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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
PhonePe is selling a $700 million stake in its company to existing investors, including Walmart, which led the financing round. The digital wallet and online payments company will use the funding to distance itself from Flipkart, which Walmart purchased in 2018. As part of the deal, Flipkart’s ownership of PhonePe will drop from 100% to 87%, according to TechCrunch.
India-based PhonePe anticipates that the $700 million in capital– along with independence from parent company Flipkart, which operates an ecommerce division– will help boost its growth in the ever-growing digital payments arena.
Further cementing PhonePe’s independence, the company has appointed its own board of directors, including PhonePe Founder and CEO Sameer Nigam and former Flipkart executive Binny Bansal.
“We are really excited to have access to dedicated long-term capital to further our ambitions in the financial services distribution sector as well as creating large innovative growth platforms for India’s micro, small, and medium enterprises,” said Nigam.
Founded in 2015, PhonePe is estimated to be worth around $5.5 billion. The company anticipates it will be profitable by 2022 and plans to go public in 2023. PhonePe currently has 100 million active users and recorded almost one billion transactions on its platform in October.
With 2021 right around the corner, we’re taking one last look at a year we will remember for a long time.
The Finovate Fintech Fulltime Review kicks off next week with a free, all-digital, live and on-demand showcase of webinars, white papers, eMagazines and more – all designed to make sense out of a year that was in many ways both tragic and transformative. The event begins Monday, December 7 and runs through Friday, December 11.
Among the features of next week’s event worth highlighting is our interactive conversation: Don’t Let Your Contact Center Be the Black Sheep of Your Bank’s Innovation. This live webinar with Mike Straham, VP of Contact Center Solutions with Lifesize, will explain the role of the bank contact center in the overall customer experience and why it is critical for banks to innovate in this space.
A customer experience specialist, Straham has more than 20 years of experience identifying and implementing advanced software technologies to reduce costs, increase productivity, improve customer satisfaction, and create new revenue streams. He joined Lifesize earlier this year after tenures at Talkdesk, Genesys, and Interactive Intelligence.
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Lifesize specializes in providing video conferencing and collaboration solutions. In October, the company announced a strategic partnership with Omilia, a conversational AI solution provider. Over the summer, Lifesize acquired U.K.- and Silicon Valley, California-based digital collaboration solutions company Kaptivo.
Also featured next week during our Finovate Fintech Fulltime Review is our conversation with Quadient: Digital Overload: What Do Customers Want Now Besides Emergency Zoom Installations and Contactless Payments?
Led by Quadient’s Andrew Stevens, Principal for Banking and Financial Services, and moderated by Celent Senior Banking Analyst Craig Focardi, this interactive webinar will discuss how to maintain a true focus on the customer experience in the middle of rapid technological change and disruption.
Stevens is a customer experience and communications experts who has worked with and executed transformation programs for institutions across the world. His experience in both technology and banking/finance gives him unique insights into the challenges that financial institutions face today in meeting the needs of ever-more-demanding customers.
Quadient is an international customer experience solution provider specializing in customer experience management, business process automation, mail-related solutions, and parcel locker solutions. Headquartered in Bagneux, France, Quadient includes Societe Generale, Humana, FedEx Express, and Ping An Bank among its customers.
To learn about all we have in store for next week’s Finovate Fintech Fulltime Review, check out our event hub for more information.
Lloyds Banking Group is making instant, cross-border payments possible, thanks to a partnership with global secure financial messaging services provider SWIFT.
The U.K.-based bank announced it is the first bank to go live with SWIFT’s gpi Instant Connection, a new service that helps consumers and businesses send money in seconds across the globe.
gpi, which stands for Global Payments Initiative, was launched in 2017 to facilitate international payments. Since then, SWIFT has amassed more than 4,000 financial institution clients who collectively use gpi to send more than $300 billion each day in more than 150 currencies.
“At Lloyds Bank we strive to continually evolve and create innovative solutions for our clients,” said Ed Thurman, Managing Director and Head of Global Transaction Banking at Lloyds Banking Group. “The gpi Instant service is set to be a game changer in cross-border payments and we are very excited to be the first bank globally to offer the service here into the U.K.”
The new service leverages SWIFT gpi, SWIFT’s high-speed cross-border rails, and connects with a country’s own real-time infrastructure. In Lloyds’ case, SWIFT gpi is connecting with the U.K.’s Faster Payments, the region’s own real-time payments initiative.
“We developed gpi Instant with our community through responsible innovation and equal emphasis on four core needs — speed, security, transparency and compliance,” said David Watson, Chief Strategy Officer at SWIFT. “We look forward to continuing our work with market infrastructures and financial institutions to bring the benefits of seamless cross-border payments to customers across the globe.”
The launch with Lloyds comes after SWIFT tested out the service earlier this year in a pilot with Lloyds, Barclays, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, DBS, Wells Fargo, and BBVA. The real-time payments capabilities are part of SWIFT’s new strategy to retool cross-border infrastructure to facilitate instant and frictionless transactions.
With more than $9 billion in assets, VyStar Credit Union is the latest community-based financial institution to partner with open finance money experience innovator MX. VyStar, one of the 20 largest credit unions in the U.S., will leverage MX’s data connectivity APIs, account aggregation, and data enhancement tools to enhance the online experience for its more than 735,000 members in Georgia and northeastern Florida.
“Our strategy is to harness innovation and strategic fintech relationships that provide the best experiences that will improve our members’ financial well-being, and this partnership with an innovative fintech like MX is a big step in furthering that strategy,” Joseph R. Colca, SVP of Digital Experience at VyStar Credit Union, said. “We’ve been impressed not only with MX’s world-class data enhancement tools, but also with the alignment of our missions to empower financial strength through member advocacy.”
The partnership will enable members of VyStar Credit Union to aggregate and view accounts from all of their financial institutions into a single interface. MX’s technology collects, cleanses, and enriches transaction data, providing insights that help users more accurately plan their financial futures, as well as take smarter financial actions in the present. VyStar believes that embracing the technology will enable the Jacksonville, Florida-based credit union to gain wallet share among its customers by removing any need to log in to other apps or websites.
“With MX, VyStar is giving its customers greater clarity into their finances, which is exactly the kind of innovation, partnership, and money experience that MX loves to enable through our powerful data platform,” Chief Customer Officer for MX Nate Gardner said.
A multiple time Finovate Best of Show winner, MX most recently demonstrated its technology last year at FinovateFall. A leading data platform for banks, credit unions, fintechs, and other financial services providers, MX offers solutions to quickly and accurately collect, enhance, analyze, and present financial data. The company enables financial institutions to better understand and serve their customers, and helps them empower their customers to make better, more informed financial decisions.
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Lehi, Utah, MX has made headlines in recent months via its partnerships with companies like Borrowell, a leading credit education firm based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Advicent, a SaaS technology solution provider for financial advisors and planners headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Central Pacific Bank , a full-service financial institution based in Honolulu, Hawaii. Named to the 2020 CB Insights Fintech 250 and highlighted as one of the fastest growing companies in Utah, MX unveiled its open finance platform, MX Open, in September. Ryan Caldwell is co-founder and CEO.
Branded payments firm Blackhawk Network has always been busy over the holiday season. Between its gift cards, digital rewards, and prepaid cards, the California-based company has helped people embrace the spirit of giving.
And while Blackhawk Network is still helping fuel the gifting and rewards economy this year, it is moving to an even more 2020-friendly (that is to say, digital-first) approach.
Last week Blackhawk announced it has teamed up with Evite to power the digital greeting card and invitation company’s eGift card program. Evite users can now choose from more than 100 eGift card options from popular brands including Lowe’s, Red Lobster, and Old Navy.
“It’s no surprise we’ve seen the demand for virtual gifts and greetings skyrocket in 2020. Contactless gifting is now a must-have, especially with the holidays approaching,” said Evite CEO Victor Cho. “Adding an extra touch like an eGift card can help people create personal connections with family and friends that they haven’t been able to see. It also helps our users stay safe, creates maximum flexibility for gifters and receivers, and modernizes the 2020 gifting experience. Thanks to Blackhawk’s expansive network of eGift card choices, our users have a broad selection to choose from at the tip of their fingertips.”
Brett Narlinger, head of global commerce at Blackhawk Network, noted that Blackhawk has seen a 70% increase in eGift sales– all before the peak holiday shopping season.
In addition to its partnership with Evite, Blackhawk announced a new payment solutions suite called Pay4It that connects physical and digital payments. The suite helps merchants reach underbanked populations with the ability to add cash to a digital wallet, mobile app or account, or make payments for digital goods with cash. It also offers consumers more choices to pay by enabling additional digital wallets and transforming loyalty points and rewards into purchasing power. Finally, Pay4It brings the gift card mall to non-traditional locations and into the digital realm.
“Retailers’ and merchants’ businesses changed instantly this year, and Blackhawk has responded with a product suite that brings once-disparate physical, digital and stored value payments together, keeping brands and consumers connected in a seamless way,” said VP of Global Product Strategy at Blackhawk Network Helena Mao.
An alum of FinovateFall 2012, Blackhawk Network was founded in 2001 and was acquired in January of 2018 by Silver Lake and P2 Capital Partners in a deal worth $3.5 billion. The company works with more than 1,000 brands and card partners, is in more than 200,000 retail locations in 28 countries, and connects with more than 300,000,000 shoppers each week. Talbott Roche is CEO.
One of the more fascinating stories in the history of black America is the rise of black-run banking institutions in the final decades of the 19th century. And while the early days of black banking and finance had their fair share of tragedy – the massacre at “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 among the more horrific – the industry persisted nevertheless, enabling black SMEs and families to access basic banking services and credit at a time when mainstream financial institutions refused to serve them.
It’s hard not to recall this history when reading the news that Fiserv has become a corporate partner of the non-profit African-American Credit Union Coalition (AACUC). As a new corporate partner, Fiserv will support the Coalition’s internship and mentorship programs, as well as make a financial contribution and back Coalition efforts such as its I’ve Got Five on It Giving Tuesday campaign.
AACUC President and Executive Officer Renée Sattiewhite acknowledged that Fiserv’s participation comes at a time of heightened awareness of and renewed determination to fight forms of systemic racism in particular. “As a year that has galvanized support for African-American community comes to a close,” Sattiewhite said, “we are looking forward to the future along with organizations like Fiserv.”
Fiserv General Manager of Credit Union Solutions and executive sponsor of the partnership Derek Everett put the collaboration in the context of Fiserv’s goal of better engaging underbanked communities. In addition to its partnership with AACUC, Fiserv is also investing $10 million in black- and minority-owned businesses via its Back2Business initiative. “As we begin our work with AACUC, our team is looking forward to strengthening existing relationships and forging new ones with the diverse communities and professionals AACUC strives to empower,” Everett said.
Headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, the Coalition promotes racial equality and fairness in the credit union industry, and supports black-led credit unions and credit unions serving black communities. Larry Sewell, who recently took over as chairman of the AACUC, discussed the challenge of diversity in an interview this fall. Currently Vice President of Corporate Partnerships and Advocacy for Together Credit Union, Sewell noted that of the more than 5,000 credit unions in the U.S., there are “approximately 170 African-American CEOs.” The number of women among those 170 CEOs, it should be noted, is impressive at more than 58%. But the industry clearly has room to improve in terms of ethnic diversity at its most senior, leadership ranks.
Taking the opportunity to seize a fresh start that comes with a new year, Facebook’s Libra Association has rebranded to Diem Association.
The group chose the name Diem, which is Latin for “day” to signal a new day for the association. The rebrand will not change the mission of the organization, which is to build a safe, secure, and compliant payment system. The move will, however, serve as a way of “reinforcing its organizational independence.”
“The Diem project will provide a simple platform for fintech innovation to thrive and enable consumers and businesses to conduct instantaneous, low-cost, highly secure transactions,” said the Diem Association’s CEO Stuart Levey. “We are committed to doing so in a way that promotes financial inclusion – expanding access to those who need it most, and simultaneously protecting the integrity of the financial system by deterring and detecting illicit conduct. We are excited to introduce Diem – a new name that signals the project’s growing maturity and independence.”
As Levey suggests, the new name serves as a way for Diem to distance itself from Facebook, which initiated the association in June of 2018. This isn’t the first time the group has attempted to disassociate itself with Facebook. In May, the association changed the name of the Diem digital wallet from Calibra to Novi.
In addition to the rebrand, the Diem Association and its subsidiary that serves as the regulated payment system operator, Diem Networks, is reinforcing its ranks. The group has appointed Dahlia Malkhi as the Association’s Chief Technology Officer, Christy Clark as Chief of Staff, Steve Bunnell as Chief Legal Officer, and Kiran Raj as Executive Vice President for Growth and Innovation and Deputy General Counsel.
The news of the new hires comes on the heels of the company’s appointment of James Emmett as Managing Director, Sterling Daines as Chief Compliance Officer, Ian Jenkins as Chief Financial and Risk Officer, and Saumya Bhavsar as General Counsel.
Regardless of today’s seemingly upbeat news, Diem is still currently in limbo. The association is still waiting on regulatory approval, including a payment systems license for the operational subsidiary of the Association from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
From in-house innovation to outright acquisition, businesses have myriad paths to consider when looking to expand their product portfolios. We learned late last week that mobile payments company Square has taken one of the less flashy routes to growing its offerings: paying $50 million in cash for Credit Karma’s tax business. Square will add the service’s DIY tax filing functionality to its own Cash App.
The free tax filing option will be featured along with the app’s other financial tools, including P2P payments, Cash Card, direct deposit, and the ability to make fractional investments in stocks and bitcoin. Cash App was launched by Square seven years ago as a P2P money transfer service and has grown into an integrated financial ecosystem with more than 30 million monthly active customers as of June 2020.
“We created Cash App to provide more access to the masses of people left out of the financial system and are constantly looking for ways to redefine our customers’ relationship with money by making it more relatable, instantly available, and universally acceptable,” Cash App lead Brian Grassadonia said.
One in two tax filers – a total of 80 million taxpayers – prepared and filed their own Federal income taxes electronically in 2020, according to the IRS, and the trend is expected to accelerate. Credit Karma Tax Director of Engineering Patrick Fink underscored this point, noting that despite the “challenge” of filing taxes, more customers are transitioning toward filing taxes on their own. “Credit Karma Tax provides a seamless, mobile-first solution for individuals to file their taxes at no cost,” Fink said. “We’re excited to be joining an entrepreneurial team and continue to build simple, innovative tools for Cash App customers.” Credit Karma tax processed more than two million tax filers last year.
The acquisition is expected to close by the end of 2020 and is subject to customary closing conditions.
Square’s investment in its Cash App is timely. At the beginning of the month, the company noted in its third quarter financial reporting that Cash App had generated more than $2 billion in net revenue and $385 million of its gross profit for the quarter. The performance reflected gains of 5.74x and 2.12x, year over year, respectively.
The timeliness of the transaction also has a lot to do with Intuit’s acquisition of Credit Karma, which was cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice last week. Announced at the beginning of the year, the $7 billion deal is Intuit’s largest acquisition to date, and by shedding Credit Karma’s tax business, an obstacle to the union between the two companies has been removed. Intuit is the developer of it own online tax filing service, TurboTax.
“We are very excited to reach this important milestone today,” Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi said. “This brings us one step closer to transforming personal finance by making it simpler for consumers to find the right financial products, put more money in their pockets, and provide financial expertise and advice.”
The Credit Karma Tax announcement also comes one month after Square announced a $50 million investment in bitcoin, a sum the company said represented “approximately one percent” of the firm’s total assets as of the end of Q2 2020. Bitcoin trading has been available on Square’s Cash App since 2018 and, as of 2019, the company’s Square Crypto team has been contributing to bitcoin open-source efforts.
“We believe that bitcoin has the potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future,” Square Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja said. “As it grows in adoption, we intend to learn and participate in a disciplined way. For a company that is building products based on a more inclusive future, this investment is a step on that journey.”
FinovateWest Digital is a wrap. And with our second, all-digital fintech conference now in the books, what have we learned about the state – and future – of fintech after three days of live demos, keynote addresses, and expert discussions?
Every Year is the Year of the Customer
The COVID-19 crisis has sensitized businesses to the speed at which consumer behaviors can shift. These shifts can both accelerate existing trends as well as to create new trends that had not been broadly anticipated. Whether this has meant embrace of digital technologies or improving the efficiency and security of incumbent solutions, businesses in have learned to listen more and move faster when it comes to responding to customer needs.
Maybe “The Era of the Customer” is a better way to describe the New Normal between businesses and consumers. With Big Tech, Big Banks, and a host of other financial and fintech providers increasingly competing over the same financial services turf, the most obvious and potentially enduring winners of this contest are most likely to be the consumers those firms are battling ferociously to serve.
Find a Friend!
There was a moment on the final day of FinovateWest when the moderator of a panel on challenger banking turned to his panelists and asked: “we hear a great deal about partnerships with incumbent financial institutions? What value do partnerships have for upstart institutions like challenger banks?”
The question took the neobanking innovators a bit by surprise, at first. But the idea of the innovators turning to innovators to help them add key elements to their offering, or to ensure that their solution is safe and secure is as much a part of the promise of fintech as is “disrupting” incumbents – if not more so. In the same way that our developers conferences helped shine a light on those professionals whose skills make everything from UX to back office operations that much better, so to do events like FinovateWest Digital provide a valuable space for all the players in the fintech ecosystem to meet and do business together.
Partnership is the fastest way to add competencies. You can’t innovate faster than someone who has already figured it out.
Live/Digital is Our Destiny
For those who fear a future of AI-powered robot overlords, the growing consensus among technologists is that AI will most likely and effectively be used in coordination with and support of human activity. In other words, rather than be replaced, human beings are more likely to be merely “enhanced”.
Similarly, even as news of a potential COVID-19 vaccine becomes more common and optimistic, we see a role for both digital-only and live-with -digital fintech conferences for the forseeable future. That’s not just for our upcoming Finovate Fintech Fulltime Review, December 7 through 11, but for our big events in 2021, as well.
For now, our upcoming events for European and West coast audiences are still slated to be digital-only affairs in March and May of 2021, respectively. But like those increasingly agile banks, financial services companies, and fintechs we praised above, we’re looking forward to engaging our audiences – live in-person or online and digital – wherever they are and every way we can.
FinovateWest Digital is still available On Demand for registered attendees. Check out live demos from our Best of Show winning companies, videos of our keynotes and panels, and more!
Here ye! Here ye! The votes have been cast and tallied. Here are the companies that have been awarded Best of Show trophies at this year’s FinovateWest Digital fintech conference.
Breach Clarity for its technology that identifies and diagnoses consumers’ unique breach histories to prescribe personalized actions to improve financial health for both financial institutions and consumers. Video.
Finzly for its digital banking solution that improves banking services for any bank using novel UIs and a services-based architecture. Video.
Glia for its digital customer service platform that connects financial institutions to their customers using chat, voice, video, cobrowsing, and AI. Video.
Interface for its AI-powered call center technology that helps financial institutions automate 60% of their calls in 60 days. Video.
Zeta for its full-stack, cloud-native, API-ready core banking and transaction processing platform for issuance of credit, debit, and prepaid products. Video.
A huge, pre-Thanksgiving thanks to all the companies that participated in FinovateWest Digital – and to all those who attended our November conference, as well. Be sure to keep an eye out for our all-digital, year-end event, the Finovate Fulltime Review, coming up in December. In the meanwhile, have a wonderful holiday week!
Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their five favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The five companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 through 2020 conferences are below:
It is a truism that many talented technologists are not especially talented businesspeople. So if you have an idea for a technology solution, and want to build a business around your idea, where do you turn for the kind of help that can enable you to turn your funky tech startup into a serious up ‘n’ coming competitor?
One option for many startups is a company like Finmark. Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina and founded earlier this year, Finmark specializes in providing startups with the resources they need to build and manage their financial plans. By providing insights into everything from runway and hiring to fundraising and reporting, Finmark makes the task of financial modeling that much easier for startups.
We caught up with Finmark co-founder and CEO Rami Essaid recently by email to learn more about the company and how it helps startups become better businesses.
What is the problem that Finmark solves – and who does it solve it for?
Rami Essaid: Finmark is a technology company that provides financial planning and modeling software for startups. Finmark’s platform takes complex financial concepts and calculations and distills them down into a simple-to-use interface so companies can easily update, inspect, and share their financial metrics.
Startup founders, from pre-revenue companies to pre-IPO companies, rely on Finmark to align teams, drive collaboration, reduce costs and resources, and build the next generation of great startups.
What makes Finmark’s solution better than others? What functionality does it have that sets it apart?
Essaid: Most startups use Excel for financial modeling, but spreadsheets are poor for collaboration and version control is a nightmare. Finmark eliminates the need for complex spreadsheets with a simple-to-use platform, so founders can easily create, update, and share their financial plans.
Finmark was built so that anyone, not just finance professionals, can easily make and update a financial model without having to spend weeks laboring over complicated spreadsheets. While Excel-based spreadsheets have a half-life of about a month, founders can have immediate access to Finmark and know that their financials are updated regularly.
Many founders also rely on templated models, but we help to create customized models in minutes, taking the components that are driving your business and allowing them to be linked together seamlessly.
What in your background gave you the confidence to launch the company?
Essaid: As a now three-time startup founder, I’ve lived through the complications of Excel-based financial models. At my former company Distil Networks, I tried to fix these issues so many times that I came up with the general idea of Finmark so that other startup founders didn’t have to go through what I went through.
At the time, it was only an idea that was put on the back burner, but when the time came for a new venture, I knew that I wanted to create Finmark. As a founder who understands the pain of financial modeling, my experiences have helped shape the company to ensure it will help others out there like me.
My goal is to help startup founders know they are building their company on a solid foundation. I believe that, as a result of Finmark, more good companies will survive.
What adjustments have you had to make as a result of the COVID-19 crisis?
Essaid: As a company launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been fortunate to be agile in our efforts, where we haven’t had to make many adjustments. The majority of our employee base is working from home, and this will likely continue to be the case once the pandemic has subsided. There have been numerous adjustments we’ve had to make, but we’ve taken them in stride, relying on new forms of technology to help us out.
We even participated in the Y Combinator Summer 2020 Demo Day, and while it wasn’t the major event many are used to, we still had the opportunity to pitch our startup via Zoom to more than a thousand attendees.
Finmark recently raised $5 million in seed funding. How important was this to the company and what will it enable Finmark to do?
Essaid: I’m extremely excited about our seed funding, as we saw an incredible amount of interest from investment funds and angel investors alike, with more than 14 firms and 30 angels participating in the round. This level of interest underscores the need for a tool like Finmark, as many of these investors want to move away from the complex Excel spreadsheet modeling that is relied upon today.
Most of the funds will be asking that their portfolio companies use Finmark to stay on track, and the majority of our angel investors are or will be using Finmark to track their own financials, too.
You mentioned that Finmark is a recent graduate of Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 cohort. What was that experience like?
Essaid: It was a great experience overall. For us, our Y Combinator goals were two-fold. We gained a ton of experience with the accelerator, but also used the connections to introduce companies to Finmark. As the majority of the cohort were founders and CEOs in need of a tool like Finmark, I was able to sign on dozens of my peers as beta users. These users are both our target audience, and are also highly involved with the investor community, who will also be introduced to Finmark via the financial models created by our software.
What can we expect from Finmark in the year to come?
Essaid: Our first and primary goal is to build and perfect the platform, however we plan to expand our capabilities in the year to come in order to become the system of record for startups. A financial model is typically the central hub for all company data, including marketing and sales expenses, payroll, revenue, and more. With Finmark, companies will have a centralized access point for all data, where we can then help to provide benchmarks based on other companies in their respective industry, and ultimately help companies grow.
Buy Now, Pay Later Still Paying Off: One of 2020’s most unanticipated ecommerce trends, buy now pay later (BNPL) installment payment schemes, continues to show no signs of slowing down as the year draws toward a close. QuadPay, a BNPL innovator based in New York City that we featured earlier this month, just announced that it has added a new Chrome browser extension enables users to access Quadpay across all devices that can power a Chrome web browser.
“The introduction of Quadpay for Chrome will accelerate overall BNPL adoption for pandemic-weary consumers who are looking for flexible payment terms anywhere they shop without accruing new debt,” Quadpay Co-CEO Brad Lindenberg said. “It will also serve to drive new customers and increased loyalty for retailers at a critical time.”
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, a U.K.-based startup that is trying out its own version of the buy now, pay later strategy has become the first BNPL outfit in the U.K. to be granted a consumer credit authorization with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Zilch, which was founded in 2018 by Philip Belamant, specializes in using open banking data and soft credit checks to help ensure that customers who use its BNPL service have sufficient creditworthiness and can afford their purchase. The company is partnered with Mastercard, enabling the merchant-agnostic Zilch to be used as an installment payment solution wherever Mastercard is accepted.
“Zilch was built with customer affordability at the forefront of everything we do and we have been working towards this point since our conception,” Belamant said. “Having secured our consumer credit authorization with the FCA is another step towards improving consumer financial wellness and removing credit related anxiety for our customers.”
Corn on the Card? A few weeks back we read about a $1 million investment that eco-friendly, U.K.-based search engine Ecosia made in TreeCard, a company that offers a debit card made out of wood.
And not just any wood. According to a post at the Ecosia blog, “each TreeCard will be unique, since the debit cards are made of sustainably sourced cherry wood.” The announcement notes that a single one of these trees can produce 300,000 cards.
Not to be outdone, Swiss-based UBS has introduced a credit card made out of an equally unlikely substance: corn.
Specifically, the new Optimus Foundation Credit Card Eco is composed of a plastic substitute known as PLA. This substance is derived from animal feed corn, and has a biodegradability of more than 80%.
“The transition to a more sustainable society is one of the greatest challenges of our time,” Karin Oertli, COO, personal and corporate banking and Region Switzerland, said. “UBS wants to be a part of the solution and lead the way with innovative ideas. Our new cards, which are made without plastic, are contributing to this.”
FinovateWest Digital is taking place this week. Our all-digital fintech conference runs from Monday, November 23 through Wednesday, November 25. Join us for both live and on-demand access to hours of innovative fintech demos, insightful analysis, and robust debate and discussion on the most important topics in fintech today.
