Neobanks in South America; Swedish Payments Firm Trustly Eyes $11 Billion IPO

Neobanks in South America; Swedish Payments Firm Trustly Eyes $11 Billion IPO

Earlier this week we reported on the $400 million Series G closed by Brazilian neobank – and Finovate alum – Nubank. The firm, founded in 2013 and based in Sao Paulo, serves more than 34 million customers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, and offers a digital savings account, a no-fee credit card, as well as personal loans. This week’s investment boosts the company’s total capital to $1.2 billion and gives the Brazilian digital bank a valuation of $25 billion.

We also suggested that Nubank’s news was a good opportunity for fintech fans to “brush up” on fintech in general when it comes to Latin America – and the region’s challenger banking industry in specific. To this end, for this week’s Finovate Global Reports, we are sharing this look at neobanks in South America, courtesy of Fintechnews Switzerland.

“South America has seen an exceptionally dynamic evolution of its neobanking landscape,” the authors wrote, “with now more than 30 live neobanks and digital banks that serve over 50 million customers out of the region’s 430 million+ population (+11%), data from Dutch fintech consultancy firm Fincog shows.”

An Overview of South America’s Booming Neobanking Sector is a great way to get to know how and why challenger banks are finding fertile ground in countries ranging from Brazil and Colombia to Peru and Argentina.


Swedish payments company Trustly, which made its Finovate debut back in 2013 at FinovateEurope in London, is betting that even after a year that featured a record number of initial public offerings, the investing public is hungry for more.

Reuters reported earlier this week that Trustly is planning an initial public offering in Q2 of this year that could earn the company a valuation of $11 billion (EUR 9 billion). Nordic Capital, which acquired Trustly in 2018, is said to be working with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Carnegie, with additional banks to be brought onboard as well. According to Reuters, the company is targeting “late April or early May” for an IPO. Both Trustly and Nordic Capital have not commented on the IPO rumor.

Headquartered in Stockholm and founded in 2008, Trustly specializes in enabling payments directly from customer online bank accounts. Trustly processes more than four million payments a month and reported revenues of EUR 130 million in 2019. The company estimates 2020 revenues of EUR 200 million. Trustly has more than 7,600 bank partners and 600 million consumers in Europe and North America who rely on its account-to-account network to bypass the card networks simply and securely.

In 2019, Trustly merged with PayWithMyBank, a U.S.-based company, to provide what Trustly CEO Oscar Berglund called “the first and only online banking payments network with transatlantic coverage.” Berglund added that the union of the two firms was “transformative” and said it would “accelerate” Trustly’s goal of reaching global coverage.

“Together we’re thrilled to be able to offer merchants and billers a unique alternative to card payments, allowing them to accept payments from 600 million consumers across Europe and the U.S.,” he said.

Earlier this month, Trustly announced the appointment of new Group Chief Financial Officer Mats Backman. Backman comes to Trustly after a tenure as CFO at publicly-traded automotive technology company Veoneer. Last fall, the Swedish payments innovator added a number of executives to its ranks, including Karim Ahmad as its new Global Chief Technology and Product Officer. Ahmad was formerly the Chief Product and Transformation Officer at Paysafe Group.


Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • EyeVerify, which twice won Finovate Best of Show awards for its biometric authentication technology, may be on the market after being acquired by Ant Financial in 2016 for $100 million.
  • Malaysian-based supply chain finance and P2P financing platform CapBay raises $20 million in Series A.
  • Robowealth, a fintech based in Thailand, secures Series A funding from Beacon Venture Capital, Kasikornbank’s corporate VC arm.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Mobile banking startup Spot Money launches in South Africa, billing itself as the country’s first open banking platform.
  • Kenya-based Safaraicom goes live with its M-Pesa bill management service.
  • Synthesis launches Halo, the first of its kind tap-on-phone contactless payment solution for the African market.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia


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The Commodification of Payments Platforms

The Commodification of Payments Platforms

The following is a guest post by Sandeep Sood, CEO of Kunai.

Last year, Facebook announced that all Whatsapp users in India would be able to send payments using India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

UPI was responsible for 2 billion payments in India during the last month alone. It makes it possible for Indians to pay each other seamlessly, regardless of the platform or bank account they are using. Add 400 million Whatsapp users to this system, and you have the most powerful payment solution anywhere in the world.

You also have the blueprint for the future of payments. In my view, that future is a delightfully simple one, in which universal payments solutions are an inevitability, with or without government standards like UPI;

The story in India is instructive. Before UPI, Softbank and Alibaba-backed Paytm had spent years and millions of dollars building and marketing proprietary digital wallets. UPI has made their solutions irrelevant overnight.

Today, proprietary wallets and payment platforms around the world are attempting to build moats through features and network effects. Yet, there is an obvious ceiling to what people want from their payment solutions…and the reality is that “pay anyone quickly” captures almost everything customers want.

When competing payment solutions reach feature parity, the only thing left are network effects. This means that each solution will have a choice: join a universal standard or fade into obscurity, like Paytm in India. The vast majority will choose to join a universal standard, which means they will become easy to replace.

This is a great outcome for economic growth and FinTech innovation. It is also fertile ground for the upcoming currency revolution. Universal payment solutions will also accept any form of currency with a large user base, be it the US Dollar, the Chinese Yuan, Bitcoin, or Central Bank Digital Currency (CDBC). The currencies of the future won’t compete based on their network effects, but rather more important attributes, such as their monetary policy. This is good news for currency innovations like Bitcoin.

As a FinTech newbie in 2013, I was surprised to find conferences, websites, and companies dedicated exclusively to ‘payments’. I was ignorant to the fact that payments were still generally clumsy and cumbersome…and that they required so much infrastructure and resources to do well. I’m looking forward to a future where the innovation is happening at a level far beyond the enabling of payments.


Sandeep Sood is the CEO of Kunai. He’s been building quality agencies that attract quality teams in order to build quality products. He sold his first agency, Monsoon, to Capital One in 2015.


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Brazilian Challenger Nubank Hauls in $400 Million

Brazilian Challenger Nubank Hauls in $400 Million

Followers of Finovate Global, our weekly look at fintech innovation around the world, are likely familiar with the story of Brazilian challenger bank Nubank. But with news of the firm’s $400 million Series G round – announced today – we suspect there will be quite a few fintech fans brushing up on the fintech industry in Latin America.

Company founder and CEO David Velez said that the funding will help Nubank grow and diversify its client base, as well as fuel expansion. He added that bringing more products to market is key to becoming the kind of “full service financial institution for clients” that Latin American consumers need. Nubank currently offers a digital savings account, and a no-fee credit card, as well as personal loans. A recent acquisition of Brazilian broker Easyinvest last fall, Nubank’s third of 2020, suggests that investment products also may soon be among the challenger bank’s offerings.

Headquartered in Brazil’s largest city São Paulo, NuBank has earned a valuation of $25 billion with its latest investment. The Series G was led by GIC, Whale Rock Capital Management, and Invesco, and featured participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Tencent Holdings, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Ribbit Capital. The investment more than doubles Nubank’s previous valuation, based its July 2019 funding. The funding also takes the company’s total capital to $1.2 billion and places Nubank among the top five financial institutions in the region.

Nubank serves more than 34 million customers in Brazil and Mexico, and recently expanded to Colombia. The company is part of a growing neobank movement in the country – and the region – that is taking advantage of the inefficiencies of incumbent banks. This, in fact, was a major motivating factor for Velez, as he explained last fall announcing the move into neighboring Colombia.

“Nubank was born out of the conviction that through technology, design, data science and a customer-centric vision we could create a new generation of financial services that make people’s lives easier, with no complexity and no bureaucracy,” Velez said last fall. “All Latin Americans deserve a more simple, transparent and human banking experience. Today, I’m proud to announce the arrival of Nubank in Colombia, my motherland. Our goal is to have a positive impact in the life of millions.”

Founded in 2013, Nubank participated in our developers conference, FinDEVR New York in 2016. At the event, Nubank co-founder and CTO Edward Wible and Principal Software Engineer Lucas Cavalcanti dos Santos led a presentation titled, “Our Money, Our Rulebook,” that explained how they build an in-house accounting system based on functional programming principles. For the past two years in a row, Nubank has been named by Forbes magazine as the Best Bank in Brazil, and Fast Company has dubbed Nubank the “most innovative company in Latin America.”


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In the Battle for Direct Deposits, Plaid Stands with the Little Guys

In the Battle for Direct Deposits, Plaid Stands with the Little Guys

Plaid’s newest product is sure to make consumers happy and large banks slightly terrified. The company is tapping the power of direct deposits for its new launch, Deposit Switch.

The new offering, which goes live in beta today, does exactly as it sounds. It offers financial institutions and fintechs a tool to help end consumers easily change which account their paychecks are deposited into.

Switching the destination of direct deposits is a hassle for consumers, and generally requires manual paperwork that has to change hands between their bank and employer. Deposit Switch aims to end this headache. The company is relying on its instant switch method that connects a consumer’s payroll account directly through Plaid Link, the quick-start method to integrating with Plaid’s API.

For end users, the direct deposit switch can be done in four steps, as illustrated below:

deposit switch flow

“For financial institutions, high-friction onboarding experiences can lead to consumer drop-off and inactive accounts—and can ultimately prevent banks from becoming a consumer’s primary financial institution,” Plaid noted in a blog post announcement. “A significant opportunity exists for expanded innovation that leads to better consumer outcomes. Plaid can help by building the infrastructure that bridges the gap between financial institutions and payroll data, starting with direct deposits.”

In addition to giving consumers more control over their financial lives, Deposit Switch could also be a boon for smaller financial institutions (FIs) and fintechs. That’s because Deposit Switch is a new tool for them to win over consumer deposits.

Generally, banks use a high interest rate, a one-time bonus, or an enticing gift to incentivize their clients to change their direct deposit. These options are costly, And for smaller FIs and digital banks especially, may not be feasible.

Many digital banks are having difficulty boosting their total assets under management in the first place. This is due to two reasons 1) consumers use them as an “accessory” bank while storing and depositing the bulk of their money in larger institutions and 2) Many clients that use a digital bank as their primary financial institution may not have as much net worth and/or don’t receive as high a salary as those who choose to bank with traditional FIs.

Yotta, a fintech app that helps users build their savings, is one of the fintechs beta testing Plaid’s Deposit Switch. “Working with Plaid, we’ve made it faster and easier for customers to take the first step by establishing and funding their accounts with direct deposit,” said Yotta co-founder, Ben Doyle. “Yotta also integrates with Plaid Exchange, so customers can securely use their Yotta account with other fintech apps for digital payments, financial planning, investments and more. Fintech is the new normal for most Americans and Plaid helps Yotta meet customers where they are.”

So what about large, traditional FIs? Should they be worried that fintechs are making it too easy for clients to pour their paychecks into competing accounts? The short answer: yes.


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Get Ready for Finovate in Focus

Get Ready for Finovate in Focus

Next month, we’re introducing a new way to focus on the hottest themes in fintech through our new event series. Dubbed FinovateFocus, the new series includes two micro-events that take place on the last Thursday of every month.

Each micro-event– FinovateFocus Connect and FinovateFocus Roundtable– serves up new content and ample networking opportunities to help you stay ahead of the curve on a new topic in fintech while forming relationships with key players. And we’re keeping things simple; FinovateFocus Connect is only one hour while FinovateFocus Roundtable is an hour and a half.

You can choose which format works best for you:

FinovateFocus Connect

This event maximizes your time by bringing you nine presentations and nine meetings, all within the span of an hour. The platform will alternate between three-minute presentations and three-minute meetings, which are pre-assigned based on common interests.

FinovateFocus Roundtable

This discussion-based event includes your choice of two moderated, 30-minute roundtables with 15 minutes of networking before and after the roundtable conversation. To encourage engagement, each roundtable is limited to eight participants each.

For the February event, here are the roundtable discussions to choose from:

  • Earning customer trust in the digital age
  • Future of payments –are we turning into a cashless society?
  • Effective customer acquisition, engagement, and retention – the Experience Age
  • Boosting CX in banking with AI – conversation banking: exploring back-end technologies
  • Authentication, biometrics, and digital identity in digitized society
  • Chatbots, AI, automation as a platform for revolutionizing the CX
  • Personalization and customization with data in the banking and payments industry
  • Insights into how to support financial futures for customers in a post-COVID-19 world
  • Customer Service NOW
  • Video banking as a preferred means of customer communication
  • What do customers want – Meeting customer needs
  • APIs and Open Banking – Putting the customer in the driver’s seat

More themes each month

If February’s topic of digital UX doesn’t pique your interest, we’ll be highlighting Small Business Survival in March and Maximizing Your Data’s Value in April. We’ll release the remainder of next quarter’s topics soon so stay tuned.

See you next month!

FinovateFocus starts on February 25 with the topic of digital user experience. The Connect portion will run from 9 am to 10 am Central time while the Roundtable portion will run from 10:15 am to 10:45 am Central time.

Registration opens soon so get ready to secure your spot!


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Why Cyber Resilience is Important to Fintech Companies

Why Cyber Resilience is Important to Fintech Companies

The following is a guest post by Jack Warner, a cybersecurity expert with Techwarn.

According to a recent ImmuniWeb study, 98 percent of the world’s top 100 fintech startups are vulnerable to cyberattacks. And it’s not surprising that fintech is an attractive target for threat actors.

The rapid growth of financial technology combined with lagging regulations means there’s much more data to analyze and too few rules to govern how data is protected. These same factors make the sector susceptible to breaches and vulnerabilities, particularly in the wave of COVID-19 inspired cybercrime.

Financial institutions are increasingly adopting fintech solutions to handle the digital wave that’s happening all over the world. This swift tech transformation comes hand in hand with emerging cybersecurity risks, alongside a few old “favorites.”

With that in mind, it’s imperative that fintech enterprises take appropriate measures to secure data and systems as well as possible. Here, we take a look at the most pressing cyber risks facing fintech and why cyber resilience and not just cybersecurity is critical.

The cyber risks fintech companies face

While not comprehensive, the below attack types and recognized vulnerabilities are among the most concerning in the financial technology sector. Let’s begin with one of the most common attacks, malware.

Malware

Malware is a portmanteau term that combines malicious and software, and it designates any program that is explicitly designed to cause harm, be it to devices, data, or individual users. Within fintech, hackers may design malware to breach a company’s system and collect sensitive or critical information.

The Gustuff banking trojan, for example, emerged in the first half of 2019 and has since targeted numerous traditional institutions but also newer players, such as PayPal and Revolut.

Data breaches

Because many fintech platforms allow customers to store payment data such as card details and password credentials for convenience’s sake, these platforms are inherently vulnerable, and an attractive target. Even a small breach could lead to sensitive financial user details being compromised.

If third-party providers are involved, the risks are heightened, which is exactly how the 2020 Dave breach occurred.

Cloud environment vulnerabilities

Fintech providers often lead the pack when it comes to incorporating cloud-based computing into their information management systems. It’s something the industry can pride itself on and something other sectors lack. However, strong cloud security measures matter. If the cloud environment is vulnerable, so too is the company’s data.

Why cyber resilience is important for fintech companies

Firstly, it’s helpful to consider the differences and similarities between cybersecurity and cyber resilience, and how these two are intimately linked.

Cybersecurity versus cyber resilience

Cybersecurity refers to a set of defensive tools, strategies, standards, and protocols, all of which are designed to keep threats out of a fintech enterprise’s systems. In this sense, cybersecurity is purely a defense strategy.

Cyber resilience, on the other hand, encompasses cybersecurity’s aim to defend against threats, but takes things a few steps further. Cyber resilience can be defined as an entity’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a cyber attack.

It merges cybersecurity in the preparedness phase but also integrates solid business strategies to ensure an organization stays afloat after an attack occurs. After all, an attack doesn’t end after the fact, rather, the effects are long-lasting, expensive, and highly damaging to a company’s reputation.

In fintech, losing customer confidence is much more damaging than in other industries as we are dealing with financial information. To that end, having a solid cyber resilience plan in place is essential. That plan should cover all the bases, from getting prepared to financially recovering and mitigating reputational losses — the more detailed and in-depth, the better.

Creating cyber resilience

A fintech company’s cyber resilience plan may be more or less detailed depending on the size of the organization, any third-party links, the number of platforms available to clients, and other such factors. However, some basics should be standard across all companies:

  • Create a culture of cybersecurity — All staff should be aware that cybersecurity is everyone’s job, not just the IT department’s domain. Good digital hygiene and exacting standards make a lot of difference. Starting from the ground up means the company’s culture accepts cybersecurity as integral. Staff training and regular updates to standards and procedures help here.
  • Use a full suite of cybersecurity tools — Of course, logging out of accounts and avoiding suspicious links can only get an entity so far. Proper cyber resilience covers preparedness, and that’s where security software like VPNs and email scanners comes in. One of the functions of VPNs is encrypting data transmissions, while email scanners detect threats and can make a big difference to a company’s defenses.
  • Ask what happens when an attack occurs — Understand that an attack is more likely a matter of when and not if. How will the company deal with the immediate fallout, who does it need to inform and when, and how can the threat be removed as swiftly as possible?
  • Staying afloat — Fintech companies should have plans in place for retaining clients, getting back on their feet after an attack, and continuing to be financially viable. This part of a resilience plan can include all sorts of factors, such as post-attack PR and ways to pay off any regulatory fines.

There’s no doubt about it, cybersecurity risks and threats are increasing both in number and sophistication. Attacks can and will occur, so having a proper cyber resilience strategy in place is critical, especially in an industry where clients entrust us with their most sensitive information.

Jack Warner is an accomplished cybersecurity expert with years of experience under his belt at TechWarn, a trusted digital agency to world-class cybersecurity companies. A passionate digital safety advocate himself, Warner frequently contributes to tech blogs and digital media sharing expert insights on cybersecurity and privacy tools.


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Ten Finovate Alums Join FedNow Instant Payments Pilot Program

Ten Finovate Alums Join FedNow Instant Payments Pilot Program

More than two years in the making, the FedNow payments initiative – launched by the U.S. Federal Reserve to accelerate payments and transfers – is picking up speed. The project currently has more than 110 banks, financial services providers, and other organizations slated to participate, and among them are ten Finovate alums.

“We’re gratified by the industry’s tremendous interest and willingness to devote time and energy to help us develop the FedNow Service,” Esther George, executive sponsor of the Federal Reserve’s payments improvement initiatives, said. George, who is also President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, added that the pilot has had to “adjust” to accommodate greater than expected interest.

The idea behind the service is to expand the reach of instant payment services offered by financial institutions and enable businesses and individuals to send and receive instant payments, with full access to their funds within seconds. The FedNow Service will leverage the Federal Reserve’s FedLine network, which connects to more than 10,000 financial institutions directly or via their agents.

The pilot program is designed to review the technology’s features and functionality, assess the user experience, and greenlight the product for further testing and eventual general availability. Participating institutions will be retained, post-launch, to provide additional review and advice with regard to issues like adoption roadmap, industry readiness, and overall payments strategy.

“The FedNow Service marks a turning point in the industry’s move to making real-time payments a reality,” Booshan Rengachari, founder and CEO of Finzly, explained. Finzly is one of Finovate’s newest alums – most recently demoing its technology at FinovateWest Digital last fall – and is one of the participants in FedNow’s pilot program.

Rengachari further suggested that this “turning point” was a moment his company had anticipated. “We created our Payment Hub specifically to help FIs prepare and go to market faster with newer RTP networks,” he said. Finzly’s CEO added that this helps “address the challenges of offering single payment API for multiple payment networks without having to run disparate payment systems from multiple vendors.”

The 10 Finovate alums participating in the FedNow project are listed below.


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What’s Next for Roostify After its $32 Million Series C Round

What’s Next for Roostify After its $32 Million Series C Round

Digital home lending solutions provider Roostify landed $32 million in funding yesterday, bringing its total capital to $65 million.

The round was led by Ten Coves Capital, and included contributions from Cota Capital, Mouro Capital, Colchis Capital, Point72 Ventures, and JPMorgan Chase. The investment will help the San Francisco-based company make home lending faster and more transparent for all parties by leveraging AI.

The Series C funding comes at a time of growth for not only Roostify, but also the mortgage industry in general. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) estimates that purchase originations will grow 8.5% to a new record of $1.54 trillion in 2021, thanks to low mortgage rates and low housing supply boosting demand.

Roostify has seen the effects of this growth. Last year, the company experienced a 250% increase in the number of applications submitted through its system and processed just under 1.5 million loan applications.

And while Roostify was prepared to handle both the volume and the demand for digital that came in 2020, many mortgage providers were not. “While the recent record-breaking origination volume was certainly welcomed, it also overburdened outdated mortgage lending processes and systems,” said Roostify Founder and CEO Rajesh Bhat. “We need to adopt a digital-first mentality that relies on technology-enabled transformation to solve real business problems. In order to thrive in a digital-first world, mortgage lenders need critical digital transformation initiatives, such as cloud-based technology, self-service solutions for consumers, and meaningful AI deployments.”

Founded in 2012, Roostify helps 200+ lending institutions collectively handle around $50 billion in loan volume each month.

As for what’s next, Roostify said it will continue to focus on leveraging data to transform the mortgage lending process. Key to this goal is the company’s partnership with Google Cloud AI. The two companies announced their collaboration last October in which Roostify began integrating Google Cloud’s Lending DocAI solution into its digital lending platform. As a result of Google Cloud’s AI and ML capabilities, Roostify’s digital lending tool now helps lenders analyze, categorize, and extract data from documents in an automized manner.

Despite the company’s growth, Bhat said that Roostify is “still in its infancy” in terms of its potential impact on the mortgage lending industry. “My team and I believe that it’s not enough to simply do digital lending better. We’re here to empower lenders to go beyond the efficiencies and cost-savings and forge a true connection with the end-user. We’re creating a world where financial success is possible for everyone, thanks to a simplified home lending experience.”


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Open Banking Innovator Token Scores $15 Million

Open Banking Innovator Token Scores $15 Million

In a round led by SBI Investment and Sony Innovation Fund, open banking payments platform company Token has raised $15 million in new funding. The Series B round also featured participation from existing investors Octopus Ventures, EQT Ventures, and Opera Tech Ventures, the VC arm of BNP Paribas. The company, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2015, now has $50 million in total capital.

“The market’s appetite for open payments accelerated dramatically last year as more merchants and payment providers have tuned into the cost and efficiency gains that they offer,” Token CEO Todd Clyde explained. “Token’s payment volumes have more than doubled every month since March and our platform is now processing live transactions through PSD2 APIs from over 600 banks in 14 countries across Europe.” He added that the investment was an affirmation that Token would continue to lead in the open payments space and will help fuel further development in the company’s technology.

An early innovator in the open banking payments space in the U.K., Token was one of the first companies in the U.K. to earn authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a payment initiation and account information service provider (PISP, AISP). In 2018, Token was the first PISP to complete an end-to-end payment via a PSD2-compliant bank API.

“Token offers a credible alternative to card and wallet payments while helping merchants, PSPs, and banks offer streamlined UX’s that deliver better payment experiences for customers,” said Sony Innovation Fund Chief Investment Manager Gen Tsuchikawa. Token’s open payment and data services support the transition away from traditional payment methods and toward account-to-account payments. This not only helps lower the cost of digital payments; it also introduces a variety of use cases for open payments, from funding accounts and billpay to credit risk analysis and cash flow management. Combine this with what SBI Investment Director and Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao described as “Token’s unrivaled bank connectivity and depth in payment services” and you have a company Kitao called a “market leader” that “has continued to outperform the competition.”

Founded in 2015 and maintaining offices in London, San Francisco, and Berlin, Token brings Pan-European connectivity to more than 3,000 banks. The company’s partners include Sberbank, Konsentus, Caxton, and HSBC, which recently launched its online payment alternative, HSBC Open Payments.


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Dashlane’s New CEO Joins at Pivotal Moment

Dashlane’s New CEO Joins at Pivotal Moment

One of the top themes of 2020 was cybersecurity. The increase in online traffic, spurred by social distancing and stay at home orders, offered cybercriminals more hacking opportunities than in previous years.

This means that for fintechs like Dashlane, it’s time to shine. Dashlane was founded in 2009 and its password management technology has since gained a cult-like following.

The Dashlane app stores the user’s passwords and autofills the corresponding username and password on each of their accounts. In addition to account logins, the app can also help streamline the checkout experience by filling in forms with address and payment card information.

This week, the New York-based company made headlines with the announcement of its new CEO. Dashlane appointed JD Sherman to lead the company. Sherman, who is filling the shoes of former CEO Emmamuel Schalet, comes to the company with decades of experience from leadership roles at IBM, Akamai, and most recently HubSpot, where he served as President and Chief Operating Officer.

“The need for better security practices has become more important than ever for everyone, from individuals to small businesses and larger enterprises, especially with the increase of remote work across every industry,” said Sherman. “I’m thrilled to be joining the Dashlane team at a pivotal moment of growth, and look forward to working with this group of world-class security experts as we continue to build a simpler digital future for people and businesses through secure access.”

The change in leadership comes at a pivotal time for Dashlane as the company seeks to forge more enterprise partnerships. “This is about thinking about its next leg of our scaling strategy, more B2B monetization after being strong in B2C,” Sherman said in an interview with TechCrunch.

Sherman isn’t exaggerating about being strong in the B2C space. The company has scaled to 15 million users– up from 10 million users just two years ago. And since so much of consumers’ lives have moved online in the past year, this growth is expected to increase.

Dashlane has raised a total of $211 million after most recently pulling in $110 million in a Series D round led by Sequoia. While there is no word on an updated valuation for the company, Dashlane was last valued at $500+ million in 2019.

Dashlane’s Finovate debut was at FinovateFall 2012. The company also demoed at FinovateEurope 2013.


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Cash Management Innovator MaxMyInterest Integrates with Redtail

Cash Management Innovator MaxMyInterest Integrates with Redtail

Cash management innovator MaxMyInterest has sealed a new integration deal with Redtail Technology, a leading client relationship management (CRM) firm. The integration will enable advisors and client service teams that rely on Redtail’s CRM to have one-click access to an onboarding solution that will give their clients access to preferred rates of up to 0.75% APY on their FDIC-insured cash deposits.

“We are excited to bring our cash management solution to Redtail users and honored to work with a company whose dedication to innovation in the advisor community matches our own,” MaxMyInterest Head of Partnerships and Business Development Michael Halloran said.

“Max provides advisors with a quantifiable value add by providing the ability to offer a high-yield solution for a typically overlooked and under-earning asset class,” Halloran added. “By integrating with Redtail, we are excited to help even more advisors grow their AUM, while their clients earn the highest yields in the market.”

A service of Six Trees Capital, MaxMyInterest made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. The company offers a way for individuals to optimize the interest they earn on their cash by providing a solution that automatically allocates cash balances to those banks offering the best interest rate at any given point in time. The technology ensures that balances are kept below the FDIC-insured limits at each institution, and features additional cash management functionality including monthly cash sweep and intelligent funds transfer.

Last year, MaxMyInterest announced an integration with Morningstar, combining its automated cash management technology with Morningstar ByAllAccounts’ data aggregation service. Last month, the company announced that veteran banking executive and fintech investor Jill Denham – founder and president of Authentum Partners – had joined MaxMyInterest’s advisory board.

“I see the MaxMyInterest team as true fintech innovators, dedicated to helping clients get the highest interest rates on insured deposits,” Denham said. “Their platform is notable in the manner in which the relationships they build between banks, depositors, and their financial advisors make all parties better off, and I’m excited to join and bring my expertise to their Advisory Board.”

Founded in 2013, MaxMyInterest is headquartered in New York City. Gary Zimmerman is CEO.

TrueLayer Taps the Power of Open Banking to Launch PayDirect

TrueLayer Taps the Power of Open Banking to Launch PayDirect

Financial app building platform TrueLayer has long been using the power of open banking to facilitate payment activities. Today, the U.K.-based company is taking another step to make the online payments experience even easier with the launch of a new payments product, PayDirect.

PayDirect combines open banking with Europe’s payment rails to offer a customizable solution for instant payments, instant payouts, and smoother payment reconciliation.

“PayDirect builds on our open banking expertise to streamline onboarding, pay-in and payout, to help operators deliver an experience that is fit for the digital age,” said the company’s Chief Product Officer, Ossama Soliman.

Because PayDirect relies on open banking and Europe’s fast payment rails, the solution circumvents many of the headaches associated with traditional card payments. Cards can expire, require manual entry, and are subject to spending limits. These hurdles generally result in an 85% success rate. PayDirect, in comparison, has a 96% success rate. PayDirect also eliminates chargebacks and reduces fraud by authenticating via biometrics directly with the consumer’s bank.

Here’s how the checkout experience works:

Financial services companies that use PayDirect benefit from a single interface for onboarding users, receiving instant deposits into their account, and providing instant withdrawals. Customers, on the other hand, benefit from low risk of fraud, faster refunds and withdrawals, less false positives during fraud checks, and a faster checkout experience.

Founded in 2016, TrueLayer is best known for its payments API that helps financial services companies provide online payments, bill payments, and account top-ups.

The company has offices in five countries across the globe, including London, Sydney, Milan, Hong Kong and Dublin. Francesco Simoneschi is co-founder and CEO.


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