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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
Quavounveiled 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.
This week, U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) finedCity 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.
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
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on February 27. Register today using this link and save 20%.
ATMO Technologies
ATMO Technologies allows corporations to fast track their net zero progress by achieving reductions within the supply chain. Financial institutions can extend their loan book and track their ESG progress with ATMO.
Features
Extends lending portfolios
Measures ESG progress
Brings organizations closer to their net zero targets
Who’s it for?
Banks, retailers, brands, and SME suppliers.
EasyLodge
EasyLodge offers a mortgage application and instant credit decisioning software.
Features
Utilizes automation to complete finance applications
Delivers 20 second credit decisioning and instant finance contracting
Uses a machine-learning-enabled credit engine for instant credit decisioning
Who’s it for?
Lenders of any type and size.
Realmonitor
Realmonitor offers banks a mobile platform for acquiring large volumes of engaged mortgage and personal loan customers.
Features
Provides a stream of engaged mortgage and personal loan clients
Features a scalable solution to match the bank’s operational capacity
Offers an ideal entry point for a comprehensive housing ecosystem strategy
Who’s it for?
Banks, credit unions, and mortgage institutions.
Visualizy
The Visualizy embedded banking and payment solution aims to solve the chaos in banking by helping companies eliminate manual processes and enhance security in their payment and financial operations.
Features
Enables companies to integrate with several banks and FIs in a modern way
Automates payment operations and cash management
Complies with ISO-20022 – all through one secure integration
Who’s it for?
Banks, payment providers, credit unions, EMIs, and financial institutions.
WELREX
WELREX’s game-changing digital investment management platform empowers Independent Relationship Managers (IRMs) to exceed clients’ expectations and enables high net worth individuals to make the most of their wealth.
Features
Delivers tailored investment solutions to IRMs and their ultra high net worth and high net worth clients
Offers a proprietary user experience on top of an established SaaS platform
Maximizes results reflecting clients’ best interests
Who’s it for?
Wealth managers, IRMs, and ultra high net worth and high net worth individuals.
This week in Tales from the Crypto we look at some traditional and alternative ways that investors are backing their favorite cryptocurrency companies, examine a new report explaining why the U.S. lags behind its peers when it comes to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and learn about U.S. Department of Justice charges – and a guilty plea- in a $1.9 billion dollar crypto pyramid scheme.
Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum scores new funding
Has crypto winter yielded to the year’s first crypto unicorn? Swiss crypto banking group Sygnumhas raised $40 million in strategic funding in a round led by Azimut Holdings. The round gives the firm a valuation of $900 million, not quite enough for a unicorn horn, but more than enough to raise not just eyebrows but new expectations at what might be in store for cryptocurrency businesses and the funds that invest in them.
The company will use the capital to fuel its expansion into new markets in both Europe and Asia. The investment will also accelerate development of Sygnum solutions such as its bank-to-bank platform, currently supporting crypto offerings from more than 15 banks and FIs around the world.
“Our core thesis has always been that Future has Heritage, and our strategy to build trust via regulation and good governance has guided us throughout all market cycles,” Sygnum co-founder and Group CEO Mathias Imbach said. He underscored the challenge of “closing a successful funding round” in the current financial environment, which fellow co-founder and CEO of the company’s Singapore office Gerald Goh called “a testament to Sygnum’s strong and unique position as a leading regulated financial institution in the global digital asset industry.”
Report: U.S. progress on CBDCs lagging other nations
But according to a new report, the future of any U.S.-created CBDC has plenty of issues – even without the antipathy of the once (and maybe future) U.S. president. According to a report from think tank Atlantic Council, the U.S. is falling behind other countries that are exploring or developing CBDCs. The Council claimed that the U.S. Federal Reserve has deployed “less than 20” people to work on research and development on CBDCs. By contrast, the Council said that the People’s Bank of China has more than 300 people working on their CBDC project. The effort in the U.K. was also praised compared to the U.S., with the Council favorably noting that the Bank of England had deployed a joint task force including both the Treasury and Parliament.
The Atlantic Council says that there is an innovation gap between the U.S. and other developed nations when it comes to CBDCs. The Council also criticized the relatively slow rollout of the U.S. interbank settlement system compared to similar systems in Europe that were deployed sooner. And while the Council accepts that there’s no reason to “disrupt the currency that underpins the global economy,” it still believes that the U.S. dollar needs to “innovate.”
PayPal invests $5 million stablecoin in Mesh
The Fed may not have much faith in crypto. But PayPal is putting $5 million worth of its own crypto to work in support of embedded crypto payments startup Mesh. PayPal announced that it has invested $5 million worth of its own U.S. dollar denominated stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), in the company, which facilitates digital asset transfers and account aggregation.
This investment, announced this week, marks the first time PYUSD has been used as the funding instrument for an investment by PayPal Ventures. “The shift toward digital currencies requires a stable instrument that is both digitally native and easily connected to fiat currency like the U.S. dollar,” PayPal president and CEO Dan Schulman said last year when PYUSD was introduced. “Our commitment to responsible innovation and compliance, and our track record delivering new experiences to our customers, provides the foundation necessary to contribute to the growth of digital payments through PayPal USD.”
Founded in 2020, Mesh enables companies to integrate crypto payments and transfers directly into their existing platforms. The firm has more than 300 integrations with exchanges, digital wallets, and brokerages. This week’s funding follows a $22 million Series A funding round Mesh closed in September. Bam Azizi is co-founder and CEO.
DOJ announces charges, guilty plea in cryptocurrency fraud scheme
On the “Law & Order: Crypto Edition” front, the U.S. Department of Justice has levied criminal charges against two individuals – and accepted the guilty plea of a third – for their involvement in a cryptocurrency fraud scheme called HyperFund. The SEC charged two of the three individuals civilly for their role in what they allege to be a $1.89 billion cryptocurrency pyramid scheme.
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Erek L. Barron, called the amount of fraud “staggering.” Barron added “whether it’s cryptocurrency fraud, or any other financial frauds, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
The scheme ran from June 2020 through November 2022, alleges the Department of Justice. The scheme’s conspirators are alleged to have told investors that they would earn daily returns of between 0.5% and 1% until their initial investment doubled or tripled thanks in part to revenues from crypto mining operations. The DOJ alleges that HyperFund began blocking investors from withdrawing their money in July of 2021 and the scheme collapsed the following year.
According to the SEC, one of the conspirators who agreed to settle civil charges of violating securities laws against fraud, had received more than $3.7 million from the HyperFund platform and its investors. This individual is also the one who has already pled guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud. The maximum sentence for all three conspirators is five years in prison if convicted.
Odds and Ends
Former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne joinedCoinbase’s advisory council.
Cryptocurrency platform Kraken introduced new Chief Operating and Product Officer Gilles BianRosa.
Reuters reported that FTX has abandoned the idea of relaunching its exchange and will instead pursue a liquidation with a goal of repaying customers in full.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared his thoughts on the present and future of cryptocurrencies in a blog post this week.
Blackhawk Network is acquiring incentive delivery technology company Tango Card.
Founded in 2009, Tango Card has experienced 800% growth since 2018.
Terms of the deal, which is expected to close later this year, were undisclosed.
It takes two to tango. That’s what prepaid card and payments products provider Blackhawk Network (BHN) may have realized this week. The California-based company has acquired incentive delivery technology company Tango Card for an undisclosed amount.
Once the deal closes, BHN clients, along with Tango’s existing customers, will benefit from Tango’s B2B incentives platform and customer support. Tango was founded in 2009 to help enterprises reward their employees with a prepaid card, charity donation, direct deposit, or via a selection of more than 1,000 gift cards. The company, which first demoed at FinovateFall 2016, experienced significant growth in the past six years, having grown 9x, equivalent to 800%.
“Joining BHN at this time provides a once-in-a-company opportunity to continue innovating in this space, better support our customers’ evolving global needs and create awesome experiences for recipients,” said Tango Founder and CEO David Leeds.
BHN, which is best known for its gift cards and egifts, also offers rewards and incentives tools for enterprises to gift employees, customers, and suppliers. Additionally, the company has a digital payment system for corporate payouts, relief support, and more.
“We have been a longtime partner to Tango and were also an early investor. We are thrilled with the opportunity to combine the best of BHN with the best of Tango to provide leading, global, scalable solutions and innovation to the rewards and incentives industry,” said BHN President and CEO Talbott Roche.
The deal, which marks BHN’s 14th acquisition since it was founded in 2001, is expected to close later this year.
Digital banking technology company Plumery forged a technology partnership with identity verification platform Sumsub.
Via the partnership, Plumery has integrated Sumsub’s verification technology into its banking engagement platform.
Headquartered in London, Sumsub made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin.
Mobile and digital banking technology company Plumery will integrate verification technology from Sumsub into its banking engagement platform. The integration comes courtesy of a newly announced technology partnership between the two companies. Of Sumsub’s various capabilities, Plumery first will launch Sumsub’s Know Your Customer (KYC) suite.
“Using our APIs, Plumery has been able to create a completely seamless end-to-end onboarding journey for its users,” Sumsub co-founder and CEO Andrew Sever said. “Through this partnership, we can now combine their innovation-focused digital experience … with the highest levels of compliance and fraud protection, provided by our platform.”
Plumery’s banking engagement platform, Headless, enables banks, fintechs, and financial institutions of various types to build apps on top of its APIs. Headless can be deployed without requiring companies to make changes to the user interface (UI) of their apps or to their core banking technology. The partnership with Sumsub will add KYC and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions to verify new customers by leveraging data such as email addresses, tax residency, and proof of address (PoA). The solution will also screen identity documents and make sure new users pass liveness tests as part of the verification process.
The goal of the combined offering is to give both traditional and challenger banks the ability to provide customizable onboarding flows for their customers while remaining fully compliant. In a statement, the companies noted that the integration can save businesses up to 80% on implementation costs and time. The integration also saves companies more than 50% of onboarding costs for each customer.
“Digital and mobile onboarding has become an essential part of any digital banking experience in the last five years,” Plumery CEO Ben Goldin said. “Now, together with Sumsub, our joint customers can integrate this capability faster and more cheaply than ever before, to launch new propositions and whole banks in record time.”
Founded in 2015, Sumsub – which stands for “Sum & Substance” – has raised more than $37 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. The company made its Finovate debut four years ago at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin. At the conference Sumsub demoed its all-in-one technical and legal platform that manages all of a company’s KYC/KYB/AML requirements. The solution enables firms to covert more customers, accelerate the verification process, lower costs, and reduce fraud.
Sumsub began the year with an announcement that it had joined the MENA FinTech Association (MFTA). The company’s new membership in the six-year old organization will help it boost business growth in the Middle East and Northern Africa, as well as raise awareness about the challenges of identity fraud in the region.
Venue will help Ramp improve its Procurement product with purchase orders that automatically sync up to accounting platforms, collaboration tools, and new approval workflows.
Venue was founded in 2022. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Business finance automation platform Rampannounced it has acquired procurement startup Venue and that it has made improvements to its Procurement product automations. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Ramp expects the acquisition will help it expand beyond corporate cards as it tackles inefficiencies across more of the financial tech stack.
Venue was founded in 2022 to help businesses simplify how they review, approve, and manage the cost of vendor relationships. The company’s tool helps employees request what they need, while offering finance teams visibility into all vendor requests spending. A year after launch, Venue was supporting clients with 500 to 1,000 employees and had raised $1.2 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Exponent Founders Capital, and Basecase Capital.
“With Venue, we built a frictionless purchasing experience for employees and empowered businesses to buy what they needed while staying in-policy,” said Venue CEO and Co-founder TK Kong. “We’re excited to bring our expertise to Ramp and together help enable more efficiency, productivity, and seamless decision-making for our customers.”
Along with today’s acquisition, Ramp is launching improvements to its Procurement product with support from the Venue team. The combined team will offer businesses more control over and insight into employee spend, speed up review cycles, and help organizations save costs on IT and software spending. Now available for businesses using Ramp Plus, the new features include:
Integrates the contract review process into Ramp’s approval workflow.
Dynamic intake forms that capture every purchase request in one place.
Purchase orders that sync to accounting platforms and offer auto-code matched invoices.
Collaboration tools that allow all parties to comment and tag team members within requests.
An activity feed to track procurement processes and keep record of approvals and changes made to requests and purchase orders.
Seat Intelligence to track who is using the software and ensure businesses are getting their money’s worth from their SaaS contracts.
Ramp’s accounts payable product currently processes over $10 billion in accounts payable volume each year. The company, which is best known for its corporate card and expense management tools, counts more than 15,000 business clients.
Jack Henry has launched its cloud-native business banking solution, Banno Business.
The new solution will help community and regional banks bring modern banking solutions to small and medium-sized businesses.
A Finovate alum since 2010, Jack Henry was founded in 1976.
Jack Henryunveiled its cloud-native business banking solution, Banno Business, last week. The new offering enables community and regional financial institutions to bring the innovations of modern banking to SMEs.
“Banno Business centralizes the business banking capabilities and partnerships we’ve created over the years into a single platform,” Jack Henry Managing Director of Digital Solutions Julie Morlan said. “We’ve built our platform to be highly configurable and scalable, enabling banks and credit unions to compete across the business spectrum. With Banno Business, financial institutions can expand and monetize their market share – a $370 billion revenue opportunity – while making a continued impact in their communities.”
Banno Business combines business solutions – such as cash management and commercial lending – with embedded payment capabilities, cash flow tools, reporting, and other features to help business owners better manage their finances. SMEs can also link external accounts to their financial institution via an integration with Finicity (a Mastercard company). Banno Business empowers regional and community financial institutions to leverage their relationships with and knowledge of their local businesses and business owners.
Institutions like High Plains Bank of Colorado are using Banno Business to attract more small and medium-sized businesses as customers, while at the same time helping local businesses improve their finances. The bank’s Chief Experience Officer Brian Otteman praised the ease with which business owners can “manage permissions for their employees, simplify their money movement, and understand their cashflow.” Freedom First Credit Union, a community-based financial institution headquartered in Virginia, is leveraging Banno Business to ingratiate itself to the local business community. “Having a full business solution with the digital user experience that our members know and trust makes for an easy transition to new markets,” Freedom First CU President and CEO Paul Phillips said. “Banno Business positions us to mature existing member relationships and grow net new business; it’s a win for our deposit acquisition strategy and diversifies our portfolio.”
Headquartered in Monett, Missouri, and founded in 1976, Jack Henry made its Finovate debut at Finovate 2010 in New York. The company returned to the Finovate stage four years later at FinovateEurope in London. A leading fintech and solution provider for financial institutions, Jack Henry empowers banks and credit unions to attract commercial accountholders, grow revenues, improve efficiency, and bolster the financial health and banking experience of their customers and members. Jack Henry has approximately 7,500 clients, and more than 10.5 million registered users of its Banno retail platform, which supports the company’s Banno Business offering.
Jack Henry is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker JKHY. The firm has a market capitalization of $12 billion. Last week, Jack Henry announced that CEO and Board Chair David Foss will transition to a new role as Executive Board Chair at the end of June. The company will name current President and Chief Operating Officer Greg Adelson as CEO and President on the first of July.
Trucking industry software platform Trucker Pathannounced this week it has tapped online lending marketplace Lendio to embed small business lending tools within its mobile app.
Lendio, will offer Trucker Path’s community of one million users a range of financing services, including asset or revenue-based financing, debt financing, lines of credit, and equipment financing.
“Lendio brings much needed capital to trucking businesses, who have traditionally been underserved by banks,” said Trucker Path CMO Chris Oliver. “Their loan products, which are tailored for transportation businesses, can be used to buy, upgrade or repair equipment, invest in technology to gain a competitive advantage, and expand operations or add staff.”
Lendio has already funded over $330 million for trucking businesses, and will now offer a range of its financing services to the Trucker Path community of users.
Trucking businesses can access Lendio’s financing tool within the Trucker Path mobile app. Users can apply for financing from Lendio’s network of lenders in as little as 15 minutes via a process that will not impact the applicant’s credit score. Lendio makes the capital available as quickly as 24 hours. Lendio offers applicants access to a dedicated expert who can discuss their needs and help them decide on the most suitable financing option for their particular situation.
“With Lendio’s Embedded Lending, Trucker Path users will now have faster access to financing from a variety of lenders that best meet their business’ needs,” said Lendio CEO and Co-Founder Brock Blake. “We know access to capital can be a big roadblock for many small businesses, and our marketplace has helped hundreds of thousands of businesses with this – including many in trucking and transportation – over the past decade. This partnership aligns perfectly with our mission to create a world where small businesses survive and thrive, and we’re so excited to work with Trucker Path.”
Since its 2011 launch, Utah-based Lendio has functioned as a matchmaker between small businesses and lenders. Businesses seeking funding can submit a single application to Lendio, tapping into its network of over 75 lenders. The platform then pairs each business with a suitable lender from the company’s in-house network.
The company positions itself as a mission-driven organization, and lives up to its word. When the coronavirus hit in 2020, the U.S. Small Business Administration passed the CARES Act and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and Lendio became a critical resource for merchants across the nation. The company saw that many small businesses were experiencing mass confusion around different types of relief programs, and quickly created a COVID-19 Relief Hub on its website to educate business owners, help them apply for funding, and match them with one of its lender partners. Additionally, for every new marketplace loan Lendio facilitates, Lendio Gives—an employee-contribution and employer-matching fund, in partnership with KIVA–provides a microloan to low-income entrepreneurs around the world, continuously re-investing the fund.
Lendio, backed by the likes of Runa Capital and Comcast Ventures, has secured over $108 million in funding. Most recently, the company took in $31 million in a 2020 round led by Mercato Partners. Lendio has made three acquisitions, most recently purchasing online lending platform QuarterSpot in 2021 for an undisclosed amount.
