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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
With a Democratic administration only weeks away from taking office, some are wondering about the prospects for a revitalized Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Created during the last Democratic administration – and largely sidelined during the now-ending Trump administration – the CFPB has found itself back in the fintech headlines in recent days.
PayPal Takes On CFPB Over Card Rules
A federal judge brought resolution to a lawsuit PayPal filed against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in December 2019. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon agreed with PayPal that the CFPB had overstepped its authority in its effort to regulate prepaid cards and digital wallets. PayPal had asserted that in forcing them to include “short form” fee disclosures that included categories that were not relevant, the CFPB’s rule was confusing customers. What’s worse, customers were being led to believe, PayPal claimed, that they were exposed to a wide variety of potential fees – which was not the case.
The situation seems almost to be one of mistaken identity. The rules being applied by the CFPB with regard to expenses like ATM balance inquiries make sense for providers of reloadable prepaid cards, but not for PayPal, which does not subject its customers to these fees. That said, it was the CFPB’s rule-making authority itself that was the target of what Reuters described as a judicial “decision studded with exclamation points.”
PayActiv Wins Earned Wages Access Approval
Meanwhile, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s aim seems to be more true in the case of of earned wage access. PayActiv, Finovate alum and innovator in the earned wage access space, announced last week that its program is exempt from Federal lending laws per new regulations established by the CFPB.
The key issue was whether or not PayActiv’s Earned Wages Access (EWA) program, which enables workers to get access to their already-earned wages in advance of scheduled paydays, involves credit. If it did, the program would be subject to the Federal Truth in Lending Act, as well as Regulation Z.
Fortunately, the CFPB ruled that “the accrued cash value of an employee’s earned but unpaid wages is the employee’s own money” and, as such, does not create a debt obligation. PayActiv added that the approval was both the first of its kind from the CFPB and specific to PayActiv’s EWA program. The CFPB added that the company’s initiative was an “innovative mechanism for allowing consumers to bridge the gap between paychecks (and) differs in kind from products the Bureau would generally consider to be credit.”
PayActiv co-founder and CEO Safwan Shah called the approval a “watershed moment” for his company. “We are very proud that the CFPB has recognized this important innovation and validated PayActiv’s pioneering work in creating low or no-cost employer-sponsored access to earned wages. Employers can take comfort in knowing that PayActiv continues to be the leader in responsible EWA for employees.”
Synchrony Gets Nod for Secured/Unsecured Credit Card
The new dual feature credit cards (DFCC) from Synchrony Bank are designed to provide financing opportunities for consumers who do not have strong credit profiles. Cardholders provide a security deposit in order to use the credit cards in their secured mode and, if certain eligibility criteria are met after a minimum of one year, the cardholder becomes eligible to use the card in its unsecured mode. And last week, the CFPB gave the wholly-owned subsidiary of Synchrony Financial the green light to go forward with its DFCC solution.
In large part, the CFPB’s ruling for Synchrony represented a broader embrace of bringing financing to consumers with lower credit scores. The Bureau referred to these efforts as “represent(ing) a potentially significant point of access to credit for certain consumers” and favorably compared Synchrony’s dual feature card to other secured card offerings.
Critically, Synchrony will provide complete transparency with regard to the cost differences between the secured and unsecured features, including the lower rate on the secured card. Cardholders that graduate to the unsecured Synchrony credit card are not eligible to return to the secured card.
Corporate card and expense management platform Divvy is starting off the new year with new cash. The Utah-based company closed a $165 million series D investment, boosting its total funding to $417 million.
The new round also crowns Divvy with unicorn status; the company is now valued at $1.6 billion. New investors Hanaco, PayPal Ventures, Whale Rock, and Schonfeld participated, as well as previous backers NEA, Insight Venture Partners, Acrew, and Pelion.
Divvy will use the funds to “invest heavily in product development and engineering in order to accelerate [its] future roadmap.”
Divvy was founded in 2016 and offers free expense management software combined with corporate credit cards to provide its clients visibility and control over their budgets. Among the company’s clients are Noom, Solo Stove, Rhone, EyeCare Partners, the Utah Jazz, and the Atlanta Dream.
“The best in every vertical choose Divvy,” said Divvy CEO Blake Murray. “We’re not just building for tech startups—we help businesses across the country by providing the capital and financial software they need to thrive. We’re fortunate to be able to build for companies of all sizes and we’re grateful to everyone who has helped us get here.”
Because managing expenses is a key element in helping small businesses survive a financial crisis like the one brought on by COVID, Divvy is in the midst of a growth spurt. Since March of last year, the company has seen a 500% increase in monthly sign-ups.
According to TechCrunch, Divvy’s competitors in the space include Ramp, Teampay, and Airbase. Each of these startups has closed a major round of funding recently, indicating the expense management space is heating up. The fact that Divvy offers its software for free is likely to offer it a leg up over some of its other competitors.
“With its compelling free software, Divvy is poised to become a key part of the financial nervous system for businesses,” said Peter Sanborn, Vice President, head of corporate development at PayPal and managing partner of PayPal Ventures.
With $7.5 million in fresh capital and a green light from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for its “Credit Bureau 2.0” moniker, Finovate newcomer Trust Science enters 2021 even better prepared to fulfill its mission of empowering lenders who serve un- and underbanked communities.
“Between 64 million and 100 million Americans, adult consumers, cannot be scored for credit, or scored properly. In the world, it’s three billion adults,” Trust Science founder and CEO Evan Chrapko explained during his company’s Finovate debut in 2019. “We’re here to solve that problem and give deserving people the credit that they deserve.”
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Trust Science is part of the burgeoning subprime credit risk analysis industry. In recent days, Trust Science confirmed both that it has boosted its total capital to $11.5 million and that it had secured trademark approval for its AI-powered, dynamic credit scoring platform – Credit Bureau 2.0.
Trust Science’s platform leverages AI and machine learning to generate profiles that can be used to provide credit scoring for thin file and no-hit consumers. The solution uses alternative and unstructured data, such as the size and scope of social networks, message and data sentiment, and other factors to “expand the scorable universe” of potentially worthy borrowers and to provide better product fits for all customers.
Since its FinovateSpring appearance, Trust Science has forged partnerships with Inovatec Systems, Vergent Loan Management Software (formerly eSoftware Solutions), and was nominated as AI Company of the Year by the Canadian FinTech and AI Awards. Just under a year ago, the company hired former Equifax executive Jeremy Mitchell as its Chief Data and Analytics Officer. As part of his 20 years of experience in alternative data and analytics, Mitchell was part of the original development team that built VantageScore, a rival to the traditional FICO score.
“Trust Science is building solutions that benefit both the consumer and the lender,” Mitchell said when the appointment was announced. “This decade will see the world expect Alternative Data and AI to be harnessed for good, like Financial Inclusion.”
We cannot yet speak for the decade and alternative data. But we already know the role alternative data has played in supporting financial inclusion over the past year, as the health and economic consequences of COVID-19 have put severe financial stresses on small businesses, their workers, and their families.
Chrapko addressed this challenge – and opportunity – in a CEO Letter early last year as the lockdowns were taking hold across the world. “Individuals and businesses are already feeling financial shortfalls,” he wrote. “Lenders like you are going to need to make decisions about a growing number of individuals within the context of a volatile and uncertain market.”
With concerns over new, more contagious strains of the coronavirus forcing more lockdowns and social distancing, the pressure on lenders is not likely to relent any time soon. Leveraging alternative data – via partnerships with companies like Trust Science – may help them make more accurate, fairer, credit decisions to ensure that thin-file borrowers get the help they need and lenders take on only the risk they can afford.
Venmo‘s new launch is making it easier for users to deposit their paper stimulus checks. The PayPal-owned company unveiled a new feature called Cash a Check that enables users to do just that– cash paper checks in the Venmo app.
Eligible users can take a picture of their check, Venmo reviews the check, and the funds are usually approved within seconds and available in the user’s account in a few minutes (though the company disclosed the approval may take up to an hour).
“We know that with health and safety top of mind for many, having a safe way to access stimulus payments is essential for many of our customers, especially those who are receiving paper checks and traditionally would have to visit a physical check-cashing location,” said Venmo SVP and CM Darrell Esch. “By introducing the Venmo Cash a Check feature, we are not only enabling our customers to access their money quickly and safely from the comfort of their own homes but are also waiving all fees for cashing government issued checks to ensure customers can use their stimulus funds to pay for the things they need most.”
Users should not expect to be able to deposit the check they received from their grandma for Christmas, however. The initial launch is limited to printed payroll and government checks. In fact, the launch seems to focus on helping users cash their stimulus checks.
As Esch noted, fees for depositing government-issued checks will be waived for a limited time, until Venmo has cashed a total of $400,000 in government-issued checks. After that point– and for printed payroll check deposits– users face a fee of 1% to 5%, depending on whether the signature is hand-signed or pre-printed.
The steep fees are owed to the risk associated with remote deposit check capture. In addition to the risk of fraud, Venmo now exposes itself to costly human errors, such as unintentional efforts to deposit a single check multiple times.
Today’s launch is the latest effort in a series of moves Venmo has recently made to compete with the rise in challenger banks. Last October, the company launched a credit card offering and, a few months earlier, unveiled a new tool to help micro-businesses accept payments.
Digital banking platform Oxygen secured $17 million in new funding today. The Series A round featured participation from a sizable array of investors ranging from Runa Capital and Rucker Park, to fintech entrepreneurs like Plaid co-founder William Hockey and celebrity athletes like NFL wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald.
Added to the $7 million in seed funding the company picked up just over a year ago, this week’s investment takes Oxygen’s total capital to $24 million. In its announcement, the company noted that the financing will enable it to add talent, accelerate growth, and continue to develop its consumer and SMB banking solutions.
“This investment not only validates what we’ve built but also enables us to continue pursuing our vision of building financial tools that integrate seamlessly with the digital world of today and delight our customers,” Oxygen CEO Hussein Ahmed said. “We founded Oxygen because we wanted to provide financial services in the same way people interact with technology in their everyday lives.”
With an emphasis on both consumer and small business banking, Oxygen brands itself as the bank for “free thinkers, rebels, and entrepreneurs.” The challenger bank offers personal accounts with no monthly fees, cashback rewards, up to two-day early deposit, an Oxygen Visa debit card, and multiple virtual cards. Business customers benefit from these features also, as well as business management tools for making cash flow projections, integrating accounting solutions, creating LLCs, and mailing checks from the Oxygen app. Both personal and business accounts are FDIC-insured through Oxygen’s partnership with The Bancorp Bank.
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Oxygen has gained more than 125,000 accounts and achieved revenue growth of more than 900x since launching at the beginning of last year. In May, the company announced a partnership with CPI Card Group to develop its own personal and small business debit cards. Tearsheet.co profiled Oxygen founder Ahmed in December.
The following is a guest post by Lily Tran, content writer for MoneyTap.
Southeast Asia is one of the fastest-growing fintech markets in the world. The expected market growth is estimated to be between $70 billion and $100 billion by 2020, outpacing the likes of the U.S., U.K. and China.
One of the contributing factors to this growth in this region is its insufficient financial inclusion. The World Bank data points to a lack of access to financial tools in southeast Asia. As per the data, in Indonesia, only 49% of adults have formal bank accounts; in Cambodia, the number is 22%, and in the Philippines and Vietnam, it’s 34% and 31%, respectively. The penetration of insurance and wealth management is also low.
This makes it difficult for people to save, borrow, and manage money easily. This has given a tremendous opportunity to fintech companies to offer innovative opportunities for unbanked consumers to take fintech services and improve their financial situation.
Investors are channelling funding into the region, with financial technologies as their primary investment. According to new data from CB Insights, fintech fundraising activity in southeast Asia grew by 143% year on year in 2018. Fintech investments in Southeast Asia increased by more than 30% through 2018 to reach approximately $6 billion.
An international finance company, Robocash Group, in its recent report released the names of the top five countries experiencing the fintech boom in southeast Asia. So let’s take a closer look:
1. Singapore
Singapore is at the forefront of the fintech boom, dominating the region’s fintech market for several years now. In 2017, 400 local fintechs raised a combined total of $229 million.
With an appetite to consume a range of fintech offerings, Singapore fetched more than 50% of all fintech deals made in the region between 2013 and 2016. The diversified fintech market includes fund transfers, cryptocurrency trading, peer-to-peer payments, investment apps, insurance services, money lending services, and crowdfunding platforms.
2. Indonesia
Indonesia is largely populated, but only over 50% of its population are active internet users. This means roughly 150 million people have the means to use fintech. 61% of Indonesia’s internet users have registered for mobile banking apps. And 11% of its population transact online to purchase items or pay bills. However, online payments increased to $313.6 million in 2018.
By the end of 2019, only 49% of Indonesia’s population had a bank account. Now, alternative payment platforms are rising in popularity. Peer-to-peer payment platforms make up over 30% of the all fintechs. Along with payment platforms, e-commerce is expected to push the market further forward.
3. The Philippines
2018 saw the Philippines’ central bank roll out plans to make at least a fifth of its transactions go digital within two years. The digital payment adoption was projected to increase by 20% by 2020.
The country has 71% active internet users and 65.5% unbanked. And fintech companies have emerged to bridge the gap. In 2017, $78 million in funds were raised, an increase of 13% from the year before. As mobile banking has diversified, 54% of the country’s internet users have at least one mobile banking app.
According to Singapore Fintech News, one-third of all fintech companies registered in 2018 were payment platforms, followed by alternative finance at 30%, and blockchain companies at 16%.
4. Vietnam
In Vietnam, the total transaction value in the personal finance sector has crossed the $1 billion mark. Further, this value is projected to show an annual growth rate of 38.4% resulting in a projected total amount of $4.5 billion by 2024.
According to a report, between 2017 and 2020 the number of fintech startups grew more than 179%, with payment apps leading the sector, consisting 31% of the total startups.
Along with payments, peer-to-peer lending was another field which grew rapidly during this phase. The government is planning to get more than 70% of its people over 15 years of age to own a bank account within a year’s time. In 2017 and 2018, only 31% of adults owned a bank account, and only 4.1% of its people owned a credit card. In the phase between 2010 and 2020, a vast number of personal loan apps emerged, some of which have become huge.
Like the other countries in the region, Vietnam’s unbanked population are turning to fintech for its sheer ease of financial transactions. Around 50% of the country’s internet users use mobile banking platforms, 39% make mobile payments, and 9.3% own some form of cryptocurrency.
5. Thailand
82% of Thailand’s population is on the internet, and 74% of them bank online. 47% of all internet users make mobile payments, and 71% of them use their phones to purchase goods online each month.
Even though such a massive number of people are active online, Thailand is not a very friendly market for fintech compared to other countries in the region. The country attracts fewer investments for fintech, but that said, it’s still experiencing the fintech boom as 10% of its internet users own some form of cryptocurrency. This makes Thailand the second country after South Africa in the world for crypto ownership.
Key Takeaways from Southeast Asia’s Fintech Boom
The most disruptive fintech sectors are payments and lending.
Fintech has changed the way people and businesses make payments, save their money, borrow, invest, and buy insurance products.
Fintech has given access to finance for poor people and people in remote areas, boosting the economy and stimulating demand. Fintech has made it easier for SMEs to get small loans and credits anytime to keep their business running.
Many economies have implemented regulatory sandboxes to motivate innovation in the fintech sector.
Lily Tran is a content writer, working for MoneyTap, who writes about all things finance. Her passion for credit, debt, loan and investment drives her to help readers get an insight about everyday finance.
From fears of a cyberspace-based New Cold War between Russia, China, and the U.S., to emerging fraud threats to financial services companies, small businesses, consumers, and work-from-anywhere employees, the issue of cybersecurity is likely to loom large over all technology discussions in 2021.
To this end, we caught up with Uri Rivner, Chief Cyber Officer of BioCatch. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, and a Finovate alum since 2014, BioCatch offers an AI-driven behavioral biometrics-based platform that enables online identity verification and reduces fraud by providing account opening and account takeover protection, as well as defense against social engineering scams.
I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to ask a cybersecurity expert about the massive breach involving SolarWinds and, allegedly, Russian hackers. How do you think about this incident as a professional and how should we think about it as individuals, consumers, etc.?
Uri Rivner: This is the broadest, deepest cyber espionage campaign in a decade; the last wave of this magnitude was attributed to China, which launched a massive industrial espionage campaign some 10 years ago against hundreds of major U.S. and global corporations. I was on the receiving end of that attack during my time at RSA, which was breached in March 2011, and it was a watershed event with far-reaching implications. It galvanized the U.S. intelligence community to action, brought cyber awareness in Corporate America to the Board level, and injected a real sense of urgency to the cyber security industry.
The SolarWinds campaign has a similar effect. When FireEye – the gold standard in endpoint protection and cyber intelligence against state-sponsored attacks – is itself breached, people take notice. When dozens of high-security networks deploying every imaginable combination of state-of-the-art tools and security procedures are compromised, everyone raises an eyebrow. Those who wonder whether the cyber security scene is growing into a new “bubble” received a very clear message: listen, folks, let’s get something straight – cyber security is still unfinished business.
What was the big theme in cybersecurity in 2020? Do you believe this trend will remain as strong in 2021?
Rivner: The big theme in cybercrime in 2020 was the impact of the global pandemic on fraud and identity management. Fraud teams worldwide had to operate from home, resulting in deficiencies that fraudsters were quick to exploit. Online account opening and account takeover fraud surged, and potentially billions of dollars were scammed through government stimulus package fraud. When the dust settles in 2021, we should see the financial sector adopt new, automated fraud controls to close those gaps.
With banks accelerating their mobile-first strategy and releasing new, high-risk functionality available only for mobile platforms – e.g. P2P payments – we should expect 2021 to feature more mobile-based social engineering and malware attacks. Mobile authenticators such as fingerprint and selfie biometrics will suffer from the same fate as any other “strong authentication” technology – they’ll be circumvented using end-users as “moles” to tunnel below the security fences.
You have outlined a variety of cybersecurity trends you think we will face next year. You talk about the rise of “mule detection” as a priority for fraud detection teams. Can you elaborate on how widespread this has become and what is being done to fight it?
Rivner: Thousands of bogus U.S. bank accounts are opened each day online for the purpose of serving as “mules”. Opening a fake bank account is easy as identity records are traded in the dark web, and it’s cheaper to create your own digital mule account than to recruit a living-and-breathing collaborator to funnel your funds. Fortunately, banks use new, next-generation technologies. Device reputation highlights compromised devices used by criminals, while behavioral biometrics can identify when a genuine user uses long-term memory to enter personal information; whereas fraudsters are not familiar with the victim’s personal data and can’t type it the same way.
Outside the U.S., “work from home” mule recruitment is surging given the constant lockdowns and economic crisis caused by the pandemic. But consider this: say a user normally holds their device in a certain way, has a certain typing cadence and finger press size. All of a sudden you spot a different personality inside their account, with new habits and gestures, and the “guest” always checks in shortly after money is received… You just detected a mule, sharing their account with a “controller.” Often these “mule herders” control dozens, or even hundreds of mule accounts.
You’ve also noted that regulators worldwide are taking greater notice of social engineering scams. We’ve known that these are some of the most powerful ways that systems have been penetrated. What are regulators doing to help fight social engineering scams?
Rivner: Social engineering isn’t new, but deep social engineering is a new and dangerous mutation. This is when cybercriminals convince the user to log into their bank account and simply move money to another account belonging to the fraudster. This is done so cleverly that it has become a real epidemic – first hitting U.K. banks a few years ago, and then spreading to mainland Europe and Australia. It’s likely to reach North America in 2021, and banks are far from being ready to deal with this massive problem.
Global regulators are paying close attention to what’s happening in this front. They’re likely to demand strict and immediate measures to protect the vulnerable population from such scams using a combination of traditional transaction monitoring and next-gen capabilities such as detecting signs of hesitation, duress, distraction or being guided based on subtle behaviors measured on the user’s PC or mobile device.
On the technology front, you’ve pointed to the growing attention fraudsters are giving to fintechs and the emerging industry of mobile-first banks. What are the vulnerabilities here and what can fintechs and neobanks do to fix them?
Rivner: The mobile transformation in the financial sector is not evenly spread geographically. In Europe and Asia, mobile-only banks, payment apps and fintech are old news. In North America, the revolution is much more recent, and revolutions are always the best drivers for financial crime. Many U.S. banks offer Zelle, a peer-to-peer payment service, only through mobile apps and not yet via online banking. Additionally, the number of mobile-only financial services, loan providers and other fintechs is skyrocketing.
Crime rings that have focused their online fraud strategy solely on web applications have to adapt fast. Expect to see heavy showers of Mobile RATs and help desk scams, mobile-focused social engineering, mobile overlay malware, rogue apps, mobile emulators and other nasty fraud schemes. Fintechs and neobanks use a risk-based approach in which passive, frictionless device and behavioral biometric controls trigger active biometric controls in case of an anomaly.
You’ve said that one interesting development in fraud technology is the greater role they are playing in “trust and safety.” What do you mean by this and why is it happening now?
Rivner: The banking industry has been using advanced device and behavior analysis to fight fraud, but those technologies are also poised to play a major role in trust and safety. The problem is not stopping cyber criminals, but rather identifying genuine end-users who misuse the system, circumvent controls, gain unfair advantage over other end-users in, say, a marketplace or a gaming site, and generally breach trust and safety controls.
The global pandemic accelerated digital transformation and exposed many of these risks. For example, remote workers who have been vetted and background checked can share their accounts with others who haven’t so they can punch in more hours, creating new security exposures for the company that employs those workers. Once something like this happens, a company can lose things that are sometimes more important than actual money: accountability, fairness, trust and reputation.
The following is a guest blog post by Rutger van Faassen, Head of Product & Market Strategy for FBX at Informa Financial Intelligence.
Like many of you, I am still getting used to the virtual conference format. We all miss the in-person networking and engagement with conference participants; however, the saved travel time is an excellent perk. With the platform open for two weeks, I was able to get a couple of additional sessions in that I would have most likely missed in the pre-Covid world. I did find it challenging to keep 100% focused on the conference as my day to day business would find its way into my field of attention. After watching all the demos and many of the other sessions, here are my overall observations and key take-aways from the conference…
As Greg Palmer kicked-off the conference and set the stage for the event in the current environment, he mentioned a couple of things that I thought were insightful as a jump-off point. First, banks can move quickly if they need to (especially in the case of PPP). Second, customers can be much more flexible (taking advice from Financial Institutions). Third, banks that invested in digital were in a better position to deal with pandemic.
Not surprising, many of the companies providing demos at Finovate had an angle that fit in well with the current pandemic environment where remote engagement and digital journeys are extremely important.
Facilitate digital transformation for those left behind
A premier example of this is Zeta, who provides an App Integrated banking platform facilitating the consumer’s digital journey. Two features jumped out to me from this platform. First is the option for point-of-purchase financing while in browser journey – so you can get a loan for a product you want to buy on Amazon as you are browsing on your mobile device. Second is the Family Hub – to manage family financials within the App with a 60-day implementation timeline makes it a perfect fit in the current environment.
Similarly, Dan Michaeli, CEO & Co-Founder from Glia showed us how to provide better digital customer service by identifying digital body language (a new term for me!). The two features he showed us, ‘Co-Browsing’ and ‘Video Chat in App’, are crucial features in this new abnormal time where circumstances push us to engage remotely through digital channels.
As our device time has increased dramatically, it is crucial that the experience is pleasant and helpful to keep us engaged with our financial institutions. Q2 showed us how to deliver Dynamic Personalization to make the content and offers provided as relevant and engaging as possible.
Productfy demonstrated its secure platform for any company to launch fintech applications, financial products, or services in as little as 3 weeks. Great news for financial institutions who find themselves hopelessly behind in their digital transformation in a time where a digital journey is essential.
With a strong shift to online shopping, GoPointsLoyalty Group provides a platform (currently operational in Russia) to help set up and manage reward’s programs. It is a turnkey solution with various integration options to help financial institutions that are behind in their digital transformation get up and running with a proven platform.
Finzly, one of the “Best in Show” winners, provides a customer engagement engine that helps financial institutions – through a drag and drop interface – to set up customer onboarding flows at “fintech speed”. Another solution to help financial institutions that find themselves struggling during the pandemic due to a lack of digital customer journeys.
Enhance engagement with SMBs leveraging online tools
Another key group that has been impacted during the pandemic is small businesses. Any solution to help financial institutions help this segment garnered lots of attention. Monit offers a platform that provides value for both bankers and small businesses with relevant and actionable contextual offers based on the data gathered from the small business cashflow projections. Anything that helps small businesses preserve their most valuable resource, time, is a good idea in my book.
Like Monit, the UpSwot is focused on changing the way banks serve SMBs by first, being the Mint for business and second, combining analytics from different Apps SMBs use on one screen. It then allows the platform to provide notifications and a forecast for future financial cash flows. Even if a lender is not comfortable providing a loan at this point (by analyzing the data), they will help the SMB understand when they could qualify.
Deal with downsides of our digital world
Solving a very different challenge caused by the pandemic, a lack of in person networking opportunities, Momentifi created continued education sessions that provide an opportunity to connect with industry participants.
The Finovate format using demonstrations does an excellent job at giving the audience a clear idea how the solution solves for a particular use case. Instnt not only showed how their solution uses AI for KYC analysis, they also will put their money where their mouth is and will indemnify the user for losses due to fraud. In these strange and uncertain times, that is a strong commitment to their solution.
Given all new data privacy regulations that have come online, and the increasing awareness of consumers of their right for their data to be removed, one thing that stood out to me in the Ninth Wave demo was their seamless process to address this through the instant creation of a Digital certificate to confirm that data has been removed.
Side effects of a digital revolution are more space for innovation and new solutions. IM and Chat Message has eclipsed emails and calls resulting in financial institutions needing a solution to capture, populate, encrypt, and archive historically inaccessible messaging data in real time. Nuri Otus, txtsmarter CEO & Founder demonstrated how his platform provides a solution for this digital journey challenge.
As we get more and more digital, the risk of data breaches increases exponentially. Breach Clarity, another “Best of Show” winner, showed how their solution helps customers of financial institutions deal with these breaches with a score that lets a customer know how meaningful the breach is and then what action to take.
Support existing digital journeys with additional tools
The constant challenge of security of information has been amplified as most communication now happens remote through digital channels. Arnexa provides one tap secure message delivery which removes the friction of having to take several steps to get a secure message. Reducing friction is certainly on everyone’s 2020 bingo-card! In the same vein, CoConet was showcasing how to turn SlowBoarding into QuickBoarding as most new clients get onboarded digitally.
DeepTarget also provides a digital experience platform that aims for better customer engagement and increased sales. It is leveraging practices from social media by providing real human stories to enhance customer engagement. The platform lets you treat people differently at scale.
A key part of the engagement in a digital world is how you communicate with customers through different channels. LinkLiveBanking securely and seamlessly connects humans to their financial institutions through a full suite of communication services. Using different options like chatbots, the ability to transfer to the next available live agent and in-browser desktop sharing.
Tom Martin, CEO of Glance Networks, showed us how his platform helps deliver real human connections by allowing financial institution’s employees to join a customer within the App/Browser via video within the embedded securely of their own platform. With just one click, a video conference can be launched, and co-browsing can be established.
Financial health management
A theme that has come to the top of consumers priority list during the pandemic – in addition to their physical health – is their financial health. Planning for a financially healthy future is top of mind and having tools to provide consumers with insights certainly support this. Sheryl O’Connor, CEO of WealthConductor, showed us how their platform provides insight into future financials using a product agnostic approach (so not pushing any provider) with easy reports written at 8th grade level. The platform works both when planning for retirement as well as when entering retirement and will hopefully help to reduce the Bankruptcy rates which have recently doubled within retirees.
Facilitating easier shopping and payment journeys
In line with a key trend of making the payment and lending part of the sales cycle easier, Payever shared how its solution seamlessly integrates the process from shopping to payment and marketing to shipping.
VRAY offers an Omni-channel payment platform that provides simple and secure consumer experiences across different platforms. It lets consumers have subscriptions without giving out their credit card info… and the option to cancel any time. This shortens check out due to no need for client information (which makes them more comfortable) and reduces chargebacks.
Enhanced use of AI and ML
On day two of the conference, Deniz Kaya, Director of Product Management & Digital Channels at Fiserv, showed us how they are using conversational AI to power a Voice Assistant who still sounds a lot like a robot, but can understand complex questions and provide actionable insights and advice. During this pandemic where call center volumes are at record high, a voice assistant can reduce the pressure on the call center. Integration in a core platform will also give access to a wealth of data to help answer customer questions.
As the digital revolution is accelerating, financial institutions gather more and more data. DQLabs showed us a platform that manages data automatically using AI/ML to support a data strategy and improve customer experience. It helps profile and curate data and suggests ways to fix data errors like misspellings.
View into the future
One of the Keynotes by Strategic Futurist and TEDx Curator, Nancy Giordano, gave us an interesting perspective: that although we are going through lots of change, we are only one percent in. She discussed the four awakenings reshaping society and how we need to shift from Leadership to Leadering. One nugget of insight that made me smile (and which I am going to attempt) is the Harvard Business Review article about how telling an embarrassing story before doing a group brainstorm will result in a better outcome.
Conclusion
There were several other interesting panels and keynotes, but this is my quick summary of the conference. Overall, we had a great display of solutions that align very well with the challenges and opportunities we are facing during the pandemic. Lots of solutions for financial institutions who find themselves left behind in the digital acceleration and need help catching up. Additional tools for those who have already established a digital journey for their customers but want to enhance it and make life a little easier for everyone. Great news for Small Businesses, who have been hit the hardest during this pandemic, with support through new technology driven solutions. And how cool that technology can provide insights into our financial health and how to manage it! One way of doing that is using AI and ML to make all solutions better, faster, and more intuitive. In this new abnormal where we search for the best ways to adapt, I am pleased to conclude that doing Finovate virtually was a pleasant digital customer journey.
Rutger van Faassen brings more than two decades of experience in international retail lending to FBX and its clients. He has previously held roles at Nomis Solutions and ABN AMRO Bank.
As the price of bitcoin returns to old highs, we see a renewed appetite for cryptocurrencies and digital assets of all kinds. Add to this a new generation of investors raised on the wealth-building possibilities of alternative assets like private securities.
The result is a range of new opportunities – as well as customer expectations and regulatory obligations – for financial services firms and fintechs alike to deal with.
We checked in with Scott Purcell, CEO and Chief Trust Officer of Prime Trust, to discuss this new landscape of digital asset investment and management, and find out what we should expect in terms of innovation in this space in 2021.
Many longer-time Finovate watchers will recall the work you did with FundAmerica, which was acquired by Prime Trust a few years ago. Tell us about what you are doing as CEO of Prime Trust today?
Scott Purcell: I am very proud of the work we did for the crowdfunding industry with FundAmerica, and in fact it continues to provide escrow, compliance, payment processing, and other services to about 75% of the market – just now under the Prime Trust umbrella. My role has evolved rapidly as Prime Trust has grown to provide services to new industries, most notably blockchain, real estate, and the next generation of alternative trading systems (ATS), which are exchanges for private securities.
We are one of the top financial institutions servicing the cryptocurrency market, and by far the leading infrastructure provider for ATS. That means a lot of growth, which has taken me away from being hands-on with sales, product development, operations, and accounting to a point where I now have an incredible team of people who are responsible for those areas, and frankly they are way better than me at doing them.
This has set me free (well, if 12-hour days are considered “free”) to focus on the vision and product roadmap, overall market strategy, and closer engagement with key investors, partners, vendors and customers. It’s fun to see the company grow and we are incredibly excited about the things on our plate for 2021.
Prime Trust recently announced a partnership with Zytara to help them launch their stablecoin. How did this relationship come about and what do you believe will come of it?
Purcell: Zytara is built on the Stably stablecoin platform which integrates into Prime Trust’s API’s for back-office infrastructure. As the online gaming industry continues to grow, so does the need for a common stablecoin that can be used across multiple platforms. Zytara will be covering this and also plans to bring a variety of other items to involving digital assets to the gaming community. We are excited to see Prime Trust infrastructure being leveraged for video gaming as a new industry sector with unlimited upside.
There’s been a resurgence in interest in cryptocurrencies of late – and the rise of stablecoins has been a part of this. What do you think are the key drivers of interest in stablecoins right now? How powerful and enduring do you believe those drivers to be?
Purcell: Prime Trust provides services for over two dozen stablecoins, so I’ve got pretty good visibility into what works and what doesn’t. The key thing is utility. People need to have a frictionless and compelling reason to use a stablecoin. Zytara is a great example of that, as it will be used for easy transactions in a gaming environment. Others are specifically built for use on crypto exchanges as a mechanism to de-risk from volatile crypto or to take a break from trading, while keeping funds in electronic form so they are easy to re-engage in the markets. The more that stablecoin issuers can add utility and ease of use, then the more enduring they will become.
Let’s talk about Prime Trust more broadly. When it comes to fintech headlines, financial infrastructure companies are among some of the most critical – and sought after – partners in financial services right now. What role are financial infrastructure companies like Prime Trust playing in helping facilitate the next generation of fintech apps and innovations?
Purcell: Every single fintech innovator needs a set of financial services in order to build their businesses, with APIs to integrate into. And surprisingly there are very few who do this. That’s why you’ve seen Robinhood, CashApp, Chime, Acorns, Betterment, and so many others scramble around cobbling together different bank, compliance, custody and other vendors. The set of services these innovators need is common across all markets and includes payment processing, compliance, custody of alternative and traditional assets, accounts for individuals, businesses and retirement programs, trusted transaction settlement, reporting, escrow, debit cards, and (especially in crypto) fiat on/offramps and liquidity.
Prime Trust is the only partner from start through growth that fintech innovators can rely on as a single API-driven source for all of these services. Thus, the next generation of fintech success stories can build and launch their businesses in record time to market, and confidently scale their back-office operations.
This fall you launched a core accounting and customer asset management platform, PrimeCore. What capabilities does this platform provide banks, exchanges, and other financial institutions? How has the solution been received?
Purcell: The traditional bank core systems – FIS, Fiserv, and Jack Henry as well as traditional trust company core systems, SunGard, Innovest and others – are expensive, slow and clumsy at handling non-traditional business models … which is what fintech innovation is all about. For instance, none of them can hold assets out to 18 decimal places of precision, which both fractionalized and digital assets require, and none provide multi-asset transaction settlement systems. And they are incredibly slow at onboarding new customers and enabling modules on-demand.
So, we built PrimeCore out of frustration at trying to work with some of these vendors, who just weren’t interested in the rapid innovation and speed of service required for new and emerging markets. Not only does this give us control over our costs and our product rollouts, it also provides a much better experience for our B2B customers (and, thus, their retail and business customers).
How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Prime Trust’s operations – as well as those of your company’s clients and partners?
Purcell: The good news is that we’ve continued to grow like crazy during the pandemic. It’s been incredibly frustrating to not be able to hop on planes to visit customers, partners, vendors, and our investors in person. And it’s caused some havoc at times when employees or their relatives tested positive, and we had to send the whole company home until people tested negative. This may not be a huge problem for some departments, such as engineering or sales, but it is hard on compliance, the wire room, accounting and the executive team.
Also, as a financial institution, each employee is required to take at least one contiguous week a year of vacation, and at this time that’s not exactly fun telling them “okay, just stay home even more now!” Like everyone else, we can’t wait for this to be behind us so we can get back to business … and living our lives.
What trends this year in the financial services industry do you see as becoming even stronger in 2021? In what way will Prime Trust be a part of those trends?
Purcell: Payments is a $110 trillion annual market and, with the pandemic, the drive to “contactless” and remote systems has been exponential. And the fractionalization of traditional and alternative investments, which has been a proven trend by WealthFront, Acorns, and others, will drive an entirely new phase for capital markets. Prime Trust is looking forward to servicing these trends as they continue to build momentum and disrupt the status quo of financial services in 2021. It’s going to be a great year!
Finovate alums raised more than $472 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. This sum brings the total raised by alums this year to $3.9 billion. Given the relatively sharp fall-off in Q4 funding this year, the fact that 2020’s investment total not only rivals that of last year, but also approximates our all-time, alumni investment high mark from 2018, is noteworthy.
Q4 of 2020 saw a retreat from the strong investment trends that have characterized the final quarter of the year since 2016. This year’s fourth quarter funding total was more reminiscent of the levels reached in Q4 2015, when 28 alums brought in more than $302 million in funding.
Previous Quarterly Comparisons
Q4 2019: More than $876 million raised by 21 alums
Q4 2018: More than $800 million raised by 19 alums
Q4 2017: More than $730 million raised by 23 alums
Q4 2016: More than $700 million raised by 26 alums
The top equity investment of the quarter was the $103 million raised by Tink in December, followed by the $60 million raised by both Microblink and OurCrowd. Interestingly, our top three investments were in alums with significant, non-U.S. business.
Top Quarterly Equity Investments
Tink: $103 million
Microblink: $60 million
OurCrowd: $60 million
DriveWealth: $56.7 million
eToro: $50 million
M1 Finance: $45 million
Five Degrees: $27 million
Bluefin: $25 million
NetGuardians: $19 million
Wise: $12 million
Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q4 2020.
October 2020: More than $148 million raised by seven alums
If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the fourth quarter of 2020, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.
There’s no better time than the present to plan for the future. That’s the approach taken by European fintech Bitpanda, which announced earlier this week that it was investing €10 million ($12 million) to launch a technology and innovation hub in Poland. The initiative will be headquartered in Krakow and will employ 300 engineering professionals with diverse backgrounds to “develop innovative and challenging projects” to improve finance and bring “transparency” to investing. Bitpanda co-founder and CTO Christian Trummer will lead the effort.
“While staying true to our goal of tearing down financial barriers, innovating with speed in a more nimble and proactive manner is just as critical as looking at Bitpanda’s assets through a different and forward-looking lens as the company gains momentum,” Trummer said in a statement. “I’m confident that we will be able to attract the most skilled professionals from the whole region, running from Backend Developers, Software, Machine Learning and QA Engineers to Product Owners and Scrum Masters.”
The hub announcement comes in the wake of Bitpanda’s $52 million Series A round in September – led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures – and follows the company’s successful 2020 expansions to Spain, France, and Turkey. Bitpanda’s Series A was among the largest in Europe this year.
“Placing Bitpanda’s first Technology & Innovation Hub in Krakow, with its globally-renowned developers, an exciting local tech scene and geographical proximity to Vienna, was a pretty clear choice for us,” Bitpanda co-founder and CEO Eric Demuth said. “It’s the best asset to attracting the right talent who can help Bitpanda pursue innovation of the highest standard.”
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Vienna, Austria, Bitpanda is a leading European neobroker that specializes in digital asset investing. This fall, Bitpanda teamed up with Raiffeisen Bank International to bring blockchain-interoperability to banks in the EU. Th company also launched its Bitpanda Crypto Index (BCI), which provides an automated way for cryptocurrency investors to buy multiple cryptocurrencies at once and more readily diversify their holdings.
Big data analytics platform Thetaray, which made its Finovate debut five years ago at FinovateFall in New York, announced late this week that its Anti-Money Laundering for Correspondent Banking solution has been selected by Spain’s Cecabank. The wholesale bank will use the AI-powered technology to analyze SWIFT traffic, risk indicators, and other data to identify anomalies that can signify criminal activity.
“We were already using traditional rules-based systems, but we wanted to increase our ability to monitor cross-border transactions,” Cecabank Compliance Head Alfredo Oñoro said. “When an industry colleague recommended ThetaRay’s AML solution for correspondent banking, we immediately reached out and began discussions. We are extremely impressed with ThetaRay’s technology and excited to share its capabilities with our bank customers and, if so requested, with our regulators.”
ThetaRay’s anomaly detecting algorithms are relied upon by corporations in financial services, industrial manufacturing, and critical infrastructure to defend against a wide variety of threats and cybercrimes, ranging from money laundering to terrorist financing. ThetaRay offers fraud detection, ATM security, and an early threat detection capability that minimizes false positives, enabling firms to modernize their legacy systems with a compliant, cost-savings solution.
“This announcement serves as notice that ThetaRay’s AML for Correspondent Banking solution is not just for global financial institutions,” ThetaRay CEO Mark Gazit said. “It is also a perfect fit for mid-sized banks aiming to improve their AML controls. Cecabank plays a crucial role in the Spanish market, and we are very pleased that they’ve chosen ThetaRay to help secure their customers’ cross-border transactions.”
ThetaRay’s partnership with Cecabank comes in the wake of a similar collaboration the company announced with Banco Santander over the summer. With offices in Israel and New York City, ThetaRay has raised more than $81 million in funding. ABN AMRO Ventures and Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) are among the company’s investors.
Interesting in learning more about fintech in Latin America? This week on the Finovate blog we featured an article from non-profit organization Invest Puerto Rico that makes the case for untapped opportunity on the island.
Fintech is growing fast, at a rate of 25% per year through 2022. Puerto Rico’s close proximity to the world’s financial center – New York City – gives island-based fintech firms the opportunity to remain connected while taking advantages of key local benefits such as STEM talent, local financial literacy, and attractive tax incentives.
PayCentral and Mastercardteam up to launch new online payments platform for SMEs, DigiCentral.
Interswitch Group, a Nigerian digital payments company, partners with Kenya-based Credit Bank to launch a multi-currency prepaid card.
South African fintech Ukheshe acquires mobile payments startup Oltio
Central and Eastern Europe
Germany’s Solative, which provides indices and index solutions to the financial services industry, raises $60.4 million in growth funding.
Irish core banking technology provider Leveris inks partnership with Czech bank, Česká spořitelna.
Polish fintech SMEO, which provides online factoring services to small and micro-enterprises, locks in €4 million in funding ahead of its planned international expansion.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Digital open banking app sync secures license from the Qatar Financial Centre Authority.
Central Bank of Oman unveils fintech regulatory sandbox.
IBS Intelligence reviews the top four fintechs disrupting payments in the UAE.
Central and Southern Asia
Pakistan’s SadaPay obtains approval from the State Bank of Pakistan for pilot launch in 2021.
India Posts Payments Bank and the Indian Department of Posts introduce new digital payment app, DakPay.
Bangalore-based payments platform Cashfree raises $35.3 million in round led by Apis Partners.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazilian financial market intrastructure company B3 partners with Genesis to access its low-code application platform.
Mozper, a debit card for kids and their parents, goes live in Mexico following $3.5 million seed funding round.
BNAmericas looks at Azimo’s partnership and expansion plans for Latin America following its alliance with Uruguay’s dLocal.
Asia-Pacific
Singapore and Thailand announce plans to link their national payment systems in 2021.
Malaysia’s AFFIN Bank launches new corporate internet banking platform for SMEs, AffinMax.
Vietnam Briefing examines the rise of Vietnam as a startup hub.
AI-powered computer vision software innovator Microblinklanded $60 million in funding today. The investment marks the U.K.-based company’s first round of funding since it was founded in 2014.
Growth equity firm Silversmith Capital Partners led the round. Microblink plans to use the capital to accelerate product development, boost its go-to-market strategy, and expand its team.
“As enterprises increasingly move towards automation, we are excited to reinvest in our existing business and explore new ways our computer vision platform can solve pain points for companies across a variety of industries,” said Microblink CEO and Cofounder Darren Bassman. “We believe Silversmith is the perfect partner for us on the next leg of our journey.”
Microblink’s computer vision products help businesses and organizations across multiple sectors digitize documents, automate processes, and eliminate manual data entry. The company’s “hundreds of millions” of end customers use its technology to scan billions of documents each year to prove their digital identity by scanning their ID, make a payment online by scanning their credit card, and collect data about their purchases by scanning their receipts.
“Microblink’s world-class product and technology teams have unlocked real-world applications for artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Silversmith General Partner, Sri Rao. “Customers leverage the platform to power experiences for millions of end users that require the ability to verify an ID, scan a receipt, or automate the capture of payment data from their device of choice. Microblink’s customer centricity and product leadership serve as a strong foundation from which to scale rapidly, and we are thrilled to support the company in this next phase of growth.”
As part of today’s deal, Rao will join Microblink’s board of directors, serving alongside Bassman and Microblink Cofounder Damir Sabol.
