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Finovate Global UAE: Thndr Expands, Visa Partners, and the CBUAE Backs Open Finance

Finovate Global UAE: Thndr Expands, Visa Partners, and the CBUAE Backs Open Finance
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DriveWealth, Finovate Global

This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at recent developments in the fintech industry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Thndr, a digital investment platform based in Egypt, announced an expansion to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this week. The expansion comes after the company secured a Category 3A license with retail endorsement from the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA). Thndr will initially offer investors in the UAE direct access to U.S.-listed securities, such as stocks, including fractional shares, as well as exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

“We at Thndr are thrilled to announce our official entry into the UAE market,” Thndr UAE General Manager Salah Kaddoura said. “We’d like to express our sincere gratitude to the FSRA for their openness and for welcoming Thndr to the UAE’s dynamic financial landscape.”

Founded in 2020 and a graduate of the Y Combinator accelerator, Thndr got its start as a commission-free, mobile trading platform for stocks, bonds, and funds. That year, Thndr became the first firm to earn a brokerage license in Egypt since 2008. The company went on to launch a new solution to enable trading in mutual funds and, in 2022, raised $20 million to fuel regional expansion.

With more than three million downloads and 500,000 active monthly users, Thndr notes that Egyptians traded $1.8 billion on its platform in 2023. As of this April, Thndr accounted for 8.5% of all retail transactions in the market. The company also reported that 87% of its users are first-time investors. “I take pride in seeing how our commitment to these principles has democratized investing to all Egyptians,” Kaddoura said, “and can’t wait for what we have in store for the UAE.”

du Pay, the digital payments division of UAE-based telecommunications company du, has formalized a partnership with digital payments giant Visa. The partnership will enable du Pay to issue Visa cards, grow its suite of financial solutions, and bring greater versatility to the du Pay platform.

“We are committed to making payment processes faster, simpler, and more secure while simultaneously enhancing financial inclusion,” du Pay CEO Nicholas Levi said. “The strategic collaboration is poised to accelerate digital empowerment with a focus on inclusivity and serve the needs of those without traditional banking services, ensuring simplified access to products.” For its part, Visa highlighted the impact of the partnership – and du Pay’s new prepaid Visa card – on the growth of digital commerce in the region.

du launched its du Pay solution earlier this year. The technology, available in six languages, offers international money transfers, P2P transfers, billpay, and a unique IBAN for each customer. The company plans to add a card feature “soon.”

Clarity on the role of Open Finance in the fintech and financial services industry of the UAE has arrived in the form of a new, comprehensive framework issued by the country’s Central Bank (CBUAE). The framework provides guidance on how to regulate licensing, supervision, and operation of Open Finance and has already received positive reviews from industry participants.

The CBUAE earned especially high marks for its emphasis on security and customer consent. One observer, Women in Crypto Arabia founder Zina Ashour said the framework “puts power back in the hands of the consumer.” Others, such as Tarabut Gateway CEO Abdulla Almoayed, were grateful for the regulatory clarity and certainty, adding that the “reduction in ambiguity” will enable his firm “to invest in the UAE with supreme confidence.”

Still further plaudits came for the comprehensive nature of the CBUAE’s decision. The UAE’s Open Finance Regulation includes, for example, both Open Banking and Open Insurance, as Global Ventures partner Said Murad observed. Murad also appreciated the fact that the regulation requires all entities licensed by the CBUAE to comply with its requirements for data sharing and service initiation.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Uruguayan cross-border payment platform dLocal partners with cross-border money transfer firm Ria Money Transfer.
  • European paytech payabl. expanded its coverage by adding four major local payment methods in Latin America.
  • Brazilian fintech EBANX teamed up with South African instant EFT payments provider Ozow.

Asia-Pacifc

  • DBS Taiwan partnered with Thales to bring bio-source payment cards to Asia.
  • The Business Times profiled Vietnamese unicorn VNLife, parent company of payment solutions company VNPay.
  • Malaysia-based digital challenger bank Boost Bank launched its digital banking app.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • U.S.-based fintech Elevate secured $5 million in pre-Series A funding to support its expansion into South Africa.
  • Stanbic Bank Kenya, a member of South Africa’s Standard Bank Group, announced an upgrade of its Temenos core.
  • VGS forged a strategic partnership with Onafriq, the largest payments network in Africa.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Card issuing platform Marqeta announced its expansion into Poland.
  • Deutsche Bank forged a partnership with Bitpanda to help facilitate cash payments for German crypto traders.
  • Boku teamed up with Poland’s instant payment system BLIK to offer it as a payment method at the Google Play store.

Photo by Nextvoyage

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Last Early-Bird Deadline to Demo at FinovateFall 2024

Last Early-Bird Deadline to Demo at FinovateFall 2024
By Heather Stowell Posted on
Categories: Finovate Marketing, FinovateFall 2024

FinovateFall 2024 takes place in New York over September 9, 10 and 11. Register to attend by Friday, June 14 and save up to $1,000.

Fintech headlines frequently focus on funding and valuations, but that’s only part of the story. Behind every highly-valued company are connections and relationships on which that value is based.

FinovateFall’s diverse audience is where you can find the relationships needed to drive your business forward. Whether you’re looking to meet banks, payment processors, tech giants, investors, regulators, or merchants, we have you covered. Whether you’re looking to drive sales, partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, or simply collect product feedback, we have you covered.

Want to make the right connections? Apply to demo.

Demoing is a fit for anyone innovating: Startups, public entities, banks, and established leaders.

A limited number of companies are selected through a competitive application process each year. And we strive to give them the best ROI with these unique Finovate features:

  • Single track – companies demo in front of the entire hundreds of audience of C-level financial executives, venture capitalists, industry press and analysts, and fintech entrepreneurs
     
  • 7-minutes demos –  targeted time for you to show how your technology works and for the audience to measure whether it’s the right fit for them
     
  • Frequent and strategic networking breaks – companies capitalize on the energy and momentum generated during their demo and are able to connect and set up meetings through an AI-powered networking app
     
  • Plug and play stands – all demoers have identical stands with tables, monitors, power, etc. included as part of the demo package – exhibition presence is a critical component of your Finovate experience, which is why you should not have to pay extra for it
     
  • Fandom – we follow you for the rest of time. We blog about and tweet your noteworthy news, capital raised, awards earned, acquisitions and expansions made to our hundreds of thousands of followers.

The last early-bird application deadline is this Friday, June 14. All innovators encouraged to apply before demo slots fill up!

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Crédit Agricole Next Bank Partners with InvestGlass for Lead Management and CRM

Crédit Agricole Next Bank Partners with InvestGlass for Lead Management and CRM
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Credit Agricole, Daily news, InvestGlass
  • Crédit Agricole Next Bank has launched a new lead management platform and CRM courtesy of a partnership with InvestGlass.
  • The new offering will help the bank deal with new customer growth and increasing linguistic diversity among its clients and employees.
  • Switzerland-based InvestGlass most recently demoed its sales and compliance automation technology at FinovateEurope in February.

Courtesy of a partnership with sales and compliance automation solution provider InvestGlass, Crédit Agricole Next Bank has launched its new lead management platform and CRM. The offering, unveiled this spring, will help the institution enhance the customer experience as well as automate internal processes for employees.

“The deployment of InvestGlass within Crédit Agricole Next Bank represents more than just a technical improvement,” Crédit Agricole Next Bank Deputy Director of Development Maxime Charton said. “It’s a cultural transformation that allows the bank to continue innovating and improving its digital journeys for the benefit of its clients.”

One of the key ways that Crédit Agricole Next Bank will leverage its new technology is to help the firm deal with the linguistic diversity that characterizes both its customers and staff. With more than four languages to contend with, the institution will benefit from InvestGlass’s flexibility and automation capabilities, which will enable Crédit Agricole Next Bank to provide personalized experiences even as its clientele grows.

Additionally, InvestGlass will help the institution fulfill its goal of digitalizing the lead management process, with appointment scheduling, prospect flow automation, and mailing tools integrated into the platform. This will make it easier for Crédit Agricole Next Bank to monitor and manage its communications more effectively across multiple channels.

“InvestGlass allows us to optimize our operational efficiency while significantly improving our clients’ experience,” Crédit Agricole Next Bank Director of Online Agency Stephane Graeffly said.

Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, InvestGlass made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2016 and returned to the Finovate stage most recently for FinovateEurope earlier this year. At the conference, the company demonstrated its automation solution for sales and compliance that helps banks, brokers, government agencies, and crypto companies become more productive with a non-U.S. CRM option.

InvestGlass’s partnership announcement comes a month after the company unveiled a pair of new AI solutions, Copilot and Mistral, to help businesses convert unstructured data into conversational knowledge and actionable insights. Copilot is the cloud-based option that allows companies to use their OpenAI API key. Mistral is InvestGlass’s local server/on-premise offering.

InvestGlass was founded in 2014. Alexandre Gaillard is CEO.

Photo by Daniel Watson

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Navigating BNPL’s Future: The Jifiti Group CEO Yaacov Martin on the CFPB’s New Ruling

Navigating BNPL’s Future: The Jifiti Group CEO Yaacov Martin on the CFPB’s New Ruling
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Speaker series

Late last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an interpretive rule stating that Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) lenders are credit card providers. This ruling is slated to have some significant impact on BNPL, which was once one of the hottest subsectors in fintech.

To gain an understanding of the specific implications of the new rule, we spoke with Yaacov Martin, CEO of The Jifiti Group, a global fintech company that powers embedded lending solutions for banks, lenders and merchants.

For those unfamiliar with the matter, summarize the CFPB’s recent ruling on BNPL.

Yaacov Martin: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently released an interpretive rule for the BNPL industry, which classifies BNPL providers as credit card issuers under the Truth in Lending Act. BNPL lenders must now extend key consumer protections that credit card users have long enjoyed, including investigating customer billing disputes in a timely manner, issuing refunds when goods are returned or services canceled and providing periodic statements detailing transactions and balances.

What will this mean for both fintechs and banks operating in the BNPL space going forward?

Martin: Adhering to comprehensive consumer protection requirements like those stemming from the Truth in Lending Act and the CFPB’s new interpretive rule demands significant resources, specialized knowledge, and thorough processes.

Implementing these controls necessitates substantial overhead investments, which poses a challenge for BNPL fintechs competing against banks, as higher operational costs put them at an inherent competitive disadvantage to banks, which have a low cost of capital and powerful balance sheets.

Therefore, a consolidation within the BNPL market is anticipated as only a select cohort of fintechs are poised to fully comply with these heightened obligations.

Banks and traditional financial institutions already have compliant frameworks in place, positioning them favorably to capture significant market share.

Do you envision the recent ruling impacting international BNPL operations?

Martin: The CFPB’s new interpretive rule might have an impact on international BNPL operations as this U.S. legislation will also be applicable to BNPL providers located outside the U.S. territories. This means that these international providers will need to ensure the correct investigation of customer billing disputes in a timely manner, issue refunds when goods are returned or services canceled, and provide the requisite periodic statements detailing transactions and balances. Even while operating from outside the U.S., these companies will likely need to set up U.S.-based customer support teams.

What impact will the new ruling have on end consumers?

Martin: End consumers will benefit from enhanced protection and more transparency when using a BNPL service. The rule will also boost consumer confidence in BNPL, encouraging increased usage of the service.

How will the ruling impact new innovations in the payments space?

Martin: The new interpretive rule will probably have a limited impact on innovation in the payments space, however it might lead to an increased use of BNPL by customers as a result of the additional safeguards.

Photo by cottonbro studio

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Robinhood Agrees to Buy Crypto Exchange Bitstamp

Robinhood Agrees to Buy Crypto Exchange Bitstamp
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Robinhood has agreed to acquire digital currency marketplace Bitstamp for $200 million in cash.
  • The acquisition will help Robinhood fuel its global expansion and serve institutional clients, a new market for the company.
  • The acquisition announcement comes one month after Robinhood received a Wells Notice from the SEC for violating Sections 15(a) and 17A of the Securities Exchange Act.

Hours after I published a piece mourning the lack of application of the blockchain in fintech, I get to report on some news that proves me wrong. Digital stock brokerage app Robinhood has agreed to acquire digital currency marketplace Bitstamp for $200 million in an all-cash deal.

U.K.-based Bitstamp has offices in Luxembourg, the U.K., Slovenia, Singapore, and the U.S. and holds over 50 active licenses and registrations globally. Robinhood, which made its first foray into crypto in 2018, anticipates the deal will “significantly accelerate Robinhood Crypto’s expansion worldwide.” Specifically, Robinhood said that Bitstamp will bring Robinhood customers from across the E.U., U.K., U.S., and Asia.

The move will also help Robinhood cater to its first institutional clients. Until now, Robinhood has primarily catered to individual retail investors. Bitstamp, on the other hand, already has a strong presence in the institutional market. The company offers trade execution, deep order books, API connectivity, white label solutions, institutional lending, and staking. By integrating Bitstamp’s services and established relationships into its existing operations, Robinhood can start offering services specifically designed for serving larger, more complex clients such as large financial organizations, investment firms, and professional traders.

“The acquisition of Bitstamp is a major step in growing our crypto business. Bitstamp’s highly trusted and long standing global exchange has shown resilience through market cycles. By seamlessly coupling customer experience with safety across geographies, the Bitstamp team has established one of the strongest reputations across retail and institutional crypto investors,” said Robinhood Crypto General Manager Johann Kerbrat. “Through this strategic combination, we are better positioned to expand our footprint outside of the U.S. and welcome institutional customers to Robinhood.”

Bitstamp launched its crypto exchange in 2011 and currently has more than 5 million retail and institutional customers. The company’s core spot exchange offers over 85 tradable assets, as well as products such as staking and lending,

“As the world’s longest running cryptocurrency exchange, Bitstamp is known as one of the most-trusted and transparent crypto platforms worldwide,” said Bitstamp CEO JB Graftieaux. “Bringing Bitstamp’s platform and expertise into Robinhood’s ecosystem will give users an enhanced trading experience with a continuing commitment to compliance, security, and customer-centricity.”

Notably, Robinhood’s announcement comes a month after the California-based company received a Wells Notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for violating Sections 15(a) and 17A of the Securities Exchange Act. “After years of good faith attempts to work with the SEC for regulatory clarity including our well-known attempt to ‘come in and register,’ we are disappointed that the agency has decided to issue a Wells Notice related to our U.S. crypto business,” said Robinhood Markets Chief Legal, Compliance, and Corporate Affairs Officer Dan Gallagher in a statement at the time. “We firmly believe that the assets listed on our platform are not securities and we look forward to engaging with the SEC to make clear just how weak any case against Robinhood Crypto would be on both the facts and the law.”

The $200 million cash amount is subject to customary purchase price adjustments, and the deal is subject to closing conditions such as regulatory approvals and is expected to be finalized in the first half of 2025.

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Tales from the Crypto: Biden Rebuffs Resolution, Ripple Goes Cross Border, and the BIS on CBDCs

Tales from the Crypto: Biden Rebuffs Resolution, Ripple Goes Cross Border, and the BIS on CBDCs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Cryptocurrency, Daily news, List series

The U.S. House of Representatives wanted it. The Senate wanted it. Much, if not all, of the cryptocurrency industry wanted it. But on Friday, President Biden made good on his threat to veto a resolution that sought to loosen regulations regarding how financial institutions hold digital assets on their balance sheets.

“My administration will not support measures that jeopardize the well-being of consumers and investors,” President Biden said in a statement. “Appropriate guardrails that protect consumers and investors are necessary to harness the potential benefits and opportunities of crypto-asset innovation.”

The issue at hand was a repeal of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Staff Accounting Bulletin 121. This bulletin was designed to compel financial institutions that are holding digital assets to keep those assets on their own balance sheets. Those backing the repeal – which included both Republicans and Democrats – claimed that the current policy was too restrictive and made it harder for financial institutions to work with cryptocurrency businesses.

The decision has enraged some and led observers to suggest that digital assets could become an issue in this year’s presidential election. Likely Republican Party nominee Donald Trump reportedly referred to the Democratic Party’s apparent distaste for crypto at a recent event – during which the former president promoted his own digital asset, a non-fungible token (NFT).

Whether Biden’s cautious approach to crypto will be a political liability in November remains to be seen. Crypto industry polls indicate that more than 20% of voters in swing states consider crypto a “major issue.” At the same time, a 2023 Pew Research Center Survey showed that most Americans continue to have major concerns about the safety and reliability of digital assets.

Blockchain and crypto solutions company Ripple has teamed up with cross-border payments solutions provider for regulated institutions, Clear Junction. The partnership will enable Clear Junction to facilitate instant and secure GBP and EUR-denominated payout coverage for Ripple’s payment clients – with additional currencies to be added later in the year.

Cassie Craddock, Ripple’s Managing Director for Europe, praised Clear Junction’s ability to support all of Ripple’s use cases. “Clear Junction already has strong relationships with a number of our existing clients, and its management team has many years of experience in cross-border payments and banking,” Craddock said.

Making its Finovate debut in 2013 as OpenCoin, Ripple has grown into a major cryptocurrency and blockchain technology firm with hundreds of customers in 55+ countries and payout capabilities in 80+ markets. Businesses rely on Ripple’s enterprise blockchain solutions to source crypto assets, facilitate instant payments, engage new audiences, grow revenues, and more.

The partnership news with Clear Junction comes in the wake of Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s suggestion that an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on Ripple’s XRP coin is “inevitable.” Also, somewhat apropos of our opening story, Ripple recently donated $25 million to Fairshake, a super PAC dedicated to pro-crypto political advocacy in 2024.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is investigating the use of wholesale central bank digital currencies (wCBDCs) to improve instant cross-border payments. The new initiative is called Project Rialto and is a collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub Eurosystem and Singapore Centres, along with a number of central banks. The project takes its name from a famous bridge in Venice, Italy, that spans the banks of the Grand Canal.

“Decentralized solutions, CBDC and interlinked payment infrastructures are considered promising avenues to improve cross-border payments,” the BIS noted in a statement. “How they interact has not yet been explored and could yield answers that advance cross-border payments globally.”

Wholesale CBDCs differ from retail CBDCs in that the latter is designed for use by the general public. Wholesale CBDCs are used by banks and other licensed financial institutions for interbank payments and securities settlements. A third type of CBDC, hybrid CBDCs, combine features of both wholesale and retail CBDCs. All CBDCs offer greater efficiency compared to traditional trade and settlement methods, reducing operational expenses, enhancing transparency, and improving the overall reliability of transactions.

Deutsche Bank announced this week that it is partnering with Austrian cryptocurrency brokerage Bitpanda. Deutsche Bank will process customer deposits and withdrawals for the broker, and has agreed to give local bank account numbers to Bitpanda users in Germany.

The move is a significant one for the industry. Crypto businesses have found it challenging to find banking partners in the wake of high-profile collapses of crypto-friendly banks in 2023, like Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Capital Corporation.

That said, Deutsche Bank considers this a “very cautious” initial step. While the partnership does mean that fiat currency deposits and withdrawals from Bitpanda will flow through Deutsche Bank, the bank is not involved in the movement of any crypto assets. As Deutsche Bank Global Head of Cash Management Ole Matthiessen explained to Reuters, the bank will merely assist clients with their ingoing and outgoing transactions while supporting Bitpanda’s treasury and payments process.

Bitpanda was founded in 2014. The company has more than four million users on its platform, which offers trading and investing in cryptocurrencies, fractional shares of stock, and precious metals. This week’s announcement builds on Bitpanda’s existing relationship with Deutsche Bank for its cross-currency operations in Austria and Spain.

Be sure to check out this week’s Finovate Weekly newsletter on LinkedIn featuring a pair of crypto/blockchain-related articles!

Photo by Ricky Esquivel

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The Small Business Administration to Issue New SBA Loan Option

The Small Business Administration to Issue New SBA Loan Option
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • The U.S. Small Business Administration plans to issue a new SBA loan option for small businesses.
  • The new pilot program will extend lines of credit of up to $5 million and will charge an annual fee and a maximum interest rate that is 3% to 6.5% higher than the prime rate.
  • Lenders will receive a 75% guaranty on loans larger than $150,000 and an 85% guaranty on loans smaller than $150,000.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced plans this week to issue a new government-backed SBA loan option for small businesses. SBA Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman unveiled the news in an interview with CNBC, which broke the news.

The new pilot program, which will extend lines of credit of up to $5 million, will allow business owners to either fund specific projects or borrow against their assets. Borrowers will be charged an annual fee and will face maximum interest rates that are 3% to 6.5% higher than the prime rate, topping out at around 12% to 15%.

The new loans aim to bring more compelling offers to both lenders and borrowers than the SBA’s existing 7(a) loan program. The 7(a) loan program incentivized lenders to loan to small business owners by providing guaranties to the lenders. Last year, the program backed 57,000 loans valued at $27.5 billion.

And even though the loan amount represents a 7% increase from 2022 levels, Guzman expressed that the growth is less than ideal. The same is true for two other SBA products, the SBA Express loan, which offers up to a $500,000 line of credit, and the CapLines loan product, which didn’t appeal much to lenders because of its complicated structure.

“This product is our aim to increase access to a simpler working capital line,” Guzman told CNBC. “It basically takes the best of our various options to create a pilot program to see if we can get more borrowers an affordable working capital line, versus just a pure reliance on credit cards.”

Lenders may find the new loans especially appealing, as they limit risk. Lenders receive a 75% guaranty on loans larger than $150,000 and an 85% guaranty on loans smaller than $150,000. “In an environment of higher interest rates, we want to make sure that the SBA is an option for more businesses,” Guzman said in the CNBC interview.

The SBA’s new working capital offering may impact the competitive landscape. Fintechs and traditional banks have provided lines of credit and working capital solutions with varying degrees of accessibility and interest rates for a long time. However, the SBA’s new government-backed line of credit promises accessibility and affordability for the borrower, as well as a 75% to 85% guaranty for the lender. While fintechs often attract small businesses with their quick approval processes and attractive user interfaces, they can come with higher interest rates and less favorable terms compared to traditional banks. Banks, on the other hand, offer more stable and lower interest rates but have rigid credit requirements and slower processing times. The SBA’s new program, which will go live “in the coming months,” will help bridge these gaps.

Photo by Amina Filkins

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Insurtech Eleos Secures $4 Million in Seed Funding

Insurtech Eleos Secures $4 Million in Seed Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Eleos, Funding, Fundings
  • U.K.-based insurtech Eleos has secured $4 million in seed funding.
  • The round was led by Fuel Ventures and Indico Capital. Early-stage investor APX also participated.
  • Eleos made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope in London.

Eleos, an insurtech and income protection provider based in the U.K., has raised $4 million in seed funding. Fuel Ventures and Indico Capital led the round, with Berlin-based early-stage investor APX also participating. Eleos made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope in London.

“With our new funding we will launch more lines of insurance in the life and disability verticals and strike more distribution partnerships in the U.K.” Eleos CEO and Co-Founder Kiruba Eswaran said. “Part of the funding is also earmarked to launch operations in the U.S.”

Eleos embeds white-labelled life insurance and income protection into the online journeys of financial brands. These services and products give Eleos’s partners the ability to benefit from new revenue streams as well as more thorough customer engagement and greater customer retention. Eleos’s FCA authorization also provides its partners – companies like Loqbox, CreditSpring, and Updraft – with full regulatory coverage. Eleos customers also get a variety of free benefits, including 24/7 remote GP services and mental health support.

Fuel Ventures founder Mark Pearson credited Eleos for its experience, understanding of the industry, and access to a substantial market. “With Eleos we’ve found all three and we believe their products encapsulate our thinking about the insurance space – giving people easy access on familiar platforms.”

Founded in 2023, Eleos has already served more than 20,000 customers in the U.K. The company offers personalized and dynamic quotes for its insurance product, and enables potential customers to choose an affordable monthly payment plan and buy their insurance policy in minutes. Additionally, Eleos’s income protection solution helps individuals cover their essential expenses in the event of an illness or injury that requires long-term sick leave. Currently offering embedded insurance for brands, Eleos is planning to offer insurance policies directly to individuals in the future.

“The insurtech market has plenty of room to grow and Eleos is targeting areas which are not only sizable but overlooked by other current players globally,” Indico Capital Partners Managing General Partner Stephan Morais said.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov

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AMLYZE Teams Up with Aura Cloud to Enhance Financial Crime Fighting Tools

AMLYZE Teams Up with Aura Cloud to Enhance Financial Crime Fighting Tools
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, AMLYZE, Daily news

AMLYZE, a regtech specializing in combating financial crime that made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year, has forged a strategic partnership with Aura Cloud. Headquartered in Lithuania, AMLYZE offers anti-financial crime solutions for a variety of financial services providers, including fintechs, banks, and cryptocurrency firms. The company’s partnership with Sweden-based Aura Cloud will combine the latter’s expertise in financial crime prevention with the former’s digital banking solutions.

AMLYZE Co-Founder and Head of Partnerships Jekaterina Govina praised Aura Cloud for its “commitment to agility and innovation” which Govina said “aligns perfectly with our mission to provide AML/CFT solutions, built by regulatory insiders who understand customer pain points from the inside out.” Govina added, “Together, we will empower financial institutions to stay ahead of the curve in the fight against financial crime.”

AMLYZE leverages AI, synthetic data, and the power of the network to offer a paradigm-shifting approach to AML. The AMLYZE platform’s use of synthetic data and privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) enables aggressive adoption of AI and machine learning techniques and strategies that do not violate confidentiality or breach data privacy. The company’s technology can be deployed to provide real-time and retrospective transaction monitoring, customer risk assessments, AML/CFT investigations, and PEP, sanctions, and negative media screening. Moreover, AMLYZE’s model facilitates not only effective financial crime detection, but also AI model training, testing of automated solutions, and AML staff training.

“(AMLYZE’s) automated transaction monitoring and customer risk assessment solution provides additional possibilities for our core banking platform customers to have (a) state of the art solution to minimize financial crime and enhance compliance,” Aura Cloud CEO Prem Bhagwat said. “We see this partnership as an excellent addition to our current partnership ecosystem in Northern Europe and beyond.”

Headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, AMLYZE made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope 2024 in London. The company has raised $1 million (€1 million) in pre-seed funding, courtesy of an investment round led by Practica Capital, a major venture capital firm based in the Baltics, and FIRSTPICK, a Baltics-based accelerator and venture capital fund.

Photo by Humphrey Muleba

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Trulioo Taps Into Mastercard’s Identity Solutions

Trulioo Taps Into Mastercard’s Identity Solutions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MasterCard, Trulioo
  • Trulioo and Mastercard have partnered to help clients streamline onboarding while combatting fraud.
  • Trulioo will leverage Mastercard’s identity solutions to gain insight into identity and risk scores.
  • Mastercard will tap Trulioo’s global business identity verification services to enhance its Onboard Risk Check product by adding a layer of assurance to merchant and consumer onboarding solutions.

Global identity platform Trulioo announced today it has teamed up with Mastercard to help merchants streamline digital onboarding while helping them combat fraud.

Under the agreement, Trulioo will leverage Mastercard’s identity solutions to power two of its products– Person Match and Risk Intelligence. This will offer Trulioo insights into identity and risk scores through a customizable, intuitive dashboard, extending the company’s offerings beyond API-based products and further enhancing its onboarding processes.

“Trulioo is proud to partner with Mastercard and shares their dedication to industry-leading business verification and fraud prevention,” said Trulioo CEO Steve Munford. “As organizations navigate the complexities of the digital payments industry, fraud and business identity theft are constant threats. This is a pivotal milestone in our joint endeavor that will pave the way for a more secure global digital landscape.”

Mastercard will also see benefits from the strategic partnership. Trulioo’s global business identity verification services will enhance Mastercard’s Onboard Risk Check product by adding a layer of assurance to merchant and consumer onboarding solutions, helping to mitigate risk, reduce fraud, and increase trust in payments made across the globe.

“The digital economy thrives when people trust it and trust each other,” said Mastercard executive vice president, Identity Products, and Innovation Dennis Gamiello. “The ability to verify people are who they say they are instills confidence on both sides of digital interactions. Together with Trulioo, we are fueling the connections that make a vibrant digital economy possible.”

Canada-based Trulioo was founded in 2011 to help organizations navigate compliance by offering real-time verification of more than 13,000 ID documents and 700 million business entities across the globe, while checking against more than 6,000 watchlists. The company has raised $475 million.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

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JRNI Teams Up with Backbase to Boost Customer Engagement via Digital Appointment Scheduling

JRNI Teams Up with Backbase to Boost Customer Engagement via Digital Appointment Scheduling
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Backbase, Daily news
  • Customer engagement company JRNI has integrated with bank technology innovator Backbase.
  • The integration will bring new appointment scheduling functionalities to users of Backbase’s Engagement Banking platform.
  • Headquartered in Amsterdam, Backbase has been a Finovate alum since 2009.

JRNI, a leader in global customer engagement for financial services, has integrated with Backbase, adding new appointment scheduling functionalities to the Backbase Engagement Banking Platform.

“We believe that the banking experience is enriched by building trust through personal connections,” Backbase general manager of ecosystems Roland Boojien said. “This partnership aims to seamlessly provide convenient personal connections in banking and wealth management, effortlessly uniting customers and trusted advisors at their preferred time and location.”

Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform provides financial institutions (FIs) with a range of digital solutions for customer onboarding, servicing, financing origination, loyalty, and more – all from a single platform. Courtesy of the integration, financial institution customers on the platform will be able to book both virtual and in-person appointments seamlessly and securely. JRNI’s Self-Scheduling Appointment booking solution will give FIs the ability to offer an end-to-end embedded experience that begins with initial customer contact and continues through the customer’s entire journey with ongoing relationship management and support.

The Self-Scheduling Appointment booking solution will be available as an out-of-the-box add-on integrated within Backbase’s Digital Assist offering. Digital Assist provides a unified solution that helps customer-facing teams at FIs resolve customer service issues quicker, as well as upsell additional products and services easier.

“Backbase Digital Assist helps make interactions more efficient, effective, and of higher value,” JRNI CEO Phil Meer said. “JRNI’s engagement capabilities complement Backbase’s offering to drive trusted connections and relationships. Backbase shares our vision and its global platform prioritizes customer engagement as a critical pillar.”

Founded in 2008 and based in Boston, Massachusetts, JRNI offers a customer engagement platform that helps companies improve both customer acquisition and retention, as well as promote brands, drive hyper-personalization, and better engage target audiences. The company’s enterprise-grade event management platform handles scheduling, queuing, and analytics to provide customers with a personalized experience whether in-person or virtual.

Headquartered in Amsterdam, Backbase has been a Finovate alum since 2009. Most recently demoing its technology at FinovateFall 2021 in New York, the company has won Best of Show on four separate occasions. With more than 150 customers and 2,000+ employees around the world, Backbase provides a platform that enables financial institutions to offer their customers the latest fintech innovations without having to abandon their existing core banking systems.

Backbase’s JRNI announcement comes just days after the firm announced that Malaysia’s Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad (Bank Muamalat) had agreed to a long-term partnership designed to “revolutionize” the bank’s digital Islamic Banking offerings. Also participating in the partnership is fellow Finovate alum, Mambu.

Photo by Liene Ratniece

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10 Strategies Fintechs Can Use to Acquire More Customers Right Now

10 Strategies Fintechs Can Use to Acquire More Customers Right Now
By Lili Nguyen Posted on
Categories: Sponsored

This is a sponsored article by Glassbox.

Fintech leaders, C-suite executives, and investors are facing an epic challenge: How do we adapt our customer acquisition strategies as the landscape becomes more competitive? In this article, we’ll highlight the challenges fintech companies face in customer acquisitions and the benefits of digital experience intelligence (DXI) in understanding your customer behaviors and challenges. Armed with those insights, you’ll be better able to navigate the ever-evolving fintech environment to grow your customer base and nurture your existing customers.

Want to know which of your marketing assets was most viewed by new conversions? Done!

Wondering where the common dropoff points are in your mobile app? No sweat.

Here are ten ways DXI can inform and refine customer acquisition strategies for fintech companies to acquire more of their ideal customers.

1. Identifying Acquisition Opportunities

Digital experience intelligence enables your organization to measure and analyze how users interact with your website or mobile app. Analyzing these journeys provides insight into pain points and areas of high engagement for potential customers. This initial informational process can help you tailor your product offerings and marketing outreach to engage your ideal customers.

Note: Be sure you’re targeting your ideal customers – the ones who truly need and will benefit from your products or services. Understanding who they are, and making that extra effort, will pay off with a client base that is bought in and wants your solutions to work for them.

2. Data-Driven Optimization

Leveraging insights from digital experience intelligence can help identify which marketing channels attract your target audience. In addition, user behavior analysis can measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns to optimize them across different channels.

👉🏻 For tips on gaining and retaining digital banking customers, check out this guide: 5 Mobile App Optimization Best Practices for Banks.

3. Personalization at Scale

Personalizing customer experiences is one of the most effective ways to increase engagement and conversion rates, especially during the consideration and decision-making stages. A digital experience intelligence platform like Glassbox is the easiest and most effective way to gain critical insights into how users interact with your platform.

You can then use that data to segment customers by a variety of metrics to provide more relevant, personalized digital experiences. The data gained can also be used to inform product recommendations, web content, and marketing messages, as well as cater to specific preferences, all of which can boost engagement and conversions.

4. Mobile Optimization

Nearly 40% of app uninstallations occur because people are simply not using the app. The best way to understand why customers are abandoning your app is by measuring and monitoring your customer journeys. Armed with that information, you can refine your app to ensure it’s relevant, intuitive, and user-friendly so your users are never tempted to select “Remove app.”

5. A/B Testing for Optimization

Data-driven insights are the holy grail of refining customer acquisition strategies. A/B testing enables companies to understand which versions of websites, apps, and offers perform best in attracting and converting potential customers. The insights you gain can inform continuous improvement of user experience and refine your customer acquisition strategies.

6. Proactively Addressing Customer Pain Points

Technology like Real User Monitoring (RUM) and newer iterations like Real User Experience (RUX) enable fintech companies to quickly detect and resolve technical issues.

The ability to swiftly address user experience pain points and intercept technical snags before they escalate can transform your customer’s journey from one of frustration into a smooth and responsive experience that makes them feel valued. With 80% of consumers reporting that customer experiences need to be improved, proactive engagement is your golden ticket to differentiation.

7. Unlocking More Substantial Customer Feedback with AI

Voice of the Customer (VoC) data captures customer feedback so you can gain a deeper understanding of their digital experiences. However, VoC data only represents the vocal minority—our internal analysis found that only about 4% of users provide feedback.

Fintech companies can now leverage AI to automatically compare these rated interactions to similar interactions across the entire user base. We do this at Glassbox with our Voice of the Silent (VoS) tool, which makes it easier to understand what the majority is experiencing, even when they blow off satisfaction surveys.

8. Building Customer Trust Through Transparency

Building customer trust is the most direct path to loyalty. Digital experience intelligence reveals where users hesitate to provide information or engage, which can reveal areas for improving transparency about data privacy and security measures. Addressing those concerns demonstrates your commitment to user safety, which puts you further along the path to customer trust and loyalty.

9. Clear The Biggest Hurdle: Knowing What Your Customers Want

With fintech products and services flooding the market, customers have an exhausting supply of options if you fall short of their expectations for seamless digital experiences. Understanding how they experience interactions with your website or mobile app is critical to effectively measuring, analyzing, improving, and ultimately ensuring customers feel understood and appreciated.

10. Make Customer Acquisition Everyone’s Business

Customer acquisition should be an all-encompassing, organization-wide effort – not just the job of marketing or product development. Lasting relationships are supported at multiple levels and in diverse ways, and playing that message on repeat is essential to making it stick.

Want to see what DXI actually looks like in action? Click around in Glassbox’s self-guided platform tour.

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