Email

Crypto Infrastructure Specialist Fireblocks Raises $133 Million

Crypto Infrastructure Specialist Fireblocks Raises $133 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news

Anybody else old enough to remember the argument that while blockchain technology probably had value, actual cryptocurrencies were already passé?

In a round led by Coatue, Ribbit, and Stripes, digital asset infrastructure specialist Fireblocks has secured $133 million in new capital to power its mission to make it easier for banks to get into the digital asset space.

“Fintechs and banks require not only a specialized custody and settlement infrastructure to ensure customer funds are safely managed, but (also) a platform that enables new lines of digital offerings,” Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov said. He noted that while the company has no plans to become an actual bank itself, “we believe our infrastructure will lend itself perfectly to power an entirely new era of financial services.”

Also participating in the round as strategic investors were The Bank of New York Mellon and SVB. A number of Fireblocks existing investors also contributed to the round, including Paradigm, Galaxy Digital, Swisscom Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Cyberstarts Ventures. The investment brings the fintech’s total capital raised to $179 million.

Founded in 2018, Fireblocks launched as a digital assets infrastructure company helping crypto-based institutions and exchanges move, store, and issue digital assets. As interest in digital assets – especially cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum – has surged, Fireblocks has begun to leverage its talent and technology in digital assets to enable banks and other financial institutions to bring cryptocurrency access to their customers. By linking to its Fireblocks’ platform, banks and fintechs will be able to deploy a wide range of solutions – from custody, tokenization, and asset management to trading, lending, and payments – on both public and private blockchain networks.

The company’s investors highlighted Fireblocks’ capacity to enable banks and other financial institutions to efficiently and securely take advantage of the opportunity of and interest in digital assets. CEO of Asset Servicing and Head of Digital for BNY Mellon Roman Regelman said that bridging the gap between traditional and digital assets is “foundational to the future of custody.” Coatue Managing Partner Kris Fredrickson concurred: “our belief (is) that a new financial ecosystem is emerging and (companies) like Fireblocks are essential.”

Last month, Fireblocks announced a partnership with digital payment- platform-as-a-service company, First. Together, the companies introduced a secure wallet and infrastructure solution to enable financial institutions to facilitate transactions via the Diem network. Fireblocks began the year collaborating with global fintech Ibanera to help its customers safely transfer crypto funds in real-time.

Since inception, Fireblocks has secured the transfer of more than $400 billion in digital assets. The company is headquartered in New York City.

Photo by Min An from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Zopa Receives $28 Million Investment

Zopa Receives $28 Million Investment
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Zopa

Peer-to-peer lending platform and digital bank Zopa landed some extra funds this week, now that its new banking platform is starting to take off.

The U.K.-based company pulled in $28 million (£20 million) from existing investors, bringing its total raised to $465 million.

Investors in today’s round include IAG Silverstripe, which led the round, as well as Augmentum, Alternative Credit Investments, Venture Founders, and others. The company will use the funds to support the growth of its digital bank.

Zopa secured its banking license last June and has since transitioned its platform from a peer-to-peer lending operation to a digital bank with a peer-to-peer lending option. Since that time, Zopa began offering savings accounts, which have reached $346 million (£250 million) in customer deposits, and a credit card product that has made Zopa a top 10 credit card issuer in the U.K. based on new customers.

The new funding comes at a time when competition among digital banks is at an all-time high. Zopa is poised to do well in the battle for new clients and deposits, however. The company has built a well-established client base, resources, and relationships since it was founded in 2004 as a peer-to-peer lending platform.

Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana echoes this. “Less than a year since launching our bank, we have exceeded our plan for growth, both in terms of customers and balance sheet,” he said. “This capital injection will enable us to continue on this accelerated path. Our strong entry to the U.K. savings and credit card markets shows the organic appeal of our products and we are happy to have investors who share our excitement at the opportunity to serve more customers across more product categories.”

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Austria’s BitPanda Reaches Unicorn Status; A Look at the Latest in French Fintech

Austria’s BitPanda Reaches Unicorn Status; A Look at the Latest in French Fintech
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

Still looking for evidence that cryptocurrencies have arrived? The $170 million raised this week by Austrian digital asset neobroker Bitpanda is a testament to both the surging interest in cryptocurrencies as well as the vitality of fintech innovation in the CEE countries.

Bitpanda’s Series B round earned the company a valuation of $1.2 billion, giving Austria its first fintech unicorn. The Vienna-based company, founded in 2014 by co-CEOs Eric Demuth and Paul Klanschek, along with CTO Christian Trummer, plans to use the capital to add to the types of investments available on its platform, as well as expand to more markets in Europe.

This latest funding round was led by Valar Ventures and featured participation from partners of DST Global. The round is more than triple the amount raised by Bitpanda in its Series A financing back in September, which was also led by Valar Ventures (SpeedInvest of Vienna was an investor in the round, as well). The capital arrives the same week that Bitpanda announced that it had reached a new milestone of more than two million registered users on its Bitpanda and Bitpanda Pro platforms.

Bitpanda enables cryptocurrency investors and traders to buy, sell, save, and send more than 50 digital assets including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The neobroker also offers the world’s first real crypto index and a Bitpanda Card that enables Bitpanda accountholders to spend their digital assets as easily as they spend their cash.

With FinovateEurope right around the corner, we’ve got more than a little continental fintech on the mind these days. This week we take a quick look at fintech news from France, a country whose fintech industry is often overlooked in the broader conversation on European fintech.

Earlier this week, we learned that Finovate alum Ledger was launching a new business division dedicated to taking advantage of growing institutional interest in cryptocurrencies. Headquartered in Paris and founded in 2013, the company announced that its Ledger Enterprise Solutions unit will support enterprise adoption of the company’s core custody technology, Ledger Vault, as well as advise institutional clients with regards to technology implementation, security, and governance of digital asset portfolios.

On the French fintech funding beat, PayFit, a payroll and HR platform launched in France in 2016, announced that it has secured $107 million (EUR 90 million) in Series D funding. The investment was led by Eurzeo Growth, Large Venture, and BPI France, and featured participation from the company’s existing investors Accel, Frst, and individual investor Xavier Niel.

The company said that the capital will help support its comprehensive HR solution for SMEs and enable the company – which also operates in Spain, Germany, the U.K., and Italy – to “increase headcount from 550 to 800” by the end of 2021.

PayFit serves more than 5,000 small businesses, and includes Revolut, Starling Bank, and Treatwell among its customers. The company experienced growth of 40% in 2020 – a pace PayFit anticipates doubling this year – and credited much of this “hypergrowth” to the digital imperative brought on by the COVID-19 crisis.

“As a result of the pandemic, HR professionals have faced a much higher workload and unfamiliar challenges,” PayFit co-founder and CEO Firmin Zocchetto said. “They have had to deal with various issues, including supporting the company’s management with the implementation of remote work policies and ensuring employee wellbeing through new initiatives.”

Zocchetto said that there are “tens of millions of SMEs” that are ready for digital transformation. “The market is huge, and our ambition remains the same: to become the point of reference for payroll and HR management for all SMEs,” he said.

Striking another note in the funding beat, French fintech Silvr announced a EUR 3 million seed investment this week. The company, launched last year by Nima Karimi and Gregory Tappero, provides financing for digital businesses that cannot access traditional bank financing and want to raise equity capital.

Silvr offers a revenue-based financing model based on the performance of the financed company, an approach that contrasts with both traditional asset-based lending and fundraising models. Karimi has said that Silvr’s strategy offers a new option for SMEs in France, calling it simpler and more transparent.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • SEON, a Hungarian startup helps companies weed out false accounts and prevent fraudulent transactions, secured $12 million (EUR 10 million) in funding. The round is Hungary’s largest Series A funding to date.
  • Lithuanian fintech FINCI has gone live with Temenos’ Payments and Transact core banking solutions.
  • Estonian financial services company LVH invested GBP 4.45 million in U.K.-based B-North, which is building a SME lending bank.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Photo by Tim Abee from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Pindrop to Buy NextCaller

Pindrop to Buy NextCaller
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Pindrop Security

Phone-based fraud prevention company Pindrop acquired Next Caller this week. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Pindrop anticipates the purchase of NextCaller, a call verification and fraud detection solution for contact centers, will position the company for growth, expand its client base, and position it as an industry leader.

“Our two companies will now be able to service the market in its entirety with the right solution for whatever stage of voice security and authentication they are in,” said Next Caller Co-founder and CEO Ian Roncoroni.

The deal comes at a time when demand for call centers is expanding. In a recent report, Forrester found that 42% of brands surveyed saw an increase in year-over-year call center call volume since the pandemic began. Additionally, 65% of companies reported they struggle to manage the high call volume and 80% of firms reported that fraud is a very serious issue in the call center.

Given this, Pindrop CEO Vijay Balasubramaniyan has a positive outlook for the fraud prevention industry. “We couldn’t be more bullish about the future,” he said, “The need for our combined solutions will only continue to grow as brands across multiple industries not only look to better secure their voice channel, but also improve the customer experience. Understanding who you are speaking to is the most effective way to build a better relationship with customers, resulting in a higher NPS and subsequently more profitable exchanges.”

As for what’s next, Next Caller will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary under Pindrop.

Founded in 2011, Pindrop debuted an IVR solution as well as the availability of its voice authentication technology for use in OTT streaming devices. Headquartered in Alabama, Pindrop is privately held and has raised a total of $213 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Citi Ventures.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinovateEurope 2021 Launches Next Week

FinovateEurope 2021 Launches Next Week
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2021

FinovateEurope is right around the corner! Our all-digital, interactive fintech conference begins March 23 at 9am Central European Time and continues through March 25. Visit our registration page today to save your spot!

FinovateEurope will feature our signature format of innovative fintech demonstrations and in-depth, insightful keynotes, panel discussions, and debates on some of our industry’s most important topics and critical themes. To learn more about our demoing companies, check out our Sneak Peek Series. For more on our thought leadership content, here’s a short, day-by-day summary of what to look out for.

March 23: Martes / Dienstag / Wtorek / Tuesday

Kicking off the event on Day One of FinovateEurope are keynote addresses from Katharina Lueth of Raisin UK, Joe Lichtenberg of InterSystems, and a conversation between HSBC’s Steve Suarez and Louise Beaumont of the Open Banking Working Group.

The afternoon will feature a number of panel discussions and roundtables covering topics such as open innovation and strategic partnerships, the future of hybrid digital customer experience, and leveraging agility to thrive at times of crisis. The day will end with a conversation on digital engagement in the post-COVID era.

March 24: Mercredi / Onsdag / Quarta-feira / Wednesday

On Day Two, FinovateEurope begins with a keynote on open innovation and open banking, and continues with a pair of Mastermind Keynotes from Alex James of GoCompare and Alex Thomson of Quantum Metric, as well as from Annerie Vreugdenhil, Chief Innovation Officer with ING. In addition to a keynote on sustainable finance, the afternoon on Day Two will be devoted to panel conversations on the shift to digital payments and preserving “the human touch” in the digital financial world.

March 25: Donderdag / Giovedì / Čtvrtek / Thursday

The final day of FinovateEurope will feature some of our conference’s most popular sessions, such as our Analyst All Stars presentation. This year, our All Stars include Jost Hoppermann of Forrester, Zil Bareisis of Celent, and Vinod Jain of Aite Group. Day Three will also tackle the growth of morgagetech by way of a Mastermind Keynote from Floris van der Kolk of Ohpen and Rik Douwes of Link Asset Services. Rounding out the day will be a venture capital panel discussion on investment trends in the post-COVID era. This conversation will feature Citi Ventures’ Luis Valdich, Silicon Valley Bank’s Claire Palmer, SixThirty Ventures’ Samarth Shekar, and Mouro Capital’s Manuel Silva Martinez.

See our full agenda. And make sure you reserve your spot today for our first, Europe-themed, all-digital, fintech event!

Photo by Claudia Schmalz from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Customer Engagement Tactics to Boost Loyalty and Monetization

Customer Engagement Tactics to Boost Loyalty and Monetization
By Charlie Burgess Posted on
Categories: Finovate Webinar

Upcoming webinar
Title: Customer Engagement Tactics to Boost Loyalty and Monetization
Date: Thursday, April 15, 2021
Time: 04:00 British Summer Time
Duration: 1 hour

Research shows brands that excel in customer engagement often exceed their revenue goals. But how well is the financial services industry really responding to customers, and delivering on promises of “customer-centricity?”

Join this upcoming webinar where our expert panel will explore the top trends in customer engagement in 2021 for financial services companies, growth levers for financial service businesses, and how customer engagement strategies can be used to drive long-term growth. Find out which steps you can implement now, and in the long term, to improve customer engagement. Hear first-hand insights from Wise, including how the company has advanced its customer engagement strategy over time.

Featuring:

  • Erin Bankaitis, Strategic Business Consultant, Braze
  • Andrei Dinca, CRM Lead, Wise
  • Talie Baker, Senior Analyst, Aite
  • Moderated by Greg Palmer, VP, Finovate

Register now >>

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

NYMBUS Picks Red Hat as Cloud Platform Partner

NYMBUS Picks Red Hat as Cloud Platform Partner
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, NYMBUS

Financial services platform NYMBUS has selected the cloud platform from open source solution provider Red Hat for its digital banking ecosystem. The platform, Red Hat OpenShift, will enable Nymbus to help its community bank and credit union customers accelerate their digital transformations.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we bank, possibly forever,” Nymbus CEO Jeffery Kendall said. “It provided the push for local banks and credit unions to establish more secure, flexible, end-to-end digital banking solutions.” Kendall added that the partnership with Red Hat would give Nymbus’ partners more “freedom of choice” in the way they implemented their cloud banking strategies as well as the “multi-cloud uptime” Kendall said was “critical for the banking industry.”

Courtesy of the new partnership, Nymbus customers will be able to deploy and launch a turnkey, digital bank-in-a-box – running on OpenShift – on whatever cloud platform they prefer. The open source, cloud-agnostic nature of Red Hat’s solution helps institutions avoid being dependent on a sole vendor, which can impede innovation.

“Cloud technology is reshaping the way banking services are created and delivered in our digital world,” Red Hat VP and Global Head of Financial Services Richard Harmon said. “It is providing service providers the ability to quickly adapt to market changes and make it easier for community banks and credit unions to consume new software. We are excited to work with Nymbus to bring the innovation of open source and cloud technology to the market. Nymbus truly embraces the open source way of working, and we are looking forward to contributing to their success.”

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida, Nymbus most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage in 2019 as part of FinovateFall. The company began this year with a pair of C-suite hires – Chief Alliance Officer Sarah Howell and Chief Product Officer Larry McClanahan – a new partnership with NYDIG to support bitcoin banking, and a $53 million Series C funding round that took the company’s total capital to more than $98 million.

Photo by Darkhanbaatar Baasanjav from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Blend to Acquire Title365 from Mr. Cooper

Blend to Acquire Title365 from Mr. Cooper
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Blend, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Mr. Cooper

Digital lending platform Blend has agreed to acquire Mr. Cooper-owned Title365 for $422 million.

Blend will leverage Title365 for its title, escrow, and settlement services. Integrating this technology into Blend’s platform will allow the company to automate title commitment upon loan application submission, digitally reconcile settlement fees in real time, and streamline communication among parties. Ultimately, Blend anticipates that Title365’s industry expertise will help minimize costs by integrating title and settlement into the loan process.

Title365 was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in California. The company fits nicely with Blend’s approach of offering a modern experience with its mission “to be the most technologically advanced title insurance and settlement services provider.”

Title365 will be part of Blend’s title marketplace that allows lenders and consumers to choose their preferred title and escrow partner. The tool will be similar to Blend’s insurance marketplace that allows consumers to shop for competitive rates from more than 25 insurance carriers.

“We’re really excited about the agreement to add Title365 to our team as we continue our work to build the full consumer homebuying journey into our platform,” said CEO Nima Ghamsari. “With Title365, we will be able to expand our ability to put lenders at the center of a vastly improved homebuying journey that delivers new levels of efficiency, speed, convenience, and cost savings to everyone.”

Founded in 2012, Blend recently received $300 million in new funding, bringing its total funding to $665 million and boosting its valuation to $3.3 billion. The company facilitated $1.4 trillion in loans last year and counts 285+ lender partners, which together are responsible for around 30% of all mortgage volume in the U.S.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

25 Fintechs Going Green

25 Fintechs Going Green
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: List series

ESG investing is no longer the only environmentally conscious aspect of the financial services world. Recently, we’ve seen an explosion of fintechs– both new and incumbent players– going green.

Here’s a roundup of who’s who in sustainable fintech:

Ando Money

Ando Money is a California-based digital bank that uses client deposits to support green initiatives.

Ant Group

Ant Group, the fintech subsidiary of China-based Alibaba Group, has pledged to go carbon neutral by 2030.

Aspiration

Aspiration is a digital bank that won’t use consumer deposits to fund fossil fuel projects like pipelines, oil drilling, and coal mining. Additionally, the fintech plants trees in collaboration with reforestation partners when users round up their purchases.

Atmos Financial 

California-based Atmos Financial offers a savings account that uses client deposits to exclusively finance climate-positive projects at scale.

Carbon Chain

Founded in 2019, CarbonChain offers organizations visibility into the emissions of their supply chains to identify the highest polluting transactions. 

Carbon Collective 

Carbon Collective offers roboadvisory services that help users divest from fossil fuels and invest in stock market funds that are low-carbon and don’t depend on fossil fuels for their core business.

Carbon Zero

Carbon Zero offers a credit card that rewards users’ purchases by using merchant-paid fees to buy carbon offsets.

Cloverly

Cloverly integrates with existing fintech apps, financial institutions, and payment processing services to assess their carbon impact and determine offsets needed.

Cooler Future

Still in beta, Cooler Future is a Finland-based startup that enables users to invest in a sustainable portfolio.

Doconomy

Doconomy is a Sweden-based digital bank that wants to inspire behavioral changes and reduce unsustainable consumption and carbon emissions.

Ecocart

Ecocart is a browser extension that works with merchants to help customers offset the environmental impact of their online purchase.

Helios

Founded in 2019, Helios is a France-based fintech that offers a digital bank account that helps users offset their carbon footprint.

Joro

Joro connects to users’ payment cards to analyze their carbon footprint and determine the biggest drivers of their carbon footprint.

Meniga

As part of its digital banking platform, Meniga provides a Carbon Insight tool that offers end users visibility into their carbon footprint based on their spending.

NetZero

NetZero connects to users’ bank accounts to determine the carbon footprint of their purchases. The fintech also helps users reduce their emissions and offset their footprint.

Nori

Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Nori is developing a marketplace for carbon removals.

OpenInvest

OpenInvest helps advisors offer their clients ESG investing that align with their values.

Raise Green

Raise Green offers a marketplace where users can invest in local, impactful projects.

ReGal

Headquartered in the U.K., ReGal offers alternative financial services based on Green Blockchain.

Ripple

Payments network Ripple pledged to be carbon net-zero by 2030 and to decarbonize public blockchains.

Stripe

U.S.-based ecommerce and mobile payments company Stripe offers a tool called Stripe Climate. The offering enables businesses to direct a portion of their revenue to help scale emerging carbon removal technologies.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow offers a digital bank account that uses customer deposits to fund sustainable initiatives. The startup’s premium account, Tomorrow Zero, offers a payment card that is made of wood.

Treecard

Treecard offers a free payment card made of wood. The company donates 80% of its profits to reforestation.

Trine 

Trine is a Sweden-based company that allows firms as well as private and professional investors to crowdfund solar energy products.

Tumelo

Tumelo helps investment platforms and pension providers engage investors by showing them the companies in their portfolio and empowering them to vote on ESG issues.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Identity Verification Specialist Socure Scores $100 Million in New Funding

Identity Verification Specialist Socure Scores $100 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Socure

Digital identity verification company Socure announced that it has secured $100 million in Series D funding in a round led by Accel and featuring participation from the investment divisions of Citi and Wells Fargo. The investment brings the company’s total capital to more than $196 million.

“We are now more confident than ever that we will be the first company to eliminate identity fraud while unlocking complete and fully-automated coverage of every good ID,” Socure CEO Johnny Ayers said.

Also participating in the round were Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Flint Capital, Strategic Capital, Synchrony, Sorenson, and Two Sigma Ventures. And while a specific new valuation was not included in the funding announcement, Socure’s Ayers hinted at the lofty level – and more – in congratulating his team on the company’s success.

“Reaching unicorn status is a testament to our dedicated and talented team which we are looking forward to rapidly scaling to meet demand,” Ayers said. “We are incredibly grateful for the chance to innovate and partner to solve this problem with some of the greatest companies in the world and are energized for the opportunities that lay ahead for Socure, especially as we make our march to a potential IPO.”

A Finovate alum since 2013, the company demonstrated its digital-to-physical identity verification technology at our fall conference in 2017. Socure’s predictive analytics platform marries AI and machine learning with trusted on- and offline data intelligence from a wide variety of sources to verify identities in real time. Operating in a number of verticals ranging from financial services and eCommerce to gaming and telecom, Socure has more than 350 customers including three of the top five banks, six of the top 10 card issuers, and more than 75 of the most innovative fintechs including Varo Money, Chime, and Stash.

More recently, Socure announced a partnership with advisory, tax, and assurance firm Baker Tilly that has since established that Socure’s Intelligent KYC product meets “and creates additional assurance” in providing USA PATRIOT Act compliance. Earlier in the year, Socure had announced that Intelligent KYC would be made available to digital gaming operators in eleven states.

Photo by Gnist Design from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Flutterwave and PayPal Partner to Empower African eCommerce

Flutterwave and PayPal Partner to Empower African eCommerce
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, PayPal

Payments ecosystem giant PayPal announced a collaboration with Flutterwave, a leading payments technology company in Africa, this week. Through the collaboration, PayPal will enable its users to pay African merchants using Flutterwave’s platform.

The partnership will not only connect Flutterwave’s African merchant clients with PayPal’s 377 million accountholders, it will also help them work around the fragmented and complex payments infrastructure in Africa. To use the new functionality, online shoppers across the globe simply select the Pay with PayPal option while checking out at an African merchant’s page online.

Flutterwave launched to help businesses and individuals make payments across the continent flexibly and affordably. This comes at a crucial time for Africa. The ecommerce sector on the continent is expanding and is expected to grow from $16.5 billion in 2017 to $29 billion by next year.

“The collaboration reinforces our vision of creating a seamless digital payments system for Africa’s business communities that can now transact with international consumers,” said Flutterwave Founder and CEO Olugbenga Agboola. “By working with PayPal, we can further strengthen our commitment to our customers and service users as we will be enabling them to transact and expand their business operations to reach new markets.”

Flutterwave was founded in 2016 and has since processed over 140 million transactions worth over $9 billion. Today’s news comes just a couple of days after the company closed a $170 million round at a $1 billion valuation.

Photo by Jack Sparrow from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FX, Fulton Bank, and Finzly’s Latest Partnership

FX, Fulton Bank, and Finzly’s Latest Partnership
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile

One of Finovate’s most recent alums, Finzly, announced this week that Fulton Bank has achieved significant operational efficiencies in its foreign exchange business courtesy of Finzly’s FX START and EXIM STAR solutions.

“International trade and foreign exchange can be a complex business for financial institutions of any size to manage successfully,” Finzly CEO and founder Booshan Rengachari said. “With one integration to the core, our FX STAR and EXIM STAR solutions help institutions like Fulton Bank to more efficiently, securely, and cost-effectively meet the needs of their customers.”

Finzly specializes in connecting banks and their customers via a real-time payment services hub and cloud-based bank operating system, BankOS, delivering a modern, digital banking experience. The company’s platform leverages open APIs and integrations into core technology to enable financial institutions to subscribe, try, and launch both Finzly’s and third-party fintech apps and solutions. With FX STAR, Finzly’s customers are able to execute foreign currency transactions, purchase foreign currencies in bulk using multi-currency accounts, as well as initiate payments. EXIM STAR serves as an international trade finance solution to help financial institutions manage the transaction lifecycle for commercial letters of credit, standby letters of credit, and documentary collections.

“We recognize Finzly as a proven provider that understands the unique business needs of regional financial institutions,” Fulton Bank International SVP and Manager Amy Sahm said. “Through the implementation of their user-friendly platform, our bank has been able to achieve better standard functionality across the board – from improved access to reports and confirming trades, to upgrades in investigation and reconciliation capabilities.”

Fulton Bank operates more than 223 financial centers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as in the mid-Atlantic states of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. The firm is a subsidiary of Fulton Financial Corporation, a financial holding company based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with $26 billion in assets.

Finzly made its Finovate debut in 2019. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company most recently demonstrated its digital account opening solution at FinovateWest 2020, earning a Best of Show award from conference attendees. This year, in addition to its partnership with Fulton Bank, Finzly teamed up with Lead Bank, a Kansas City, Missouri-based “community-minded” commercial bank. Lead Bank implemented Finzly’s Payment Hub – part of Finzly’s Bank OS – to boost its own payment and digital capabilities.

“The ability to service our fintech and corporate clients with a Banking as a Service solution, as well as communicate messages to and from the core platform, is crucial to fulfilling and facilitating the requirements of Lead Bank and our channel partners,” Sheila Stratton, Director of Digital Strategy, Lead Bank said. “Finzly’s solution provides a modern technology platform in which our bank can expand payment capabilities while tapping a flexible and innovative solution to support our bank in delivering on the specialized needs of our clients.”

As well as partnerships, 2021 marked the launch of Finzly’s SWAP STAR solution. The new technology provides an end-to-end, sales, trading, and post-trade processing system for interest rate derivatives. SWAP STAR is available as an app within Finzly’s BankOS cloud-based bank operating system.

Photo by Andre Furtado from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook