrated its technology most recently at FinovateSpring in 2019. At the conference, the RightCapital team demonstrated the company’s API/Enterprise solution, which gives financial advisors the ability to offer their clients access to custom applications ranging from PFM to account aggregation to secure document sharing. In June, RightCapital announced that it would “enhance (its) integration” with partner Riskalyze, a specialist in risk alignment and portfolio analytics. Also that month, RightCapital and a coalition of fintechs including fellow Finovate alum Betterment launched the RIA Tech Suite to provide financial advisors with services and tools to automate back-office operations.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Banking-as-a-Service Innovator NYMBUS Secures $3 Million in New Funding

Banking-as-a-Service Innovator NYMBUS Secures $3 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, NYMBUS

In a round led by OFG Ventures – a subsidiary of OFG Bancorp – bank technology solution provider NYMBUS has secured $3 million in new funding.

“Our mission has remained steadfast to help financial institutions of any size succeed with impactful, intentional innovation,” Nymbus CEO and Chairman Jeffery Kendall said. “OFG Ventures’ investment is an added vote-of-confidence to the value our strategy brings to an industry widely in need of immediate and sustainable business growth opportunities.”

Most recently demonstrating its technology two years ago at FinovateFall, banking-as-a-service innovator Nymbus provides financial institutions with both the technical and operational tools necessary to digitally transform their businesses. The company’s solutions – ranging from its flagship SmartCore, SmartDigital, and SmartPayments offerings to its full-service, standalone digital banking alternative SmartLaunch – give banks, credit unions, and other financial services-based companies greater ability to streamline processes and offer new digital services – without requiring a major core conversion or significant additional human resources.

This week’s investment is only the latest infusion of capital the Miami Beach, Florida-based fintech has received this year. The company picked up $15 million in funding from private equity firm Financial Services Capital this spring and, in February, Nymbus announced a $53 million Series C round led by Insight Partners. The company’s total funding now stands at more than $121 million, according to Crunchbase.

Nymbus has been one of the busier banking-as-a-service innovators of late, partnering with a variety of fintechs and financial institutions in the past year. These partnerships have included collaborations with fellow Finovate alums like Plaid and Segmint, credit unions and challenger banks like VyStar CU and PeoplesBank’s ZYNLO Bank, as well as with innovators in open finance and cryptocurrencies like Red Hat and NYDIG. The company also launched a new credit union service organization (CUSO) in March, Nymbus CUSO, to help credit unions take better advantage of fintech offerings that can enable them to create new revenue opportunities and boost engagement with their members.

“Our CUSO signifies a commitment to credit unions by providing strategic partnerships and flexible technology that will create sustainable growth and loyal members,” Kendall said when the new organization was introduced earlier this year. “For those wanting to innovate, Nymbus CUSO moves past traditional vendor thinking to create supportive structures for credit unions ready to grow and reach new niche markets.”

Photo by Scott Webb from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Moments That Matter: Tracking Finovate Alums from the Demo Stage to Real World Success

Moments That Matter: Tracking Finovate Alums from the Demo Stage to Real World Success
By Heather Stowell Posted on
Categories: Finovate Marketing, FinovateFall 2021

Each year, in the weeks leading up to our fintech conferences, we take the time to highlight those companies that have demonstrated their innovations on the Finovate stage, and then gone on to raise significant funding, sign partnerships with impressive new customers, merge with tech/fintech leaders, or achieve other major wins.

We recently shared seven stories from alums of Finovate’s annual autumn event – FinovateFall – which kicks off this year on September 13th and runs through September 15th. We’ll continue exploring them here, in addition to looking at both returning alum all-stars and new companies hoping to make big fintech headlines in the future.

Last week’s list dated back to Finovate’s debut in 2007, when Yodlee joined 19 companies on stage at our inaugural fintech conference. Yodlee continued on to dominate the data aggregation and analytics space, as well as share product launches and updates at Finovate conferences annually. In 2015, Envestnet acquired Yodlee for a whopping $660 million.

The founders of POS platform Shopkeep started their incredible journey at FinovateFall 2012, rounding it out with an acquisition by Lightspeed for $440 million in 2020.

Malauzai — first demoing its digital banking platform in September 2014 — capped off four years of demos with an acquisition by fellow Finovate alum Finastra in 2018. FlexScore, also appearing in 2014, was snapped up by United Capital Financial Advisors in early 2016 for its gamified financial planning platform.

Since first demoing in 2015 as SaleMove, Glia continues to break ground with ten Best of Show wins, $98 million in funding, and massive improvements to customer experience.

And more recently, Eigen Technologies, which specializes in data extraction and business intelligence, raised $37 million in Series B funding just two months after debuting in September 2019. Monit, a mobile, predictive cashflow and financial optimization platform, raised $5.2 million in equity financing this April after winning Best of Show last September.

With Finovate’s return to New York this fall, these next few stories feature companies you’ll see on September 13th and 14th. If you can’t attend in person, join digitally to make sure you’re part of the moments that matter.

Ultimately, Finovate events are about creating moments that matter – in a few short minutes, companies can go from obscurity to fame, from two customers to 20, from a small Series A to a huge Series B, from promising startup to full-fledged unicorn.

Greg Palmer, VP Strategy, Finovate

Backbase debuted at FinovateFall 2009. Shortly after its demo, the company opened offices in New York; signed bank partners across Europe, North America, and beyond; earned several Best of Show awards; and grew to be the fintech giant we know today. Backbase will demo its North American offering next month.

Vymo, a 2018 alum, raised an impressive $18 million in Series B funding in June 2019. The company is back on stage this fall with its sales acceleration platform.

Based in New York City, Instnt made its Finovate debut in 2019 with its customer onboarding solution for businesses. The company began 2020 by raising $2.9 million in seed funding and ended the year partnering with phone intelligence technology company Prove.

And after their September 2019 demo, Breach Clarity agreed to be acquired by Sontiq the following spring. Next month at FinovateFall, the company will debut BreachIQ, a solution to protect the financial health of FIs and the consumers they serve.

Each year, companies aspire to follow in the footsteps of these and other alums that have made a huge impact in the fintech space. Here are some new companies representing the FinovateFall 2021 demo roster that are hoping to make headlines:

  • Amplify‘s digital platform provides accessible, transparent, and convenient permanent life insurance products for Millennial and Gen Z consumers using an intelligent customer journey and instant underwriting capabilities.
  • ASA‘s scalable platform removes all barriers to entry allowing unlimited partnerships between financial institutions and fintechs using an access controller for secure transactions.
  • Atomic FI‘s payroll APIs supply financial service providers with better direct deposit services.
  • BANYAN‘s global interchange for SKU-level receipt data allows consumers to connect their receipts to any app in a secure, safe and anonymized way.
  • Berbix‘s ID validation solution utilizes machine learning and AI data-driven technology to reduce the friction and fraud in new account creation for fintechs that need to onboard new users online.
  • Ellenby‘s end-to-end cash deposit accountability system allows financial institutions to efficiently manage frequent cash deposits by businesses using its Validating Smart Transport Bag (VSTB).
  • Long Game‘s gamified finance app helps banks acquire new customers and increases engagement with their current customers in the Millenial and Gen Z demographics.
  • Perch‘s free app tears down the barriers of the current credit system by reporting alternative data such as rent and subscription payments to build the credit of the underbanked.
  • Posh‘s Conversational Interactive Voice Response technology targets the inefficiencies and expenses within financial institution contact centers using cutting-edge machine learning and natural language processing.
  • Railz‘s single API connects to major accounting and ERP software and targets complicated and unstandardized SMB financial data using data normalization and insights for financial institutions.
  • Sequretek simplifies cybersecurity for the financial service industry by offering a single AI-based solution for complete enterprise security.
  • Soul Machines‘ Digital People humanize and personalize each engagement and offer rich and emotionally interactive experiences for banking and financial service customers.
  • SpecTrust‘s no-code risk platform minimizes high costs and slow turnaround time to deploy solutions that help risk investigators, strategists, and engineering teams identify risk, orchestrate signals, and take mitigating actions.
  • UNest‘s mobile application democratizes access to savings and investing solutions for parents and extended family.
  • unitQ‘s quality monitoring platform is AI-enabled based on what your users say and do, so product, engineering, ops, and CX leaders at finserv companies can fix the right issues faster.
  • Akouba by Velocity Solutions reduces the lengthy lending process for financial institutions using a cloud-based digital lending platform.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FintechOS Raises $10 Million to Help Banks Deliver on Financial Inclusion

FintechOS Raises $10 Million to Help Banks Deliver on Financial Inclusion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Fintech OS, Funding

London-based financial services technology provider FintechOS secured $10 million in funding from the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group. The investment is part of the company’s $60 million Series B round, announced in April, and will support FintechOS’ goals of promoting financial inclusion by helping FIs expand access to financial services to un- and underbanked communities.

Many fintechs talk the financial inclusion talk. But even those companies committed to serving overlooked individuals and communities, often discover that actually “walking the walk” on financial inclusion can be more difficult than it seems at first. Speaking to this conundrum, FintechOS co-founder and CEO Teodor Blidarus said, “today financial technology is too often an inhibitor rather than an enabler of inclusion. Financial institutions both large and small simply don’t have the right tools at the right price point to meet market demands.” Blidarus highlighted enabling technologies like low-code, but lamented that these solutions remain under-utilized. “And this impacts those at the bottom of the (financial) pyramid most acutely,” he added.

For financial institutions eager to undergo digital transformation, FintechOS offers an alternative to what it calls “painful rip-and-replace” approaches to the transformation journey. Instead, FintechOS provides a low-code, plug and play strategy that enables banks and insurance firms to take advantage of digital end-to-end services, automated processes, and personalized, customer-centric solutions “in weeks, not months.”

FintechOS made its Finovate debut in 2018, demonstrating its platform at FinovateEurope in London. More recently, the company released its Configuration Management update, which boosts FintechOS’ scalability and helps pave the way for full Git integration. Git is a change-tracking software that helps developers collaborate during the source code writing process. The technology enables distributed teams to write code, test new functionalities, and securely deploy new versions.

“Configuration Management will make life easier for developers and streamline the wider operation of the FintechOS platform,” Blidarus explained. He added that full Git integration “will help our clients self-serve and customize their enterprise-grade solutions based on our technology.”

Recognized last month as the 2021 Microsoft Romania Partner of the Year, FintechOS includes Reliance Bank, Raiffeisen Bank, Societe General, and Vienna Insurance Group among its more than 40 partners around the world. This spring, the company’s founders, who hail from Romania, became the first Romanians to join Endeavor’s global community supporting “high-impact entrepreneurs.”

“For the Romanian entrepreneurial ecosystem, the selection of FintechOS in the Endeavor Network is a confirmation of the value and the huge development potential of Romanian companies in a truly global setting,” Endeavor Romania board chair Marius Stefan said. “We are eager to discover together other innovative companies and other entrepreneurs as focused and enthusiastic as (co-founders) Teodor and Sergiu (Negut) and enhance their development with the help of Endeavor.”

Photo by Eduard Balan from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

CuneXus Inks Pact with Origence to Streamline Digital Lending

CuneXus Inks Pact with Origence to Streamline Digital Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, CUneXus, CUneXus Solutions, Daily news

A strategic partnership between digital lending solution provider CuneXus and lending technology company Origence will give more than 1,100 credit unions the ability to offer their members access to personalized, pre-approved financing offers.

“We are focused on changing the way credit unions interact with their members, and this means tearing down old, and painful banking experiences” CuneXus co-founder and President Dave Buerger said. “We’re empowering people with unrivaled transparency and convenience, and this partnership with Origence makes that easily accessible to many more credit unions and consumers. Together we can provide the modern seamless lending experience that members deserve, one that equips them for financial excellence.”

The partnership allows credit unions to access CuneXus’ digital storefront, which leverages a proactive, “Perpetual Approval” approach that continuously analyzes hundreds of internal and external data points to ensure that qualified borrowers can get personalized loan offers, while simultaneously helping keep the credit union “top of mind” whenever one of its members has expressed an interest in securing financing. The methodology exchanges the typical credit application process for an ongoing automated credit approval that make the financing process less complicated for credit union members.

VP of Strategic Alliances at Origence, Aleks Bogoeski, said that the partnership with CuneXus comes at an opportune moment as consumer behavior and spending begins to rebound in the wake of COVID-19. “Our partnership with CuneXus provides a timely opportunity for credit unions to implement a dynamic digital experience that further simplifies the lending process, as member spending returns to a normal, post-pandemic pace,” Bogoeski said. “We are happy to have partnered with CuneXus to bring this service to our credit unions.”

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Santa Rosa, California, CuneXus made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014. In the years since, the company has grown to serve more than 145 of the biggest lenders in the U.S. with its digital storefront, helping these institutions increase wallet share, generate branch revenue, and grow non-interest income. CuneXus clients represent more than $400 billion in combined assets and serve 20 million customers and members.

CuneXus was acquired by CUNA Mutual Group in the fall of last year. Announcing the move, CUNA Mutual president and CEO Robert N. Trunzo highlighted CuneXus’ “growth trajectory” – as well as its expertise and products – as features that would enhance CUNA Mutual Group’s opportunity for growth. “We are continuing our journey into a more diverse, digital-first world,” Trunzo said. “Our company is committed to using technology to enhance consumers’ access to financial solutions that work for them and create a more equitable financial system and society. This is a top priority for all of our core businesses.”

Photo by Erik Karits from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Chilean Fintechs Secure Millions; EBANX and Amazon Forge Payments Partnership

Chilean Fintechs Secure Millions; EBANX and Amazon Forge Payments Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Compass Plus, Finastra

Fintech companies from Chile made headlines this week, taking their rightful place alongside the innovators in neighboring countries like Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, which have tended to dominate conversations about the surge in financial technology in Latin America in recent years.

Xepelin, a Chilean company that offers a financial services platform designed especially for small businesses, raised $30 million in equity along with another $200 million in debt facilities. The equity financing was led by Kaszek Ventures, a Latin American VC fund, and featured participation from DST Global and a number of angel investors. The company’s debt facility were provided by asset managers and hedge funds based in Latin America as well as the U.S.

Xepelin focuses on enabling small businesses to secure organize their financial data in real time, as well as apply for – and receive – short-term financing easily and quickly. The company says that SMEs can apply for working capital loans “with three clicks” and receive their funding “in a matter of hours.”

With a monthly growth rate of 30%, Xepelin said it has more than 4,000 clients in Mexico and Chile, and has loaned more than $400 million to small businesses in those countries. The company said that the new capital will help it ensure that all small businesses in Latin America will have access to both financial services and financial capital. Xepelin also noted that it is looking to expand beyond the B2B space to provide a broader range of services to small businesses and companies in the region.

Helping employers improve the financial health of workers is the mission of Quansa, another Chilean fintech that raised $3.6 million in new capital this week. Quansa combines financial education with financial management tools to give companies in Chile the ability to offer their employees a more holistic benefits package. Quansa’s platform provides personalized financial guidance, access to flexible salaries, and debt management resources to more than 2,000 workers currently.

The seed funding round was led by Valor Capital Group and featured participation from Pear VC, Norte, Magma Partners, Sequoia Scouts, as well as a number of angel investors.

Quansa co-founder Mafalda Barros pointed to the challenge of debt that many Chilean workers struggle with, and noted that 70% of workers say that they feel as if they have little control over their finances. “It’s just as important to understand how to manage your money as it is to have access to these services,” Barrros said. “We teach users how to organize and manage their bills, use financial tools, start saving and, of course, to spend better.”

Not all big fintech headlines out of Latin America were related to funding and venture capital. EBANX, a payments solution provider based in Brazil, and Amazon have teamed up to enable Amazon Prime Video customers in Peru to subscribe to the service and make payments in local currency rather than in U.S. dollars.

“Localized solutions deeply improve the online purchasing experience for Peruvians and all Latin Americans, helping them to access the best services around the world – in addition to broadening the total addressable market of companies in the LatAm region,” EBANX co-founder and CEO João Del Valle said. “And this two-way street of access is precisely what we work for everyday at EBANX. That is why we are very excited about this collaboration with Amazon Prime Video in Peru.”

Founded in 2012, EBANX is among the leading payment platforms in Latin America. The company offers more than 100 local payment methods and brought access to financial products and services to more than 70 million Latin Americans. Last month, the company secured $430 million in funding from Advent International. This spring, EBANX launched operations in Central America, expanding its total reach to 15 countries. The company has said it plans to offer shares to the public via IPO “in the coming months.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Photo by Alisha Lubben from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

How Fintech Teams Grow Engagement and Enhance Digital Outcomes

How Fintech Teams Grow Engagement and Enhance Digital Outcomes
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Webinar, Webinars

How do companies keep pace with rising consumer expectations in a post-COVID, digitally transformed world? What role do flexibility and adaptability play in explaining why some companies succeed in engaging their customers while other companies struggle to do so?

Our latest Finovate webinar tackled these issues and more in an hour-long conversation with a quartet of fintech and financial services professionals. Check out our panel discussion – Keep Your Friends Close and Your Data Closer – now available for free On Demand and learn how fintechs are successfully leveraging “people, process, and culture” to achieve their goals.

Here are some excerpts from the conversation:

“What’s interesting is that 60% of the marketing decision-makers say that their budgets will increase in the next six months, and this was during a time when many companies were still struggling with the previous wave of the pandemic. What’s even more interesting is that the top three areas that brands are intending to invest in are customer engagement, customer satisfaction measurement, and mobile optimization and apps.” Chye Yien, Senior Strategic Business Consultant, Braze

“We saw a major shift from people talking about things to actually doing things. And there have definitely been some very clear trends that we saw towards not only just getting an app out there – which a lot of people have done – but actually making sure that app works well. So when you talk about that dichotomy between the smaller players, the startups that are coming in, and the legacy players in fintech, what we really saw was the people that came from a digitally native position really had strong applications with greater users experiences.” Julio Bermudez, VP APAC and LATAM with Amplitude

“Brands and companies really need to kind of focus on trust and be forward-looking when it comes to permissions, which are only going to get stricter. Customers are only going to want to manage their data more and more. Personalization has been around forever, but I think it’s only getting more and more important; even if it’s in a soft advertising context like an in-app message or something like that, if it’s not relevant to you then why would you care?” Alex Bird, Product Manager, Openpay

“I think it’s very important for you to be able to marry everything together, everything sing(ing) in the same language, and that’s when the first part of collecting data gets done, that’s when you are able to get data in a clean, organized manner. The next part, which I feel is the challenging part, is taking that data into insights, that’s where the goldmine is, that’s where business or your product will be able to make or create an impact for your customers.” Alka Gupta, Director of Data & People, BukuWarung.

Listen to the full discussion for free On Demand today!

Photo by Akil Mazumder from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Behalf Raises $100 Million Debt Facility for B2B BNPL Offering

Behalf Raises $100 Million Debt Facility for B2B BNPL Offering
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Blend, Daily news, Funding

Now more small businesses can get in on the Buy Now Pay Later game just like retail consumers.

Courtesy of a new $100 million debt facility, small business financing company Behalf will be able to make its In-Purchase Financing offering available to a broader range of B2B merchants and their small business customers. In-Purchase Financing gives B2B merchants the same sort of Buy Now Pay Later benefits that retail consumers enjoy, and includes a range of features designed especially to meet the needs of B2B commerce. The facility was provided by funds managed by Ares Management Corporation.

Behalf also announced $19 million in new venture financing led by MissionOG, Viola Growth, Viola Credit, and Vintage Investment Partners. Migdal Insurance and La Maison Partners also participated in the round. Behalf’s total funding now stands at more than $250 million.

Describing the B2B e-commerce market as more than ready for transformation, Behalf CEO Rob Rosenblatt said that in-purchase financing gives merchants the opportunity to source new revenues. The offering also gives small and medium-sized businesses access to an affordable financing alternative.

“Even as the U.S. economy is improving, SMBs continue to seek financial assistance to purchase critical supplies, inventory and equipment,” Rosenblatt explained. “Oftentimes they lack the requisite spend capacity on their personal or business credit cards. By offering In-Purchase Financing with flexible terms, B2B merchants can increase average order size by as much as 50-80 percent while reducing their risk, improving cash flow and driving operational efficiencies,” he said.

Among the features included in Behalf’s In-Purchase Financing solution are:

  • Seamless checkout to improve CX and customer loyalty
  • Easy integration with existing point-of-sale systems
  • Advanced underwriting and scoring models to handle the complexity and risk of SME lending

The solution scales to enable merchants to serve a range of business customers, from small to large, and supports financing for transactions of “significantly greater” average order value relative to consumer financing options.

“We think there is a great market opportunity for a B2B offering targeting the more complex, real-time financing needs of SMBs,” Ares Credit Group Partner Jeffrey Kramer said. “We are excited to provide a debt facility that will help support the company to achieve its growth objectives.”

Founded in 2011, Behalf made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall three years later. Since then, the company has enabled its B2B merchant partners to achieve an 83% increase in Average Order Value (AOV), an 80% gain in purchase frequency, and 44% growth in sales revenue.

Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

StackSource Brings Innovation to Commercial Real Estate Lending

StackSource Brings Innovation to Commercial Real Estate Lending
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Daily news

Fintech’s innovations in the real estate market for homebuyers have prompted the emergence of an entire new kind of fintech company, the mortgagetech, that specializes in leveraging technology to improve the homebuying experience for all parties involved.

Less discussed are the ways that technology is helping those involved in the commercial end of the real estate market do their jobs better and more efficiently. To this end, we caught up with Tim Milazzo, co-founder and CEO of StackSource, a company that connects borrowers and lenders seeking commercial real estate financing.

Headquartered in New York City and founded in 2015, StackSource recently made fintech headlines with the appointment of commercial real estate industry veteran Richard Caldwell as EVP – Head of Originations. We talked with Milazzo via email about his company, how it serves the CRE industry, and the importance of blending technical innovation with human experience and talent.

What problem does your technology solve and who does it solve it for? 

Tim Milazzo: StackSource simplifies the process of finding the best commercial mortgage for a given property investment by tracking the loan programs of hundreds of active lenders and offering borrowers a transparent experience.

Commercial mortgage brokerage has traditionally been a local, relationship-driven game. If you’re buying a home in 2021, you can know your rate and get pre-approved for a mortgage in minutes. But in commercial real estate, finding the right financing is only unlocked by developing relationships with the right set of lenders based on dozens of variables from the property’s asset type, location, income, and physical characteristics, as well as the borrower’s track record, financial strength, and business plan. We’ve streamlined that process of finding and connecting with suitable lenders to boost the investors’ financial returns with the right debt.

What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge? 

Milazzo: My first exposure to commercial real estate was through family ties. My father was a successful commercial real estate broker in New York City, so I’d hear stories about office building negotiations at the dinner table growing up. While I went to college to study Finance, I interned at a large real estate firm, where I was known as the smart spreadsheet kid that sat in the corner. Honestly, I didn’t come away with a big interest in the industry at that time; my eye was on big tech companies. I went on to work in advertising technology, first with Google and later with Facebook. I came back to commercial real estate because I found an area where online technology could deliver a superior value proposition: helping investors find the best financing for a commercial property investment without the need to track hundreds of lenders’ programs themselves.

What do you think is the most misunderstood aspect of investing in commercial real estate? 

Milazzo: Many old-school brokers are quick to point out that commercial real estate is a “relationship business.” And that’s true. But what’s missed is the fact that it’s also an information business. If you can leverage the correct information, you can scale beyond your local relationships in the capital markets, which is a significant advantage.

You recently launched a new Chrome browser extension to make the discovery process easier. Can you tell us more about this feature?

Milazzo: We’ve been delivering competitive financing quotes to real estate investor clients for a couple of years now. Still, we wanted to go the extra mile in the name of transparency and efficiency. We came up with a tool that draws on our pool of loan quote data to allow real estate investors to apply financing quotes to any commercial property listing across the web and analyze potential investment opportunities. Sourcing acquisition opportunities is a competitive process, and this tool can add speed and accuracy to acquisition analysis. It’s completely free and open, with no obligation to use our financing service.

One interesting aspect of StackSource is how you combine a technology platform with a fleet of experienced industry veterans. How do you see the balance between enabling technologies and “the human touch”? 

Milazzo: The commercial mortgage space is not nearly as commoditized as residential mortgages. Even in the most “simple” commercial mortgage lending scenarios, where we can go as far as automating an instant soft quote, these are major financial investments, and borrowers want the guidance of an experienced Capital Advisor from submission to close.

How did COVID-19 impact your business and customers?

Milazzo: We doubled our market share in 2020 as many investors were looking for answers on how to secure the best financing for their real estate investment properties. People were staying home, and our online process is easy to access from anywhere, which was especially attractive. At the same time, funding from many local banks was pulled back in response to the pandemic. We even saw many traditional financing sources get distracted by things like issuing PPP loans, while we kept our focus on the long-term and stayed exclusively focused on commercial real estate.

What can we expect from StackSource over the balance of 2021? 

Milazzo: We just raised our first proper fundraising round for the company in Q2, allowing us to push the limits of how efficient the commercial mortgage origination process can become. Think automated quotes on specific qualified properties and integrating additional data sources seamlessly into the investment and financing process.

Photo by George Becker from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

MX Integrates with Dwolla; Bambu and Moven Launch Strategic Partnership

MX Integrates with Dwolla; Bambu and Moven Launch Strategic Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, Bambu, Dwolla, Moven, MX

From the partnership between Best of Show winners MX and Dwolla that will enhance and automate account verification to the news of a strategic partnership between roboadvisor Bambu and Moven, collaborations between Finovate alums are filling the fintech headlines to start the week.

With MX and Dwolla, the partnership extends instant account verification coverage to 4,000+ institutions, making it easier for MX customers to connect securely to any deposit account. The integration also enables account verification through micro-deposits, which makes it possible for MX to offer verification for “nearly 100 percent” of deposit accounts in the U.S.

Enabling better access to micro-deposits by improving the verification experience is a key component of the integration. MX co-founder and CTO Brandon Dewitt underscored the importance of these deposits and the role they play in financial inclusion and serving the underbanked. “Micro-deposits have gotten a bad reputation in the industry, but the truth is for some of the population who bank with community credit unions or mid-sized institutions, it comes down to either using a micro-deposit or not having the ability to connect them to their accounts,” Dewitt said.

MX most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage two years ago at FinovateFall. The Lehi, Utah-based company won Best of Show for a live demo of its MX Enabled platform that helps financial institutions add to their offerings via connections with fintechs through MX’s API ecosystem. Earlier this month, MX launched a new suite of financial insights APIs and embeddable user interfaces to enable companies to pursue opportunities in open finance.

Dwolla won Best of Show in its Finovate debut in 2011 at FinovateSpring. The company announced just last week that it had raised $21 million in funding in a round led by Foundry Group that will help it continue to innovate in the B2B payments space.

“Partnering with MX will automate the verification experience and make it that much easier to verify a bank account,” Dwolla President and COO Dave Glaser said. “Together with Dwolla, MX has configured a new solution to ensure that millions of payments occur smoothly and easily each day. We couldn’t be more excited about this partnership and the impact it will have on millions of Americans.”

Giving average retail banking customers the kind of support typically available only to high net worth individuals is part of the motive behind the strategic partnership announced early this week between roboadvisor technology solution company Bambu and financial wellness technology platform Moven.

“Adding Bambu’s capabilities to Moven’s mobile-centric experience is well in-line with the needs of banks and fintechs to provide consumers with personalized, automatic investing to their product offerings,” Moven Chief Revenue Officer Bryan Clagett said. He noted that traditional banks still have a major impact and influence on their customers and, as such, they can and should do more – beyond banking – to enable their customers to better manage the entirety of their financial lives.

The new offering is designed to empower bank customers by allowing them to manage and plan their finances and investments more holistically. The goal is to provide customers with the equivalent of a digital CFO to help them better understand their spending patterns in order to increase savings and better manage their investments. This is a critical aspect of the new solution, which moves beyond simple robo-investing to give customers a more comprehensive view – and greater control – over their finances.

“We look forward to working closely with Moven as wealth and digital banking become more seamlessly connected,” Bambu co-founder and CEO Ned Phillips said. “Moven’s long history in digital banking and Bambu’s intelligent wealth APIs will provide a perfect platform for any financial institution focused on digital banking and wealth.”

Singapore-based Bambu made its most recent Finovate appearance last year at FinovateEurope in Berlin where the company demonstrated its BambuGo white label financial roboadvisor platform. Earlier this month, Bambu announced that it had acquired investment management technology company Tradesocio.

Making its Finovate debut more than eight years ago, Moven famously pivoted from a direct-to-consumer/neobank model to a focus on “smart banking and financial wellness” a little over a year ago. The company has teamed up since with fellow Finovate alums Q2 and Digital Onboarding, as well as with intelligent billpay company Blip Labs and digital asset manager NYDIG, to help them better engage their customers with actionable insights to enhance financial health.

Photo by Pineapple Supply Co. from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

CreditRich Founder Angel Rich to Take Financial Literacy to the Next Level

CreditRich Founder Angel Rich to Take Financial Literacy to the Next Level
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Diversity in Fintech, Partnership Outlook

Not all partnerships in fintech involve companies. In fact, one of the most interesting partnerships in fintech in recent days might be a union between people – not an alliance among corporations.

Angel Rich, who made history this spring as the first African-American woman to secure an institutional partnership with one of the Big Three major credit bureaus, announced her engagement to Karl Jones, Director of Corporate Partnerships at ansrsource, this week. “What’s better than one future Black billionaire?” Rich asked on her LinkedIn page by way of sharing the engagement news. “Two. Thanks for all of your love and support on our engagement. Karl Jones and I are very excited to make an impact with our union.”

Rich’s company, WealthyLife, launched its AI-powered fintech app, CreditRich in April, collaborating with Finovate/FinDEVr alum Experian. The app enables individuals to use their spare change or “round ups” to pay for bills and other expenses. CreditRich promotes financial wellness by allowing users to prioritize debt payments – or to use the app’s algorithm to find and pay first those bills that have the most impact on the user’s credit score. Users can make one-time deposits to accelerate any debt repayment, as well as make contributions to a family member’s account to enable them to pay down debt and improve their credit score. The CreditRich app is currently available on the Android operating system, with an iOS expected soon.

“It makes sense to put financial literacy, intelligent billpay, and credit management together on a smartphone to help people increase their credit scores faster and easier,” Rich said late last year on the news that actor, singer, and songwriter Naturi Naughton had joined WealthyLife as Chief Branding Officer. “I don’t want people to experience the same hurdles I did after graduating from college with $180,000 of debt.”

Also the founder of Black Tech Matters, an organization dedicated to promoting ethnic diversity in STEM, Rich said she is looking forward to collaborating with Jones to advance financial education technology solutions. ansrsource, where Jones is Director of Corporate Partnerships, specializes in helping companies leverage digital technology to enhance their training and development strategies. The Dallas, Texas-based company’s clients range from 42,000-student Arizona State University to construction manufacturing firm Hilti.

As BlackNews.com noted, the union between financial literacy and digital education represented by Rich and Jones also represents a union of rivals. Rich is an alum of the famous HBCU (historically black college/university) Hampton University in Virginia. Jones is a graduate of the equally-legendary HBCU Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Photo by Git Stephen Gitau from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

B2B Payments Innovator Paystand Secures $50 Million in Series C Funding

B2B Payments Innovator Paystand Secures $50 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, PayStand

In a round led by new investor NewView Capital, blockchain-based commercial payments innovator Paystand has raised $50 million in funding. The company leverages the cloud and the Ethereum blockchain to power its Paystand Bank Network, a no-fee, digital B2B payment system used by more than 250,000 companies to make payments.

“With this new funding, Paystand is uniquely positioned to bring the benefits of blockchain to commercial payments so businesses can be more agile and competitive in the post-pandemic landscape,” Paystand CEO Jeremy Almond said. “Our vision is to create an open financial infrastructure that delivers a self-driving money experience for businesses and provides radically better economics for the industry itself.”

The investment takes Paystand’s total capital to more than $78 million. Also participating in this week’s financing were SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund, King River Capital, Industrious Ventures, and Transform Capital. As part of the investment, NewView Capital’s Jazmin Medina will join Paystand’s board of directors.

Paystand’s innovation is to automate the entire cash lifecycle to enable businesses to enhance the overall customer experience with seamless, B2B payment options. The company’s technology helps businesses accelerate time-to-cash, lower DSO (daily sales outstanding) by 60% or more, as well as reduce fraud and chargebacks thanks to real-time fund verification. And instead of charging businesses a percentage on each transaction, Paystand’s business model relies on subscriptions which the company says allows businesses to scale their payments operations without having to worry about dramatically increased fee-per-transaction expenses.

An alum of our developers conference, FinDEVr, Paystand was among the many fintechs who was able to turn the crisis of the global pandemic into an opportunity to support businesses that suddenly found themselves sprinting toward digital transformation. In a blog post discussing the challenges facing businesses during this time, Almond noted that while many companies had already migrated to the cloud for their “systems of record” (i.e., CRM, ERP, etc.), the “critical component” and “last mile” of digital transformation – revenue – was left underaddressed.

“Finance teams found themselves forced to return to the office at the height of COVID-19 outbreaks just to pick up checks and deal with cash flow,” Almond wrote, “something that clearly exposed the backwards nature of the legacy payment system.”

In May, Paystand inked a partnership with cloud business management solution provider Sage to enable a “Venmo for Businesses” like service via Paystand’s B2B payment network. The following month, the Scotts Valley, California-based fintech launched its Smart Lockbox, a digital-first alternative to traditional lockbox services. Smart Lockbox enhances the ability of businesses to transition away from paper-based payments to faster, less expensive, digital options, and makes migration easy with a seamless, one-click process.

“Smart Lockbox is the key tool that helps companies seamlessly bring their mission-critical revenue into the digital age,” Almond said when the solution was announced. “In a post-pandemic world, everything looks very different. COVID supercharged the push for digital transformation across the board for businesses, and there’s no question that this shift is here to stay. Now, with Smart Lockbox, finance teams can turn their biggest headaches into a newfound source of power.”

Photo by Lisa from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook