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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Financial services company Rabobank has turned to Zafin to optimize its pricing, billing, and invoicing capabilities.
The partnership will help Rabobank fulfill its mandate of becoming a 100% digital institution.
Zafin made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017. The company was acquired by Nordic Capital earlier this year.
Multi-national banking and financial services company Rabobank has tapped SaaS core modernization solutions provider Zafin to optimize its pricing, billing, and invoicing capabilities.
“Innovation lies at the heart of Rabobank’s digital transformation journey,” Rabobank Manager (Payments) Paul Wolda said. “It supports our mission of ‘growing a better world together’ and our goal to improve the everyday life of our customers.” Wolda praised Zafin’s reputation around the world and said that the partnership “reinforces our commitment to invest in innovative technologies that modernize our legacy applications, drive operational efficiencies, lower costs, and offer our clients a more personalized and sophisticated banking experience.”
The partnership comes as Rabobank pursues its mandate to become 100% digital. The firm will deploy Zafin’s platform, replacing its current pricing tools, and lowering the cost of creating, changing, and launching customized product propositions and pricing to its clients. Rabobank will leverage the platform to access a consistent view of product, billing, and invoicing data across channels. This will reduce revenue leakage and deliver real-time insights into preferences and needs of Rabobank’s diverse retail and corporate customer base.
“Our partnership with Rabobank is a significant milestone in our mission to deliver core modernization solutions for the banking industry,” Zafin SVP of EMEA Sales Hali Khan said. “For decades, Rabobank has maintained leadership in sustainability-oriented banking, and we are excited to help transform its pricing and billing capabilities in the Netherlands.”
Active in 37 countries, Rabobank is an international financial services provider offering retail banking, wholesale banking, private banking, leasing, and real estate services. Headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands, Rabobank was first established in 1895 as a local credit cooperative for farmers and even today maintains a market share of more than 85% in the country’s agrarian sector. Rabobank launched its first internet only savings bank, Rabobank.be, in 2002.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Zafin demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2017. The company was acquired by Nordic Capital in February of this year. In May, Zafin co-founder Al Karim Somji announced that he would step down from the role of CEO after more than two decades in leadership.
SavvyMoney unveiled Get My Rate, a personalized credit offer automation tool for financial institutions.
Get My Rate automatically presents the end consumer with ongoing, pre-qualified loan options that align with their credit profile.
The tool also provides prospective borrowers with continuous credit monitoring and financial wellness tools to help improve their financial standing.
Credit score solutions company SavvyMoneyannounced its latest launch this week. The California-based company is introducing Get My Rate, a personalized credit offer automation tool for banks and financial institutions.
The new tool aims to help banks interact with clients and prospective clients by offering a convenient, tailored experience while enhancing market reach. Get My Rate brings consumers into a bank’s marketing efforts to present them with ongoing offers. If a prospective borrower’s credit improves or if the rate on a loan is lower, the technology automatically presents the end consumer with pre-qualified loan options that align with their credit profile.
Get My Rate allows users to become pre-qualified for multiple offers at the same time and will send the consumer alerts when rates change in their favor. Further enhancing the user experience, borrowers and prospective borrowers receive continuous credit monitoring and financial wellness tools to help improve their financial standing.
“SavvyMoney is thrilled to introduce Get My Rate — the first tool of its kind — marking a new era of convenience, empowerment, and expansion,” said SavvyMoney President and CEO JB Orecchia. “Given credit criteria and rates change all [the] time. This solution provides a personalized solution that alerts consumers when the product or rate meets their needs. In an industry that’s rapidly evolving with digital transformation and increasing consumer expectations, it truly exemplifies our commitment to reshaping the lending landscape, putting the power of personalization in the hands of consumers while driving continued growth for financial institutions.”
Because Get My Rate maintains a connection with the consumers via alerts and ongoing credit monitoring, it can serve as a useful tool to help financial institutions build longer term relationships with both current and prospective customers.
“In today’s fast-paced financial landscape, consumers expect personalized, convenient experiences. Our new offer automation tool meets this demand head-on, revolutionizing how financial institutions connect with both members and potential customers,” said SavvyMoney Chief Product Officer David Dowhan. “By providing tailored loan options based on real-time credit profiles, we’re not just streamlining the lending process – we’re creating a more transparent, empowering financial journey for consumers while driving growth for our partners.”
SavvyMoney was founded in 2008 as DebtGoal, when it operated as a direct-to-consumer subscription service to help consumers get out of debt faster. Today, as a credit score solutions company, SavvyMoney serves over 1,300 banks, credit unions, and fintechs nationwide. The company’s solutions integrate with over 40 U.S. online banking platforms, combining real-time data with digital personalization tools.
“OrboGraph’s expertise in check fraud detection perfectly complements our expertise and, together, we can offer a powerful tool that seamlessly integrates check image display functionality and common check risk data sources,” Featurespace President of Americas Carolyn Homberger said.
Many consumers, especially younger consumers, have abandoned paper checks. In fact, some analysis suggests that paper checks represent less than 5% of transactions in the U.S. as of 2022 (compared to 17% for cash and more than 31% for credit and charge cards). At the same time, that relatively modest amount of paper check writing still amounts to $27 trillion in value. It is also worth noting that while paper checks have become less common in consumer transactions, paper checks are still used in nearly half of all B2B payments according to Paystand.
This means that there is an ample opportunity for fraudsters. In fact, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has reported that check fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent and, as of 2023, represents more than a third of all fraud at depository institutions.
To this end, the integration of Featurespace’s financial crime prevention technology with OrboGraph’s check processing automation and fraud detection software and services will enhance detection of fraudulent checks and reduce the number of false positives for banks and financial institutions in the U.K.
“Check fraud is a growing and concerning area of financial crime – we know banks and financial institutions are experiencing a rise in reports and are in need of more advanced tools that can tackle the issue,” OrboGraph CEO Barry Cohen said. “Combining our expertise with Featurespace will enable us to deliver a more robust and comprehensive fraud detection solution, helping financial institutions to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated check fraud schemes.”
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Cambridge, U.K., Featurespace made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2016. The company returned to the Finovate stage later that year to demo its technology at FinovateFall in New York. Today, the company processes more than 50 billion events a year, and protects 500 million customers in 180+ countries from fraud risk. Featurespace’s signature solution, its ARIC Risk Hub, leverages Adaptive Behavioral Analytics and Automated Deep Behavioral Networks to model and predict individual behavior in real-time to enhance fraud prevention and anti-money laundering efforts.
This spring, Featurespace forged a partnership with The Knoble, an alliance of financial services professionals, regulators, and law enforcement that focuses on crimes such as human trafficking and elder financial exploitation. In May, the company announced the results of a pilot project with Pay.UK designed to defend consumers from Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud. Featurespace’s proof of concept detected more than $178 million (£138 million) in fraud with a 5:1 false positive ratio. Applying its Generative AI solution TalllierLTM enabled Featurespace to boost its fraud detection rates to 56%, identifying an additional $51 million (£40 million) in fraud.
“Fraud is the single largest crime in the U.K. It accounts for 40% of all crime and contributes to £2.3 billion in losses annually,” Featurespace CEO Martina King said. “But the UK is leading the charge to tackle this issue and the game-changing pilot with Pay.UK is one that the world has been watching. It shows the immense power of collaboration and technology, and the scale of positive change that is possible when the payments industry works together to tackle fraudulent activity.”
Featurespace has raised more than $108 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company’s investors include Chrysalis Investments, MissionOG, and Insight Partners.
Card payment for fleet management company Coast raised $40 million.
The round was led by ICONIQ Growth and included a strategic investment from Synchrony.
Today’s Series B round boosts Coast’s total funding to $165 million.
Card payment platform for truck driver fleet management, Coast, raised $40 million this week. The investment brings the New York-based company’s total equity financing to just under $100 million.
Today’s announcement comes four months after it announced its previous round of $92 million in debt and equity, and brings the company’s total funding to $165 million.
The round was led by ICONIQ Growth. Existing investors, including Accel, Insight Partners, Vesey Ventures, and Avid Ventures, also participated in the round, as well as new investor Thomvest. Consumer financial services company Synchrony joined the round as a strategic investor. The fintech said that investing in Coast aligns with its presence in the aftermarket auto segment. Synchrony partners with multiple tire, petrol, auto parts, and maintenance retailers like Discount Tire and Pep Boys.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with ICONIQ Growth, a legendary investor in fintech, and fleet and field services,” said Coast founder and CEO Daniel Simon. “ICONIQ brings to bear not just their deep capital base but also their rich experience in Coast’s domains and expansive community, which can drive partnerships and accelerate expansion for Coast’s fleet product.”
Coast facilitates fleet payments by leveraging vehicle data and telematics. The company’s technology aims to help the nearly one million U.S. field service businesses that collectively operate around 40 million vehicles in their commercial fleets. Coast’s payment technology is not just for long-haul trucking, but also can help businesses like HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, pest control, and construction, or any business that needs to operate and maintain a fleet of vehicles.
With thousands of users, including BuildOps, Sheetz, and 7-Eleven, Coast has grown its revenue over ten times in the last 18 months. Earlier this month, the company launched a mobile app to facilitate the collection and verification of transaction data for fleet payments, such as receipts, memos, and job codes.
ICONIQ Growth General Partner Yoonkee Sull has joined Coast’s board of directors. “Companies like Coast do not come along every day. We are incredibly impressed with Coast’s proven traction, leadership, and deep expertise in fintech,” said Sull. “We believe Daniel and team are using exceptional software to challenge incumbents in a massive market and making a difference in hundreds of thousands of American businesses. We are thrilled to partner with them on their mission to simplify the day-to-day management of thousands of fleets.”
CrowdStrike’s update to its flagship cybersecurity product, Falcon Sensor, late last week caused an impressive amount of panic across a wide swath of industries. Many computers running Microsoft were stuck on the “blue screen of death” (BSoD), which would not allow users’ computers to load.
Immediately, the update caused flight cancellations, train delays, broadcasting problems, hospital issues, and disruptions at businesses across all sectors that could not log into their computers for the day. But aside from these fleeting, yet major, problems the botched software update will have lasting implications.
Opportunity for competitors
Impacting the cybersecurity industry as a whole, many organizations will see last week’s update failure as an opportunity to market their own fraud fighting technology to organizations big and small that were impacted by last Friday’s events. We may even see a slight increase in new cybersecurity company launches. According to TechCrunch, as of last year, CrowdStrike enjoyed a 14.7% share of global revenue from security software sales. This may decrease as some clients seek alternative technologies. It is unlikely, however, that we will see a mass exodus from CrowdStrike.
Information for hackers
Perhaps one of the biggest concerns for CrowdStrike clients is that the update failure offered hackers all over the globe a visual of which companies use CrowdStrike as a vendor to fight fraud. Cybersecurity companies rarely disclose client names, especially in banking and finance, and for good reason. When hackers know which security software vendors a firm is using, they are able to gather a lot of information they can use to try to circumvent the software for nefarious purposes.
In addition to offering visibility into which banks are working with CrowdStrike as a security vendor, the fallout of the update also offers fraudsters an open door to send consumers phishing emails and phone calls to exploit the situation by asking consumers to divulge passwords and sensitive codes.
Loss of consumer trust
End consumers, especially in the banking and airline industries, will likely lose some amount of trust in the security of online businesses. Many saw firsthand how far reaching and potentially catastrophic software disruptions can be, and unfortunately, many consumers incorrectly assumed that the BSoD was the result of a cyberattack rather than an update glitch. As a result, consumers may be more wary of sharing their sensitive details online and may be less willing to trust the security of their financial institution, even if it was not impacted by Friday’s events.
Heightened regulatory concern
Regulators are consistently being challenged by today’s fast-moving technological environment. Now, they have a new worry to add to their list. Regulators have a responsibility to ensure that they are not only retroactively responding to IT outages, but also actively working to help prevent them from occurring in the first place. This will likely lead to more stringent regulatory guidelines for cybersecurity measures, mandatory incident response protocols, and regular stress testing of critical IT systems to ensure their resilience.
A nearly ten-year old acquisition may turn out to be Klarna’s secret weapon to improve security during the checkout process.
The Swedish payments company announced this week that it has integrated a new payment service into its Klarna PayNow product suite. The integration is designed to improve checkout security and has been made possible thanks in large part to Klarna’s acquisition of Germany-based Sofort in 2014.
“We are integrating Sofortüberweisung into the Klarna environment to offer consumers and merchants the best of both worlds: the familiar Sofort payment process combined with the smoother, more secure payment experience and global reach of Klarna,” Klarna Chief Commercial Officer David Sykes said. “The combined product is better for merchants and consumers, and (is) also a platform for Klarna to expand the functionality of Sofortüberweisung globally.”
Sofortüberweisung is a bank-to-bank payment service that Klarna gained access to by acquiring Sofort GmbH in 2014. Klarna has been incorporating Sofort’s technology into its solutions since 2017, and has launched the service in some of its other markets around the world, including the U.K. With this week’s integration, consumers will be able to track their Sofortüberweisung payments from within the Klarna app, as well as make payments without having to re-enter their payment information. This, combined with Klarna’s two-factor authentication, facilitates both greater convenience and increased security.
To that point, customers will need a Klarna account in order to take advantage of the Sofortüberweisung integration, and the company notes 95% of Sofort customers already have one. Klarna also reports that the “improved user-friendliness” of the integration has produced a 5% increase in conversion rates for consumers who use it.
Founded in 2005, Klarna made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2012. In the decade-plus since then, the company has grown into a major e-commerce and payments business with 150 million total active customers in its network – including 34 million in the U.S. With more than 500,000 total merchants using its technology, Klarna facilitates two million transactions per day.
The company also recently made headlines with word that it is preparing for an initial public offering in the U.S. as early as the first half of 2025. Also this month, Klarna announced that it had partnered with Adobe Commerce to make it easier for merchants on the platform to implement Klarna’s Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services.
“Consumers are embracing the flexibility that Buy Now Pay Later services can provide, with Adobe Analytics data showing over 11 percent growth this year,” Jason Knell, Adobe Sr. Director, Content & Commerce Partners, said. “Klarna’s global footprint enables Adobe Commerce merchants to meet the changing needs of their customers and stay competitive in today’s digital economy.”
Klarna is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Sebastian Siemiakowski is Klarna’s CEO.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech developments in Brazil.
Brazilian fintech Materaraised $100 million in funding from U.S. investor Warburg Pincus. The investment gives Warburg Pincus a majority stake in the firm, and is designed to help fuel Matera’s expansion into North America.
A key part of Brazil’s PIX instant payments ecosystem, Matera offers core banking, instant payments, and QR code payment technology to more than 250 banks, credit unions, and financial institutions globally. The company includes two of the top three banks in the world and more than one-third of all banks in Brazil as its customers.
This week’s investment arrives as the company reports 2023 revenues of $77 million and 4x growth since 2020. Within a real-time payments system that accounts for more than 40% of all electronic transactions in Brazil, Matera alone processes more than five billion transactions a year.
“PIX set the standard for the digital finance revolution,” Matera CEO Carlos Netto said. “At Matera, we know first-hand the pressure for banks to modernize their infrastructure to keep up with innovative new payment methods such as instant payments and pay-by-bank. We’re honored to leverage our PIX expertise with proven solutions to help financial institutions across North America keep pace with their customers’ digital demands.”
Matera’s flagship solution for the North American market is Digital Twin, a high-performance ledger that sits on top of a bank’s existing core platform. Digital Twin responds to two particular issues: core banking modernization and the ability to create real-time digital user experiences. Additionally, Matera is introducing its QR code payments solution. The technology enables both billers and merchants to offer consumers QR codes to make payments via mobile phone. Matera’s QR code payments offering also enables consumers to generate QR codes from a mobile app in order to make payments.
Matera was founded in 1987 in Sao Paulo. The company also maintains offices in Rio de Janeiro, Maringá, and Campinas in Brazil; as well as in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
One of Finovate’s few Brazilian alums, Nubank, is also one of the biggest fintechs in the country. And while the company has received a great deal of acclaim for its efforts to promote financial inclusion, Nubank is also making inroads when it comes to integrating AI technology into its operations.
To this end, the company has acquired U.S.-based data intelligence start-up Hyperplane. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Nubank said that it will use Hyperplane’s AI technology in multiple ways, generating insights, improving decision-making, and enhancing the customer experience.
“Nubank’s mission since its founding is to fight complexity and empower fanatical customers,” David Vélez, founder and CEO of Nubank, said. “Our early investments in AI, coupled with the impressive infrastructure and talent that (the) Hyperplan team has been able to put together, will accelerate our mission. Consumers globally will access not only the very best financial products but also receive truly customized financial advice that empowers them to live a better life.”
Founded in 2013, Nubank made its Finovate debut at FinDEVrNewYork 2016. The digital banking platform serves more than 100 million customers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia with solutions for credit and lending, investment, payments, and insurance. Last month, the company launched direct cryptocurrency transfers, and forged partnerships with Lightspark and fellow Finovate alum, Wise.
Helping fund the education of the country’s future medical professionals is Alume’s specialty. The company offers student loans to medical students in Brazil, as well as to newly graduated doctors. To date, the company has more than 4,000 clients and has disbursed $29 million in financing.
“Alume differentiates itself by combining technology with a deep understanding of the medical sector,” Alume Co-founder and CEO Pedro Silveira said. “Our medical-specialized accountants deliver a superior experience and tax savings for professionals.”
Alume offers three different kinds of student loans. The company provides financing of up to 80% of the student’s monthly tuition fees starting with the ninth semester of attendance onwards. Alume also offers an allowance of up to R$1,600 per month (approximately $287) to help pay for housing, food, and transportation expenses. Third, Alume provides financing for medical residency preparatory courses. Monthly interest rates start at 1.99%.
In addition to financing, the company is adding an accounting service to its offering. The service will be designed to assist doctors who serve as legal entities and will help them manage both their accounting and tax reporting.
Headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Alume was founded in 2019.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Accelerex, a digital payment services provider based in Nigeria, introduced its “Payment with Fingerprint” system.
Stanbic Bank Kenya upgraded its Temenos core in partnership with Temenos regional implementation partner Orion Innovation.
Nigerian fintech Fintava unveiled its banking-as-a-service technology.
Central and Eastern Europe
Estonia-based fintech Mifundo is awarded a $2.7 million (€2.5 million) grant from European Innovation Council.
Latvian multi-asset investment platform Mintos announced its entry into the Czech market this week.
Egyptian fintech unicorn MNT-Halan raised $157.5 million to support expansion outside the country.
Jordan Kuwait Bank teamed up with Mastercard and UAE-based fintech FOO to launch new prepaid digital wallet, eliWallet.
The Central Bank of Bahrain will require all licensed financial and banking institutions to adhere to the country’s Open Banking regulations by the first of September.
Central and Southern Asia
Indian startup TechFini secured approval from NPCI to facilitate UPI-based payment solutions to banks, financial institutions, and fintechs.
Paytech Paysys Labs and Raqami Islamic Digital Bank Pakistan partnered to enhance digital payments in the country.
Pindrop raised $100 million in debt financing, boosting its total funding to $318 million in combined debt and equity.
Today’s funds come from from Hercules Capital.
Since it was founded, Pindrop has analyzed 5.3 billion calls, prevented $2 billion in fraud losses, and detected 104 million spoof calls.
IVR authentication and anti-fraud solutions company Pindrop has raised $100 million in a debt financing round from Hercules Capital. The investment boosts Pindrop’s total funding to $318 million in combined debt and equity.
Pindrop expects the funding will enable it to further develop its technologies, which leverage AI to combat fraud and cyberattacks. The company’s voice security and authentication tools help firms in a range of industries detect fraudsters and authenticate genuine customers at scale.
“We’re pleased to secure this financing with Hercules Capital at such a pivotal moment for Pindrop,” said Pindrop Founder & CEO Vijay Balasubramaniyan. “This funding will fuel our ongoing growth and innovation in voice and AI technologies. As cyber threats continue to evolve, our mission to stay ahead of fraudsters and protect our customers is more critical than ever. We’re excited about the future as we remain committed to driving advancements that safeguard major institutions and deliver unparalleled security in the digital age.”
With major advancements in AI developments over the past few years, Pindrop reports that contact center fraud increased by 60% in the last two years, and now sits at its highest level since 2019. The company expects that, by the end of 2024, one in every 730 calls to a contact center will be fraudulent.
In the U.S., as the presidential election draws near, differentiating fact from fiction when it comes to voice spoofing will be critical. Earlier this year, when a deepfake robocall surfaced of President Biden urging New Hampshire voters not to vote during the Democratic primaries, Pindrop was able to identify the Text-to-Speech (TTS) engine used.
“Hercules is incredibly excited to partner with Pindrop as they continue working to transform the AI and voice authentication landscape,” said Hercules Capital Managing Director John Eggbeer. “We’re proud to support their mission of safeguarding major institutions from rising cyberattack threats. This financing will help accelerate their growth and innovation, enabling them to expand their reach and enhance their capabilities in providing robust security solutions.”
Since it was founded in 2011, Pindrop has analyzed 5.3 billion calls, prevented $2 billion in fraud losses, and detected 104 million spoof calls. Earlier this year, Pindrop released Pindrop Pulse, an audio deepfake detection solution with real time identification, monitoring, and audio deepfake analysis with advanced liveness detection technology. The company also debuted its Pulse Deepfake Warranty, a warranty that reimburses eligible customers if the Pindrop Product Suite fails to detect a deepfake or synthetic voice fraud.
Our Streamly series of interviews continues with four more conversations from fintech and financial services professionals who spoke at FinovateSpring earlier this year.
For more from Streamly and FinovateSpring, check out our blog post from last week, AI in Financial Services: Automation, Profitability, and Fraud Prevention.
Unlocking advertising potential: Financial services on Amazon
Chief Revenue Officer at Revive Media Danielle Shamos discusses strategies to reach targeted audiences and how the effective use of data can enable even further audience growth. Shamos also talks about the uniqueness of Amazon as an advertising platform.
How can community banks gain a competitive edge through technology?
Barb MacLean, SVP and Head of Technology Operations and Implementation at Coastal Community Bank, talks about how technology can help community banks secure a competitive edge. MacLean also discusses the importance of internal innovation and the challenges of banking-as-a-service.
Reimagining community banking: How can you adapt your strategy to changing customer needs?
John Waupsh, Chief Revenue Officer of Manifest Financial, explains why it is important for community banks to define their strategic purpose at a time of increasing competition. Waupsh also discusses the importance of adapting business strategies to ever-evolving customer needs.
Credit union solutions: What’s different about this landscape?
Managing Director at TruStage Ventures Sam Das discussed the unique challenges that confront credit unions today – from membership retention to cybersecurity. Das also explains that while there is demand from credit unions for tailored fintech solutions, fintechs needs to “come prepared” if they want to successfully partner with these financial institutions.
AI technology company Stratyfy announced a strategic partnership with cash flow underwriting and data analytics platform Prism Data.
Stratyfy will integrate Prism Data’s cash flow data and scoring to improve decision-making for lenders.
New York-based Stratyfy won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2022.
AI technology company Stratyfy has forged a strategic partnership with cash flow underwriting and data analytics platform Prism Data. Courtesy of the partnership, Stratyfy will put Prism Data’s cash flow data and scoring to work to help lenders make better decisions when traditional credit data does not provide enough information.
“Solely depending on traditional credit data can paint an incomplete financial picture of loan applicants, which results in lenders missing out on good, profitable customers,” Stratyfy Co-Founder and CEO Laura Kornhauser explained. “By combining our proprietary AI/ML technology with Prism Data’s CashScore, we can harness cash flow data to help lenders accurately and transparently identify credit-worthy customers who may have been overlooked otherwise.”
Prism Data’s CashScore solution analyzes thousands of financial data points that are often absent from traditional credit reporting. These factors include income, assets, expenses, volatility, and the ability to repay. CashScore simplifies complex cash flow underwriting to a three-digit score and can be used by lenders to approve or decline credit applications or as part of a process that includes traditional credit models and scoring.
“Prism’s CashScore enables credit decisions that are more accurate and more inclusive – allowing lenders to say ‘yes’ to up to 30% more customers without taking on additional risk,” Prism Data President Erin Allard said. “Paired with Stratyfy’s cutting-edge decisioning technology, we’re confident lenders will be better positioned to advance financial inclusion and boost profits at the same time.”
Founded in 2016, New York-based Prism Data launched its CashScore FirstDetect solution earlier this year. FirstDetect predicts the likelihood that a customer will default on a loan. The technology uses a variety of financial details as well as trend and pattern analysis to obtain a clear overview of the customer’s spending, earning, and saving behavior. FirstDetect is especially helpful in dealing with “first-party fraud” in which a customer applies for a loan in their own name, but does so with no intention of paying the loan back.
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2017, Stratyfy made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2018. The company returned to the Finovate stage for FinovateFall 2022, winning Best of Show for a demo of its Unbias solution. Unbias enables financial institutions and fintechs to “uncover, understand, and undo” bias in complex financial decision-making such as underwriting. The technology, delivered via API, is part of Stratyfy’s suite of machine learning tools to help institutions minimize bias, support inclusion, and enhance risk-adjusted returns.
ReceiptHero announced new funding this week, courtesy of investors including SeedX VC, LifeLine VC, and SuperHero VC, as well as angel investors.
The amount of the investment was not disclosed.
ReceiptHero made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin, Germany.
Finland-based ReceiptHero has secured new funding, the company reported this week. Participating in the round were SuperHero VC, SeedX VC, LifeLine VC, as well as angel investors and team members. The amount of the investment was not disclosed; prior to this week’s announcement, the company had raised more than $6.2 million (€5.7 million) in total capital.
ReceiptHero said that the funding will accelerate the company’s goal of eliminating paper receipts and creating greater value in the data that is available from real-time receipt delivery. To this end, ReceiptHero has stated that its goal is to serve more than a million payment terminals in Europe and the U.K., with the first retail pilots in the U.S. to launch within the next year and a half.
“When we founded ReceiptHero over five years ago, we had to spend a lot of time heavily educating the market on what a digital receipt is,” ReceiptHero CEO Saku Pihlajaniemi said. “Fast forward to today we see a large amount of merchants inquiring about our service and they have a clear strategy on how they want to deploy digital receipts across their stores.”
Receipt Hero made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin, Germany. At the conference, the company showed how its API platform enables receipts to be created and distributed via a variety of channels. Business customers benefit from the compatibility between digital receipts and their accounting software. Individual customers get not only an enriched transaction list in their mobile banking app, but also the ability to have that transaction data used to enhance their app’s budgeting and spending tools.
This year has been a big partnership year for the Helsinki-based firm. The company began 2024 by integrating with Shopify, bringing digital receipts to the e-commerce platform. In March, ReceiptHero announced partnerships with Finnish retailer HalpaHalli, ceramics and textiles brand Pentik, and cashless payment solutions company CoreGo. More recently, the company teamed up with cash register and payment terminal solution Solmio-kassa, and TuloPOS, a point of sale and ordering system for the hospitality industry.
For more, check out our Finovate Global interview with ReceiptHero Chief Operating Officer Scott Moore.
