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FinovateEurope 2024 Sneak Peek Series: Part 4

By Madeline Clines Posted on
Categories: Corsound AI, Dotfile, Eleos, Finerative, FinovateEurope 2024, FinovateEurope 2024 Sneak Peek, SkenarioLabs, Tuum, Zeed

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on February 27. Register today using this link and save 20%.

Corsound AI

Corsound AI utilizes innovative technology to verify customers’ identities for financial institutions, leveraging over 200 patents to detect AI scams and voice fraud.

Features

  • Provides an innovative method to detect deepfakes in call centers, with or without DB
  • Delivers a revolutionary way to prevent identity theft
  • Offers a unique voice-face matching technology

Who’s it for?

Banks, credit unions, payment providers, and small-and-medium-sized businesses.

Dotfile

Dotfile is an end-to-end business verification platform that automates KYB and AML procedures, reduces fraud, and streamlines compliance operations.

Features

  • Verifies businesses and UBOs and maps corporate structures
  • Automates onboarding, from data collection to risk scoring and periodic monitoring
  • Creates flexible risk-scoring models with custom rules

Who’s it for?

Payment service providers, banks, fintechs, forex platforms, private equity firms, crypto brokers, and asset managers.

Eleos

Eleos partners with consumer brands to embed income protection and life insurance into their online journeys.

Features

  • Bridges access and awareness gap that has kept penetration of these products down
  • Adds additional revenue stream for distributors
  • Improves customer retention rate for brands

Who’s it for?

Direct to consumer fintechs.

Finerative

Finerative is a Gen-AI native startup bringing generative technology to the financial space.

Features

  • Improves productivity and operational efficiency while driving revenues
  • Increases client satisfaction
  • Delivers innovation

Who’s it for?

Universal banks, private banks, asset management entities, wealth management institutions, and independent financial advisors.

SkenarioLabs

SkenarioLabs’ predictive data analytics solution integrates an advanced suite of risk assessment and reporting tools to guide sustainable investment and lending decisions in real estate.

Features

  • Minimal data requirements: delivers accurate insights from address-only data
  • Single-platform integration: provides value, risk, & ESG assessments for all asset classes
  • Streamlined compliance: offers flexible analytics

Who’s it for?

Banks and building societies, real estate investment and advisory firms, and insurance providers.

Tuum

Tuum’s next generation core banking software platform removes legacy constraints, transforms existing business models, builds new business models, and unlocks new revenue streams. Core Banking. Without Limits .

Features

  • Delivers a cloud native, modular, API first software – unlimited scalability and flexibility
  • Features Beyond Core – accounts, lending, cards, & payments from a single platform
  • Offers a highly configurable platform – launch new products in minutes

Who’s it for?

Retail and corporate banks, EMIs, fintechs, and financial institutions.

Zeed

Zeed offers a platform for public companies and asset managers to reach, educate, and engage retail investors using AI and video content.

Features

  • Reaches and educates investors where they already are
  • Utilizes AI-generated financial video content
  • Tracks attribution to share price liquidity and AUM

Who’s it for?

Public companies, asset managers, retail investors, and brokerage platforms.

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Expense Management Platform Fyle Integrates with American Express

Expense Management Platform Fyle Integrates with American Express
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Fyle
  • Expense management innovator Fyle integrated with American Express this week.
  • The integration will enable U.S. Business and Corporate Card members to issue on-demand virtual cards linked to their physical cards.
  • Fyle made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall last year.

Expense management platform Fyle has announced an integration with American Express. The partnership will enable U.S. Business and Corporate Card members to issue on-demand virtual cards from the Fyle platform. The virtual cards feature built-in controls, as well as enhanced security. The integration was made possible by Fyle’s participation in the American Express Sync Commercial Partner Program.

The ability to issue unlimited virtual cards linked to existing physical cards provides a number of benefits. Among them are:

  • Card-specific controls including spending limits and expiration dates
  • Real-time transaction data and notifications via text message
  • Automated receipt collection to accelerate reconciliation via Fyle’s expense management platform

The integration will also provide payment flexibility. Companies can leverage virtual cards to pay suppliers and take advantage of their American Express billing cycle to manage cash flow until their card payment is due.

“We are teaming up with American Express to give our customers access to the control, enhanced security, and cash flow management that come with using an American Express virtual card, alongside the ability to automate receipt tracking, credit card reconciliation, and expense accounting with Fyle,” company founder and CEO Yashwanth Madhusudhan said. “The integration helps us provide an elevated user experience and more value to our customers.”

Founded in 2016, Fyle made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2023. At the conference, Madhusudan showed how Fyle’s technology brings a modern, “fintech-like” experience to bank-issued card programs.

Photo by Paul IJsendoorn

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: 10x Banking, Alumni News, American Express, Daily news, Entrust Datacard, Fintech Rundown, FIS, Fyle, Jack Henry, Lending Club, MX, nCino, Onfido, Temenos, Thought Machine, Trustly, Weekly Alumni News, WorldPay

This week’s Fintech Rundown features partnership and expansion news from a handful of Finovate alums, as well as some interesting fundings in the cryptocurrency and charitable giving space.

Wealth Management

Digital wealth and payments company Mogo expands its relationship with data cloud company Snowflake.

U.K.-based wealth app Chip launches its first Cash ISA.

WiseAlpha unveils new wealth management portal and white-label solution.

Digital Banking

Segura Bank International (SBI), an FI based in Puerto Rico, launches a new digital bank powered by Temenos’ core banking platform.

North Carolina-based Mechanics & Farmers Bank has gone live on the nCino Cloud Banking Platform.

Indian payment solutions provider PayU migrates its credit service LazyPay to Thought Machine’s core banking platform.

10x Banking announces expansion to Africa, starting in South Africa.

Core banking provider Tuum raises $26.8 million (EUR 25 million) in Series B financing.

HSBC U.K. introduces its Cash Pod to expand customer access to cash in areas without bank branches.

Mortgagetech

Phoebus launches its SaaS-based mortgage servicing platform.

Raymond James Bank deploys ICE Mortgage Technology’s Encompass lending solution.

Payments

Atlantic Money secures authorization to bring its money transfer service to the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Overflow, a fintech that facilitates charitable giving, raises $20 million in new funding.

Worldpay completes its separation from FIS.

Airwallex forges multi-year partnership with McLaren Formula 1 team to support its treasury management and cross-border payout operations.

MENA-based payment orchestration solution provider PayTabs Group partners with Saudi Arabian payment-infrastructure-as-a-service fintech Nearpay.

Lending

Pagaya secures a five-year, $280 million credit facility led by BlackRock, JPMorgan, and others.

Allica Bank completes more than £2 billion in lending to businesses in the U.K.

Challenger banking

LendingClub moves closer to fulfilling the requirements to launch a new bank.

Open banking / Open finance

MX and Jack Henry announce an expanded agreement to enhance data sharing.

Trustly integrates MX data enhancement as part of its Open Banking product suite.

Norway-based open banking company Neonomics teams up with credit management firm Lowell.

Expense management / BFM

The Boston Celtics name Brex as its corporate card and spend management partner.

Expense management platform Fyle forges new integration with American Express.

Cryptocurrencies / DeFi

Oobit, a cryptocurrency payments app based in Singapore, raised $25 million in Series A funding.

Fnality to bring its blockchain-based payment system to the U.S. following its successful launch in the U.K.

Embedded finance

EY announces an alliance with embedded finance platform MoneyLion.

Identity Verification/Management

Entrust confirms that it is negotiating a potential acquisition of ID verification firm Onfido.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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Celebrating African-American Voices and Fintech Innovation on the Finovate Stage

Celebrating African-American Voices and Fintech Innovation on the Finovate Stage
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AI Squared, Alumni profile, Bankjoy, DataVisor, Diversity in Fintech, FinGoal, QuickFi, The Lazu Group

To kick off Finovate’s commemoration of Black/African-American History Month this year, we’re highlighting some of the Black and African-American fintech professionals who represented their companies and their fintech innovations at our Finovate conferences in 2023.

Andre Llewellyn – Marketing Consultant/Advisory Board Member with AI Squared

Along with company CTO Michelle Bonat, Andre Llewellyn helped demonstrated the new Generative AI-based features on AI Squared’s platform at FinovateFall last year.

The company’s technology enables financial services companies to leverage Generative AI – and their own data – to maximize their enterprise assets.

A marketing consultant and AI Squared Advisory Board member, Llewellyn is a marketing veteran whose insights helped fuel new product and brand launches for Procter & Gamble, Instagram, Hashflow, and Candy Digital. He is a graduate of the NYU Stern School of Business.

Demo video

Michael Duncan – CEO and Founder of Bankjoy

Michael Duncan’s Bankjoy made its first Finovate appearance in 2016.

The company, which returned to the Finovate stage in 2022 and 2023 for FinovateFall, helps community banks and credit unions access modern banking technology. Bankjoy’s solutions help FIs better target specific market niches and deliver superior digital banking experiences.

Duncan (CEO) co-founded Bankjoy in 2015. Headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan, Bankjoy has more than 60 clients, more than 120 integrations, and serves more than 1 million customers and members of banks and credit unions. This week, the company announced a new partner – Oregon State Credit Union – that will deploy Bankjoy’s online account opening and loan application.

Demo video

Ryan Nichols – Solutions Engineer with DataVisor

Mountain View, California-based DataVisor made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall 2023.

Solutions Engineer Ryan Nichols (shown) joined company CRO Kevin McWey on stage as they demoed DataVisor’s Fraud & Risk Platform. The company’s solution supports the entire fraud workflow in a self-service solution that is single and flexible.

A software developer and solutions architect with experience at firms like CenturyLink and Internet publisher Giant Oak, Nichols joined DataVisor in 2021. As of the spring of 2023, he is both a Cryptocurrency Tracing Certified Examiner (CTCE) and a Certified Cryptocurrency Risk Specialist (CCRS).

Demo video

Nate Gibbons – Chief Experience Officer with QuickFi

Nate Gibbons, QuickFi’s Chief Experience Officer, is no stranger to Finovate audience – nor to the Finovate Best of Show awards.

The company, an innovator in embedded financing for business equipment, has won Best of Show on two occasions: FinovateSpring 2022 and 2023. And Gibbons was part of the winning team both times (along with colleague Jillian Munson, VP of Process & Automation with QuickFi).

An alum of the University of Rochester Simon Business School, Gibbons is also a Certified Lease and Finance Professional (CLFP). Previous to his tenure at QuickFi, he was Project Manager and subsequently Vice President at First American Equipment Finance.

Demo video

Malia Lazu – Founder and CEO of The Lazu Group

Malia Lazu is founder and CEO of The Lazu Group.

The company is an Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion firm that consists of The Urban Labs (services) and Lexicon (products). The Lazu Group made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateSpring, demoing its CULTURL Heritage Calendar that offers “content, ideas, and resources for creating timely communication to promote empathy and curiosity and encourage cross-cultural dialogue.”

Lazu is a speaker, a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an author. Her book, From Intention to Impact: A Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, was published this year. Lazu is also a former banking professional, having worked as EVP and Chief Experience and Culture Officer for Berkshire Bank in Boston.

Demo video

Matthew Parker – Founder and CEO of ModernTax

ModernTax founder and CEO Matthew Parker introduced his company to Finovate audiences last year at FinovateSpring. ModernTax is a data company that makes tax and financial data on non-public entities more accessible. The company has created a verification platform that includes more than seven million businesses, and ModernTax has validated tax records for “hundreds of thousands” of them.

Before launching ModernTax, Parker was co-founder and CEO of Rapidly.co, a SaaS platform that connects accountants, enrolled agents, and tax professionals to their clients online. We caught up with him last fall to talk about the founding of ModernTax and what it means to have a more transparent financial ecosystem.

Demo video.

Ariam Sium – VP of Product with FinGoal

FinGoal first introduced itself to Finovate audiences at FinovateFall in 2021. But it was the company’s return to the Finovate stage the following spring that earned the Colorado-based fintech its first Best of Show award.

Led by Ariam Sium, VP of Product (shown) and Jenn Underwood, Product Analyst, FinGoal’s demo of its Aggregator Switch Kit showed how developers can readily transition from their current data aggregator to access the most enriched and reliable data available.

Finovate VP and host of the Finovate podcast Greg Palmer sat down with Sium in the wake of FinGoal’s Best of Show win last year. Check out their conversation from last summer.

Demo video

Benjamin Harvey – CEO of AI Squared CEO

AI Squared made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2023. The company, founded in 2019 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., specializes in helping companies integrate AI and machine learning functionality into any web-based application. Leading the company’s demo was founder and CEO Benjamin Harvey.

With a Master’s degree and a Doctor of Science in Computer Science – as well as years spent as both a Research and Assistant Professor – Harvey brings a wealth of academic experience to the challenge of entrepreneurship and innovation in the fintech space.

We discussed this, and other aspects of his background and goals, in a Finovate blog interview back in August of last year.

Demo video

Photo by Christina Morillo

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FinovateEurope 2024 Sneak Peek Series: Part 3

FinovateEurope 2024 Sneak Peek Series: Part 3
By Madeline Clines Posted on
Categories: Centi, DashDevs, Delega, FinovateEurope 2024, FinovateEurope 2024 Sneak Peek, Kern AI, NF Innova, Torus, Tradelite Solutions

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on February 27. Register today using this link and save 20%.

Centi

Centi introduces a revolutionary digital finance platform, enabling seamless cash-to-digital-currency conversion and micropayments for unbanked people.

Features

  • Delivers efficient, low-value micropayment processing for everyone
  • Offers simple sign up for easy access, including unbanked individuals
  • Provides advanced, scalable infrastructure that supports global transactions

Who’s it for?

Financial institutions, merchants, and both unbanked and banked individuals.

DashDevs

Fintech Core by DashDevs is a white label, modular banking software solution for the creation and quick launch of digital banking and payment products as apps or on the web.

Features

  • Offers source code based modular fintech solution
  • Accelerates time to launch for digital banks
  • Includes ready to use modules

Who’s it for?

Banks, startups, and small-and-medium-sized businesses.

Delega

Delega makes treasury easy by fully digitizing delegation of authority between corporates and their banks.

Features

  • Offers improved efficiency
  • Improves customer experience
  • Lowers operational risk and hassle of collaboration

Who’s it for?

Mid-and-large-sized corporations and banks.

Kern AI

Kern AI is a German innovation-focused startup crafting specialized generative AI applications for the financial sector.

Features

  • Deploy reliable and secure GenAI applications within days
  • Streamline knowledge-intensive tasks
  • Test safely and rapidly with LLMs

Who’s it for?

Banks, financial institutions, and insurance companies.

NF Innova

NF Innova helps banks, lenders, and microfinance institutions provide state-of-the-art digital banking services to their end-customers, decrease their costs, and increase their level of innovation.

Features

  • Creates unique personalized retail banking experiences
  • Delivers Right User experience (UX) according to dynamic profiling
  • Provides opportunity for micro-segmentation

Who’s it for?

Banks of all sizes, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), and lenders across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Torus

Torus is a SaaS intelligence platform for banks and payment providers that improves their profits on card transactions by 15-40% by analyzing and predicting Visa and Mastercard fees.

Features

  • Delivers transaction-level scheme fee prediction
  • Offers merchant-level profitability calculation
  • Highlights real IC++ pricing

Who’s it for?

Issuers and acquirers that are principal members of Visa and/or Mastercard (banks, EMIs, PIs).

Tradelite Solutions

Tradelite Solutions’ web3 financial education world, Mogaland, is shaping the future of personal finance with game-based learning, a token economy, and unprecedented data-driven financial personals.

Features

  • Makes finance accessible and fun through game-based learning
  • Empowers everyone to boost financial literacy with web3 incentives
  • Creates a next gen DeFi marketplace with a token and data powered economy

Who’s it for?

Millennials and GenZ individuals who want to improve their personal finance skills and crypto-related product and service providers.

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Liberis Teams Up with Identity Risk Management Company Alloy

Liberis Teams Up with Identity Risk Management Company Alloy
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alloy, Alumni News, Daily news
  • Embedded finance platform Liberis announced a partnership with identity risk management innovator Alloy.
  • The partnership will enable Liberis to leverage Alloy’s platform to add automated compliance verifications to the funding application process.
  • Alloy made its Finovate debut at our developers conference, FinDEVrSilicon Valley 2016.

Embedded finance platform Liberis has teamed up with identity risk management innovator Alloy. Courtesy of the newly announced partnership, Liberis will leverage Alloy’s technology to integrate automated compliance verifications directly into the funding application process. The integration enables Liberis to accelerate its international growth and simplify the merchant experience.

“Alloy is designed to help businesses take control of fraud, credit, and compliance risk, while growing with the clearest picture of their customers,” Alloy CEO Tommy Nicholas said. “We’re confident that our partnership will help Liberis achieve its goal and provide its merchants with a seamless onboarding experience.”

LIberis will gain access and integrations to a global network of more than 190 data sources to streamline KYC, KYB, and AML operations and stop financial crime. The platform will also support the creation of custom, white-label onboarding experiences for partners.

“Alloy’s platform will allow us to enter new markets quickly, optimize our merchants’ fully digitized application for funding and scale to meet our partners’ demand, while also maintaining our high standards for compliance,” Liberis’ Chief Legal & Compliance Officer Alexis Alexander said. Alexander added that one main challenge with compliance checks is that they can increase friction during the onboarding process. To this end, Alloy’s identity risk solution automates and manages onboarding, fraud monitoring, and credit underwriting processes, reducing the amount of paperwork. For those businesses that need more extensive documentation, Liberis will provide a custom, white-label experience tailored to the needs of merchants and partners alike.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in New York City, Alloy made its Finovate debut at our developers conference, FinDEVrSiliconValley 2016. Today, more than 500 banks and fintechs have partnered with Alloy to manage identity risk at origination as well as throughout the customer lifecycle. Alloy processes millions of identity decisions daily for the world’s top banks and fintechs in 40 countries across North America, EMEA, Latin America, and APAC. The company has raised more than $207 million in funding from investors including Avid Ventures and Felicis.

Just a few days ago, Alloy issued its 2024 State of Fraud Benchmark Report. The report featured some good news on the fight against fraud. According to the 450+ financial industry fraud decision makers who responded to the firm’s survey, the number of reported fraud attacks has begun to “even out – and for some organizations, to decelerate.” Nevertheless, there were devils in the details, including the number of companies reporting an increase in attempted fraud attacks via consumer accounts (61% of companies) and as well as through business accounts (54% of companies).

“It’s encouraging to see companies getting fraud volume under control using the wide array of identity data and technology available on the market,” Nicholas said when the report was release in late January. “But fraud remains a critical problem because bad actors are always finding new tools – such as generative AI – to steal increasingly large amounts of money.” Indeed, Alloy’s report noted that 56% of respondents lost more than EUR 500,000 ($537,000) to fraud in the last 12 months. Over the same time period, a quarter of respondents had lost more than EUR 1 million ($1.7 million).

Photo by SHOCKPhoto by Szoka Sebastian

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Privakey Unveils Single Sign-On Solution for Enterprises

Privakey Unveils Single Sign-On Solution for Enterprises
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Privakey
  • Authentication platform Privakey has launched its Single Sign-On (SSO) solution, Privakey SSO.
  • The new offering enables enterprises to leverage passwordless authentication and authorization.
  • Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Privakey made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017 in New York.

Passwordless authentication solution provider Privakey launched its Single Sign-On (SSO) solution last week. Designed for enterprises, Privakey SSO responds to the demand for passwordless authentication as cybercriminals leverage social engineering to take advantage of traditional password-based systems.

“Privakey SSO is designed for speed and simplicity in both implementation and user experience,” company CEO Charles Durkin explained. “Small and medium-sized businesses can have Privakey SSO up and running within hours. Large enterprises benefit from a single, highly secure passwordless gateway to authorized applications and services.”

The new offering leverages a strong cryptographic authenticator to incorporate biometric data, PIN, and passkey for both authentication and authorization. Users supply the biometric or PIN, and a device-based secure passkey provides an additional layer of security by verifying the user’s identity as initially registered. Privakey SSO removes the inconvenience of passwords and out-of-band codes. Businesses can deploy the technology as a standalone, company identity platform, or integrate it to enable passwordless login to enterprise identity solutions from companies ranging from Microsoft to Google to Okta.

“We’ve engineered our solution to be fast, easy to use, scalable, and robust, ready to help you eliminate passwords – the primary target of cybercriminals,” Durkin said. He added that the solution was “ideal” for a variety of verticals including financial services, ecommerce, and IT.

Privakey is currently inviting companies interested in its technology to participate in its Privakey SSO Free Beta Test. The beta testing period runs from January 30, 2024 to May 31, 2024.

Headquartered in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, and founded in 2016, Privakey made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017 in New York. At the conference, the company demoed its cloud-based, password-free alternative to identity authentication that is consistent, convenient, and secure.

Photo by Aphiwat chuangchoem

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BILL Taps Adyen to Deliver Acquiring and Issuing Experiences

BILL Taps Adyen to Deliver Acquiring and Issuing Experiences
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Bill.com
  • BILL has selected Adyen to offer advanced acquiring and issuing experiences for its accounts payable and accounts receivable solutions.
  • The company has integrated Adyen’s card issuing tools into its virtual card offering.
  • Formerly known as Bill.com, the company rebranded to BILL in 2022.

Small business financial automation solutions provider BILL unveiled this week it has selected payments technology platform Adyen to offer advanced acquiring and issuing experiences for its accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) solutions.

BILL has integrated Adyen’s card issuing services into its virtual card offering as part of its AP and AR solutions. The California-based company expects Adyen’s technology to drive more opportunities for SMBs and help them deliver more seamless payment experiences.

“We are proud to be a part of BILL’s focus on helping SMBs thrive as we scale our relationship into card issuing with a category leader in financial operations,” said Adyen SVP of Platforms and Financial Products Blake Breathitt. “With our licensing framework and embedded financial products both integrated together, we look forward to being a part of BILL’s robust ecosystem of card products and services.”

Sweden-based Adyen was founded in 2006 and offers payment acceptance, embedded payments, virtual card capabilities, authentication, risk management, insights, and more. Among the company’s corporate clients are Meta, Uber, H&M, eBay, and Microsoft.

BILL was founded as Bill.com in 2006, went public in 2019, and rebranded to its current name in 2022. The company has a current market capitalization of $8.19 billion. Regarding today’s move with Adyen, company Chief Commercial Officer Loren Padelford said, “Helping our SMB customers manage their cash flow means making their payments easy and secure. Because of their trust in BILL, our customers can easily make their payments and get back to running their business.”

Photo by Pixabay

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Finovate Global Mexico: Banorte’s Digital Bank, Amazon’s BNPL Partnership with Kueski Pay

Finovate Global Mexico: Banorte’s Digital Bank, Amazon’s BNPL Partnership with Kueski Pay
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Kuspit, MasterCard, Nufi, Prestadero, Sr. Pago, Temenos

This week in Finovate Global we take a look at some recent fintech developments in Mexico.

First up is news that Grupo Financiero Banorte has launched Mexico’s first fully digital bank, bineo. The company noted that it hopes to add 2.8 million new customers in the next five years.

“The launch of bineo is a great milestone in the history of Grupo Financiero Banorte that will allow us to meet all needs: those who prefer a human-digital combination and those who seek 100% digital banking, with the financial security that has always characterized the institution,” Grupo Financiero Banorte chairman Carlos Hank Gonzalez said.

Bimeo offers a pair of accounts for customers. The bimeo Total Account allows for unlimited deposits. The Light Account has a monthly cap of 3,000 UDIS (investment units), which equals approximately 24,000 Mexican pesos.

Account holders will have access to both a digital and a physical debit card that includes a feature that enables them to allocate their savings toward specific goals. Card holders can use their physical card at more than 10,000 Banorte ATMs. Additionally, in a nod to sustainability, the physical card consists of biodegradable materials.

The new digital bank also offers financing products for bineo account holders. Customers will be able to apply for digital loans in amounts ranging from 5,000 to 200,000 MXN. Repayment terms range from six to 24 months. The bank also pledges competitive rates and instant access to funds once loans are approved.

“We imagine a bank that puts people at the centre, and we created it!” bineo CEO Victor Moya said. “We think in a different way of managing finances, where personalization is the heart of what we do. Bineo will offer new products and services based on customer needs so as not to confine them to a product designed by us.”

A partnership between Amazon Mexico and Kueski Pay will bring a new, installment payment option to Mexican consumers. Currently available only to select Amazon customers, the payment option will be available to all eligible Amazon customers “soon.”

Pago en Quincenas with Kueski Pay is the name of the new payment option. It enables payment for purchases in biweekly installments, helping make shopping on Amazon more affordable to many Mexican consumers. The option also helps deal with the fact that less than a third of the adult population in Mexico has a credit card. By leveraging Kueski Pay, one of Mexico’s most popular buy now, pay later platforms, Amazon Mexico helps expand purchase financing beyond both credit as well as debit cards.

“Our agreement with Amazon demonstrates the need Mexicans have for more flexible , secure, and inclusive payment alternatives,” Kueski Pay SVP of Sales Lisset May said. “Kueski Pay enables merchants to deliver more innovative shopping experiences and help Mexican consumers live their personal finances with more excitement.”

Kueski Pay has provided nearly 15 million loans to date. The company notes that 1 in 4 of Mexico’s most relevant merchants offer the payment option. Customers who opt for Pago en Quincenas with Kueski Pay can choose from plans of up to four interest-free biweekly payments as part of an introductory offer, or as many as 12 biweekly payments. Payments can be made by linked bank account, debit card, or cash at participating networks. A one-time application must be completed during the Amazon checkout process the first time a customer chooses the Kueski Pay option.

Finovate has been happy to host a handful of fintechs from Mexico over the years. Some of our Mexico-based alums include:

Nufi

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Nufi made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021 in New York. The company demoed its Fintech Legos offering, a set of modular building blocks that enable firms to build their own financial solutions. At the conference, Nufi showed how its Fintech Legos could be used to build a modular, adaptable KYC process that could be deployed by any company.

Sr. Pago

Mexico City-based fintech Sr. Pago was founded in 2010 and made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. At the conference, the company’s CEO and co-founder Pablo Gonzalez Vargas demoed the Sr. Pago Card + Reader, which help small businesses and individuals accept card payments for services and have those payments loaded onto the recipient’s Mastercard. The company was acquired by Mexico-based online lending platform Konfío in 2021.

Prestadero

Also headquartered in Mexico City, Prestadero made its Finovate debut in 2013 at FinovateSpring. Founded in 2011, Prestadero was the first fully legally compliant and operational P2P lending platform in Mexico. At FinovateSpring, the company demonstrated how its proprietary management software enabled Prestadero to parse out declined loans in seconds and offer rates for approved loans in less than a minute.

Kuspit

Founded in 2010 and based in Mexico City, Kuspit is a regulated broker/dealer in Mexico. The company targets retail investors with little investing experience and offers an investing community in which learning, sharing, and investing “dynamically integrate with one another.” Making its Finovate debut in 2012 at FinovateSpring, the company showed how it uses visualization to help investors understand the relationship between risk and return.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Regulators in India ordered digital payments provider Paytm to cease much of its business operations due to non-compliance issues.
  • Mastercard and SadaPay extended their partnership to support the financial needs of SMEs and freelancers in Pakistan.
  • Indian private sector bank Karnataka Bank teamed up with financial services platform Northern Arc Capital.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Paytech Paysecure announced its intention to expand into Latin America, with an initial focus on Brazil.
  • Mexican financial group Grupo Financiero Banorte launched its new digital bank, Bineo.
  • Mexico-based Kueski Pay teamed up with Amazon to launch a new deferred payment offering, Pago en Quincenas.

Asia-Pacific

  • China announced plans to revise its AML rules to accommodate cryptocurrency transactions.
  • Philippine-based Asia United Bank (AUB) announced that its HelloMoney e-wallet solution is now accepted in South Korea, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
  • KrAsia offered “seven key takeaways” about the fintech industry in Thailand.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian fintech Miden to join Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort.
  • IT Web profiled South African fintech SOLmate amid growing demand for its digital wallet.
  • Fintech Futures interviewed Principal and Head of Africa at CommerzVentures Hangwi Muambadzi on the growth of fintech in Africa.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Digital engineering company Nagarro teamed up with Temenos to help build banks in Romania and Poland.
  • German payment processing provider Unzer launched its mobile POS solutions in Austria and Luxembourg this week.
  • Garanti BBVA, a financial services provider based in Turkey, introduced a new Request Payment feature via its mobile and online banking services.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

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Quavo Fraud & Disputes Launches New Capabilities to its Dispute Management Platform

Quavo Fraud & Disputes Launches New Capabilities to its Dispute Management Platform
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Quavo Fraud & Disputes introduced new automated ACH capabilities to its dispute management platform.
  • Among the new features is a verbal attestation capability that eliminates the requirement of a digital or manual signature.
  • Quavo founder and CEO Joseph McLean will lead a conversation on modernizing fraud and dispute management on February 6th as part of the Finovate Webinar series.

Quavo unveiled new automated ACH capabilities to its dispute management platform, QFD (Quavo Fraud & Disputes) this week. The enhancements make additions to the intake questionnaire, and add a new verbal attestation functionality for WSUD compliance.

Quavo Chief Technology Officer and co-founder David Chmielewski said that the enhancements will reduce friction. “For ACH, the process is cumbersome for consumers,” he explained, “with banks requiring physical or digital signage signatures.” Quavo’s solution to this challenge was innovative. “We poured over Nacha regulations and developed a verbal attestation solution where accountholders aren’t bothered by manual signature requirements,” Chmielewski said. “Quavo reimagined ACH requirements for the automated back-office operations needed to support account holders today and in the future. And this is only the beginning.”

This new release includes enhanced intake questionnaires as well as additional claim reasons to support back-office ACH investigations. The enhanced functionality also includes automated return capability which streamlines back office operations via straight-through processing on ACH disputes. The platform also now offers a new signer disclosure that allows verbal attestation during claim intake. To enable this capability, the platform prompts an agent to read a disclosure to the account holder, which satisfies Nacha’s WSUD requirement with a physical or digital signature.

Quavo’s first customer to go live with the enhanced ACH functionality has completed more than 12,000 automated returns and recovered $7.69 million in funds. This top 25 bank accomplished all of this without human intervention.

Quavo has raised $11 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. The company includes FINTOP Capital and JAM FINTOP among its investors. Founded in 2025, Quavo is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware.

Join me February 6th for my conversation with Quavo Fraud & Disputes founder and CEO Joseph McLean on 4 Game-Changing Benefits of Modernizing Your Fraud and Dispute Management.

Photo by Praswin Prakashan on Unsplash

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The OCC Fined City National Bank $65 Million: 8 Steps to Avoid a Similar Fate

The OCC Fined City National Bank $65 Million: 8 Steps to Avoid a Similar Fate
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Thought Leadership

This week, U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined City National $65 million in a civil money penalty. The OCC said the California-based bank “engaged in unsafe or unsound practices,” stating that it failed to establish effective risk management and internal controls. The bank also allegedly violated the bank secrecy act.

Additionally, the agency sent City National a cease-and-desist order that stipulates the bank must correct its actions to improve its strategic plan and operational risk management. Specifically, the OCC wants to see the bank improve its internal controls, compliance risk management, anti-money laundering and fair lending practices, and investment management operations.

This is not only bad news for City National, but also for banks across the U.S. That’s because, given last year’s banking crisis, regulators have had their ears a bit closer to the ground than usual and are more willing to strike fines on both banks and fintechs.

So what’s a bank to do in the midst of increased scrutiny? Here are eight actions to take to avoid a similar fate.

Strengthen third-party risk management

In the era of banking-as-a-service (BaaS), multiple aspects of banking leverage third parties, and for good reason. Using a third party fintech to boost security or a lending-as-a-service provider to offer a much-needed service for customers helps bankers focus on what they do best. However, banks must establish auditable processes for managing third-party risks and implement controls to mitigate risks associated with third-party relationships, especially those related to operational, compliance, and fraud risks. And this is not a set-it-and-forget-it action. Once the process is in place, banks need to routinely monitor third party relationships.

Enhance internal controls

Once you take a look at your processes with third parties, examine your own, in-house operations. Modernize and strengthen your internal controls to detect and prevent risk management and compliance issues. And don’t slip on conducting regular compliance audits to identify and correct any weaknesses.

Improve operational risk event reporting

After surveying both your internal and external processes, establish a risk reporting system that can quickly flag any irregularities. The reporting system should be transparent and efficient in order to allow for a quick response from the right party or parties involved. A fast turnaround will help mitigate risk.

Enhance fraud risk management

While internal slip-ups pose their own threat, fraudsters are an even bigger danger, as they can be difficult to predict and control. Make sure you have robust fraud risk management practices in place, including continuous monitoring and proactive measures to prevent fraud. Because fraudsters will strike wherever they find a vulnerability, you need to ensure your entire team is on board. Stay vigilant by conducting regular training exercises for all employees to help them recognize and respond to fraud.

Address discrimination concerns

Even if your organization hasn’t been accused of redlining, proactively create a structure around your fair lending practices. Having a well-documented process in-place will serve you well if you are ever flagged for potential unfair practices. And don’t get complacent. Review your lending practices on a regular basis to ensure fairness and compliance with anti-discrimination laws.

Strengthen your bank’s financial position

Save your reputation by establishing a process that continuously monitors and assesses your bank’s financial position. Quickly address any issues that may impact your banks’ stability. Have a plan in place in the event things go wrong. Establish a strategy to address losses, such as rising costs from lower deposits. The strategy should include proactive measures that will help maintain financial health.

Create a compliance-driven culture

Regulatory action is on the rise, not only in the U.S., but across the globe. Adhering to regulations requires compliance from all levels of the organization, so permeating your culture with compliance will help ensure everyone plays by the rules. And because compliance is dynamic, be sure to regularly review and update your policies to ensure they meet current standards.

Cooperate with regulators

Let’s face it, systems fail and everyone makes mistakes. In the event the regulators come knocking at your bank’s door, be cooperative. Fostering a positive relationship with regulatory bodies and keeping communication open can go a long way. Be proactive in remediating the issues and making the necessary corrections to avoid further enforcement.

Photo by Pixabay

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Meet the Influential Voices on FinovateEurope’s Top Agenda Topics

Meet the Influential Voices on FinovateEurope’s Top Agenda Topics
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2024, Speaker series

It’s the first of February, which means that FinovateEurope is taking place this month on the 27th through the 28th at the O2 in London. If you haven’t registered yet, now is the time! The agenda is packed with fintech’s most relevant topics and features 36 companies that will demo their new technology on stage in Finovate’s signature 7-minute demo format.

In addition to the demos, there will be 86 speakers (and counting) at the event. We can’t wait to feature insights and discussions from the top European fintech thought leaders. Take a look at what to expect.

Nina Schick, Author, Generative AI Expert, Founder at Tamang Ventures

Schick is an author, advisor, and keynote speaker, specializing in how technology is transforming politics and society in the 21st century. She is an expert in synthetic media, deepfakes, disinformation, cybersecurity, and the geopolitics of technology. Schick helps organizations and businesses understand and navigate the geopolitical risks and opportunities posed by the exponential technological changes of our age.

Her keynote address, Will AI Be More Profound Than The Invention Of The Internet? What Do Financial Institutions Really Need To Understand About Generative AI?, will take a look at the use cases for generative AI in banking, the growth and future of conversational AI, potential use cases for augmented reality and virtual reality, the metaverse in banking, and new threats posed by deep fakes.

Jillian Godsil, Author and Broadcaster at Coin Telegraph

Godsil is an award winning journalist, author, and broadcaster in Web3. She changed the law in Ireland in 2014, allowing bankrupt candidates to run for public office, before running as an independent candidate in the European Parliamentary Elections in 2014, earning 13,500 votes – not enough to get elected but enough to make a difference.

In her keynote address, From Crypto Ice Age To Crypto Winter To Crypto Spring?, Godsil will examine the risks and opportunities of decentralized finance and a new crypto universe geared towards building a new internet native financial system. She’ll also offer her take on how regulators across the globe are currently viewing crypto.

Manas Chawla, CEO at London Politica

Chawla is a political risk expert and the Founder and CEO of London Politica, the world’s largest political risk advisory for social impact. He has specialist expertise in consulting on “technopolitics,” corporate diplomacy, and crisis management, and has advised the United Nations, Red Cross, and a range of C-suite executives at Fortune 500 companies, and tech unicorns. 

Chawla will be giving a keynote titled, The Global Economic & Geo-Political Outlook – What Are The Five Things You Need To Know. His discussion will inform the audience on how the high interest rate environment will continue to impact banks, investors, and fintechs; offer his predictions on the potential of future bank failures; and share how geo-political issues will shape the future.

Analyst All Stars

Also worth showcasing are the analysts participating in our Analyst All Stars Session:

  • Philip Benton, Principal Analyst, Financial Services at Omdia
  • Suraya Randawa, Head of Omnichannel Experience at Curinos
  • Maria Adele Di Comite, Research Director at IDC Financial Insights

Investor All Stars

And don’t forget to stick around for our Investor All Stars panel, moderated by Claire Mongeau, Investor at Founders Factory, to find out where the smart money is investing in fintech:

  • Robin Scher, Head of Fintech Investment at Lloyds Banking Group
  • Sophie Winwood, Operator Partner at Foxe Capital
  • Asaf Horesh, Managing Partner at Vintage Investment Partners
  • Dallin Bills, Principal at Battery Ventures

Photo by Enrique Zafra

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