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Array Launches Debt Manager to Bring Transparency to Customer Accounts

Array Launches Debt Manager to Bring Transparency to Customer Accounts
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Array, Daily news
  • Financial enablement platform Array has launched its Debt Manager solution.
  • Debt Manager provides consumers with real-time information about their debts.
  • Array won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021. The company won a second Best of Show award on its return to the Finovate stage at FinovateSpring 2022.

Financial enablement platform Array has launched its Debt Manager solution. The new offering is an embedded solution that gives consumers real-time information about their debts. Debt Manager is especially helpful during lead qualification, debt management, and similar processes. The technology helps reduce borrower risk and enhance loan marketing by ensuring that the prospective borrower’s most current credit data is accessible.

“At Array, our vision is to empower every individual to own their financial future by providing access to the right data and tools at the right time,” Array founder and CEO Martin Toha said. “Today’s introduction of Debt Manager is another key step to delivering on that vision by ensuring consumers can secure a loan faster or pay down debt quicker without having to jump through unnecessary hoops to make that possible.”

Debt Manager helps financial services companies negotiate two specific challenges. The first issue is the cumbersome task of gathering and collecting data from a range of financial accounts. These accounts often include credit cards, mortgages, student and auto loans, and more. The second issue is that, without this data, financial institutions can often make “suboptimal decisions” and court “significant risk” in the words of Array VP and GM of Digital Financial Management Products Deepak Sharma.

Debt Manager is the latest addition to Array’s suite of solutions for financial services companies and their customers. The new offering joins Array’s credit and financial management tools like its BuildCredit Loan, HelloPrivacy, and Identity Protect. The company is also moving toward the launch of its Subscription Manager product. This technology gives consumers better insight into their recurring payments. Array reported that 47% of banking customers in the U.S. would find subscription management tools “useful” on mobile banking apps.

The launch of Debt Manager comes one month after the company announced its partnership with FICO. The collaboration will bring FICO scores and credit data to consumers on Array’s platform. “Our partnership with FICO delivers on our promise to provide valuable data with the experience that people want, and it provides banks, credit unions, and fintechs with an embeddable solution to enable them to offer FICO Scores to meet the growing demand for credit score data.”

Founded in 2020, Array is headquartered in New York. The company has raised $67 million in funding from investors including General Catalyst, Battery Ventures, and Nyca Partners. Array won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2021. The company returned to the Finovate stage the following year, securing a second Best of Show award at FinovateSpring 2022.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov

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5 Tips for Driving Revenue through Customer Engagement

5 Tips for Driving Revenue through Customer Engagement
By Lili Nguyen Posted on
Categories: Sponsored

This is a sponsored blogpost by JRNI.

We are in an environment of rising interest rates that will materially impact how financial institutions compete for customers. Banks and credit unions will have to embrace product innovation and relationship building as they refocus on deposit and lending services. Customer engagement will play a critical role in this change, as customers will need guidance on new products and benefits while in-person branch visits become key to establishing customer relationships.  

When we dig into the mechanisms behind how customer engagement leads to revenue, we start with how customers progress through sales stages. There are various models and stage labels, but they all have one thing in common: the customer has some sort of informational or emotional need that must be fulfilled before they advance to the next stage. The customer may be able to fulfill this need on their own through means such as independent research. However, brand engagement fills those needs faster, more accurately, and more completely. This is why engagement drives larger transactions and decreases time to transaction.

Let’s explore 5 recommendations for driving revenue through quality customer engagements:

1. Target Your Engagement and Provide Options.

The fundamentals of delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time is an important aspect of a customer engagement strategy focused on revenue growth. The focus should be on what constitutes the ‘right’ target and the variables to reach those targets. The ‘right’ engagement is the one most likely to advance a customer along the buying journey. Early in the process, engagements focused on product demonstrations or interactive group events provide customers the information they need to feel confident in their research. Later in the funnel, engagements become more personalized as your customers’ needs become more refined. In this phase, 1:1 instructional lessons, personal appointments with product specialists or focus product tests (e.g. test driving a car), could be leveraged for customers with increased enthusiasm.

2. Treat human-to-human interaction as a high value conversion event.

“Always be closing” is a common motivational phrase in sales, but that doesn’t mean high-pressure tactics are always appropriate. Rather, the goal should be to move the customer toward a decision, even if that entails multiple interactions along the way. A one-to-many event or one-to-one appointment has higher value both to the customer and the brand because it provides more personalized and relevant insights that a customer needs in order to advance along the sales cycle.

3. Think of staff as both a revenue generating resource and a customer service resource.

A well-trained, motivated staff combine product knowledge and enthusiasm; they are your best option for advancing customers along a sales path. When you acknowledge how powerful a connection with your staff can be, you will want to set up as many engagements for them as possible while at the same time reducing their administrative burden. Real-time calendar updates, schedule visualization, intuitive data entry, and automated confirmation and reminder messages increase staff engagement capacity. Reminders for staff are just as important as reminders for customers; be sure that reminders are part of existing workflows and they contain the necessary information for appointment prep.

4. Provide staff with directional intelligence before, during, and after engagement.

Customer engagement for revenue necessitates that the staff:

  1. Has information on the people they speak to
  2. Understands what information needs to be provided to move them to the next step in the sales cycle
  3. Has the ablity to easily collect information over the course of the engagement.

Information such as demographic data, sales history, engagement history, and customer service inquiries can all help staff paint a holistic picture of the customer. Often this information exists in disparate systems. When these systems can communicate into a centralized hub, the better prepared a staff member can be.

For example, when opening an account with a new customer, a bank representative can make observations and ask a few basic questions that determine customer needs. Young customers who are new to the area and have recently bought a home are more likely to have a family or be planning to start one than seniors. They are good candidates for auto and home equity loans and college savings plans. Older customers, on the other hand, are more likely to be interested in managing retirement funds or estate planning. Representatives should be trained to guide the conversation in the most appropriate direction based on observed and expressed needs.

5. Use engagements as intelligence for personalization.

Each engagement is an opportunity to further target the customer experience. Engagement can be used to ‘bucket’ customers according to appropriate next steps. That next step often includes a call to action for a sale but should also include additional calls to engagement. Customer engagement for revenue improves sales velocity not simply because engaged customers are more likely to purchase, but also because it recognizes that customers must be given the option to engage with the brand when it is most convenient for them, and as many times as they need, in order to convert to a sale.

Visit the JRNI booth at FinovateFall 2023 to learn how our Intelligent Customer Engagement Platform powers more engagements, less waiting, and faster revenue.

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Finovate Global: CFDs, Licenses, and the Latest on Crypto in Central and Eastern Europe

Finovate Global: CFDs, Licenses, and the Latest on Crypto in Central and Eastern Europe
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Finovate Global

One of my biggest takeaways from my conversations about digital assets with delegates at FinovateEurope last month was the idea that new use cases will be among the first signs that the industry has emerged from so-called “crypto winter.”

That bar is likely years away from being cleared. In the meanwhile, crypto exchanges continue to expand access to digital assets for traders and investors. Today’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent developments in the cryptocurrency and digital asset industries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Austria-based Bitpanda announced this week that it now offers CFDs – contracts for difference – for trading cryptocurrencies. CFDs are available for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana on Bitpanda’s platform. These products enable cryptocurrency traders and investors to speculate on both rising and falling prices. The new offering, on the platform under the appropriate name “Bitpanda Leverage,” also gives cryptocurrency traders the ability to leverage their trades 2x.

According to coverage in The Paypers, Bitpanda is well aware of both the risk of “complex financial instruments” like CFDs and the “high risk of losing money” they often bring to traders’ portfolios. Bitpanda also acknowledges that the new products are more suited to short-term trading than longer-term investing. The CFDs have been available to a limited number of Bitpanda customers since late 2022. This week, the company is announcing that the products are being made available to all traders on the Bitpanda app.

CFD trading is not as regulated as trading in other financial products like stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). As such, CFD trading is illegal in the U.S. and U.S. residents are forbidden from opening CFD accounts. The derivatives are traded in markets in the Euro Zone, however, as well as in the U.K., Switzerland, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, among others.

There are many ways in which Ukraine, which continues to defend itself from Russia’s invasion more than a year ago, is seeking greater integration with its neighbors to the West. This week we can add cryptocurrency regulatory policy to that list.

Ukrainian regulatory authorities announced this week that they would adopt the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation just passed by the European Parliament. Heralded as a major advancement for the cryptocurrency industry in Europe, MiCA seeks to provide uniform regulations and standardized rules for digital assets in the E.U. At present, companies in the cryptocurrency space in the region must negotiate 27 different regulatory frameworks – crippling efficiency and limiting innovation.

“We, along with colleagues from the NKCPFR (National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market) and other regulators, are already working on implementing some provisions of MiCA to make crypto assets legal in Ukraine,” Yaroslav Zheleznyak said. Zheleznyak is the Deputy Chairman of the Tax Committee of Ukraine.

Cryptocurrencies have played an interesting role in Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression. An article at the World Economic Forum last month noted that more than $21 million in cryptocurrency has been donated to pro-Ukrainian war efforts. According to blockchain analytics company Elliptic, $80 million of that amount went directly to support the Ukrainian government.

Cryptocurrency investors and traders in Lithuania have a new exchange to do business with. Crypto exchange Bitget, which is based in the Seychelles, announced this week that it has secured its registration in Lithuania. This will enable Bitget to offer its service in or from the central European nation.

Analysts consider Lithuania to be among the leading countries in the European Union when it comes to legislation helping develop the cryptocurrencyindustry. The country has been praised for the clarity and transparency of its regulations regarding cryptocurrency licensing – as well as a shorter licensing process compared to other countries in the E.U.

“The global regulation of digital assets is advancing on a daily basis, and we actively observe the regulatory changes around the globe,” Managing Director of the Bitget exchange Gracy Chen said. “We have a whole dedicated compliance team in place to focus on various regulatory compliance matters.” In its statement, the company noted that its compliance team has grown by 50% in the last 12 months. Bitget also recently launched a $300 million user protection fund.

Founded in 2018, Bitget serves more than eight million users in more than 100 countries and regions.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Photo by Anthony Beck

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TransUnion Brings Credit Scoring to the Blockchain

TransUnion Brings Credit Scoring to the Blockchain
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, TransUnion
  • TransUnion has partnered with Spring Labs and Quadrata to bring credit scoring to the blockchain.
  • Spring Labs’ technology will deliver TransUnion-powered data to Quadrata’s Web3 digital passport.
  • TransUnion EVP of Financial Services Jason Laky said the move will “allow for DeFi lenders to have access to this critical information when making their lending decisions with confidence, ultimately minimizing their risk and providing borrowers more opportunity for better terms.”

TransUnion has partnered with two firms to bring credit scores onto the blockchain. The Illinois-based company has tapped data security firm Spring Labs and decentralized networks expert Quadrata to ultimately help lenders make data-driven decisions on credit applications submitted via the blockchain.

The partnership will enable TransUnion to– upon the customer’s request– provide credit data that is not stored on a blockchain to decentralized finance applications (DApps). TransUnion, which holds the consumer credit data off-chain, will leverage Spring Labs’ patented technology that delivers credit scoring data while keeping the consumer’s identity on blockchain secure. Quadrata will leverage its digital passport, a Web3 identity solution that will automatically sync the credit scoring data across the blockchain.

“Credit scoring is an important tool for lenders to help mitigate risk regardless of the platform being used,” said TransUnion EVP of Financial Services Jason Laky. “This partnership with Spring Labs and Quadrata will allow for DeFi lenders to have access to this critical information when making their lending decisions with confidence, ultimately minimizing their risk and providing borrowers more opportunity for better terms.”

DeFi lending platforms have the potential to reach a more diverse set of consumers than traditional lending platforms. Not only do they offer more flexibility when compared to traditional lenders, but they also allow the borrower to customize their loan. Borrowers choose the collateral they provide, the duration of their loan, and the interest rate they are willing to pay.

Bringing credit scoring to the Web3 space will facilitate DeFi lending, lower the risk for DeFi lenders, and increase opportunities for borrowers. “As more consumers and lenders move to blockchain to conduct business, it’s important to ensure that the balance is struck between the information that lenders need to assess risk and the privacy and anonymity expected by users of the technology,” said Spring Labs CEO John Sun. “This new product featuring TransUnion’s identity and credit data at its core is a big step toward achieving that balance and allowing more lending opportunities on blockchain while minimizing risk.”

Photo by Joey Kyber

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Arkose Labs Introduces New Technology to Combat Advanced Phishing Attacks

Arkose Labs Introduces New Technology to Combat Advanced Phishing Attacks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Arkose Labs, Daily news
  • Arkose Labs introduced new detection and alert capabilities against advanced phishing attacks.
  • The new capabilities combat an evolution in phishing called “reverse proxy phishing.”
  • Arkose Labs won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2019.

Bot detection specialist Arkose Labs now detects and alerts against advanced phishing attacks. The new functionality combats “reverse proxy phishing,” the latest evolution in the challenge of dealing with fraudsters and cybercriminals.

“Phishing isn’t simply about domain block lists or analyzing website contents anymore,” Arkose Labs CTO Ashish Jain said. “Those methods might work against unsophisticated attacks, but new phishing attacks require a comprehensive security posture.”

Reverse proxy attacks use fake websites to impersonate legitimate websites. Bank websites are a common target. In the process, users are encouraged to visit the fake website via a message and are asked to login. The fake website then sends the user’s information to the server of the real web site. This causes the real website to issue a one-time password (OTP) or security PIN. The fraudster can then leverage the proxy to extract user credentials, including the OTP or PIN. The attacker can also secure the cookie from the legitimate website. This enables the cybercriminal to access the user’s account.

“Arkose Bot Manager beats attackers at their own game by forcing them to integrate Arkose into their fake pages with absolutely no effect on the user experience,” Jain added. “With Arkose integrated, we can thwart a phishing attack and give the business data on the attackers – and unlike traditional phishing detection methods, Arkose Phishing Protection is able to detect and block malicious requests in real-time.”

Arkose Labs’ new advanced phishing protection comes as the company announced a new anti-fraud guarantee against SMS toll fraud attacks. The warranty covers up to one million dollars in telecom expenses if Arkose Bot Manager fails to stop an SMS toll fraud attack against one of its managed service customers.

SMS toll fraud is a type of bot attack in which large volumes of SMS messages are sent to premium rate numbers. Also known as SMS pumping or International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF), this attack can result in sizable fraudulent SMS charges against a business. In some cases, the charges can amount to millions of dollars a month.

“This type of attack hits a company right in the wallet,” Arkose Labs CFO Frank Teruel said. “We stand confident in our platform, and Arkose already has saved customers millions in fraudulent SMS charges by stopping these attacks. Frankly, this type of warranty should be table stakes for any security vendor.”

Founded in 2017, Arkose Labs is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2019. Arkose Labs returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateFall in New York. Kevin Gosschalk is founder and CEO.

Photo by Noelle Otto

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ESG Regulations May Bring Investing’s Green Future

ESG Regulations May Bring Investing’s Green Future
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Thought Leadership

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing has been gaining traction across the globe. PwC reports that ESG is “soaring”, and anticipates that ESG institutional investment will climb 84% to $33.9 trillion in 2026.

The firm states that by 2026, ESG assets under management (AUM) in the U.S. will more than double to total $10.5 trillion. In Europe, PwC expects the amount of ESG AUM will see an increase of 53% to $19.6 trillion. And in APAC, the firm estimates that ESG AUM will more than triple to $3.3 trillion.

What will help drive that change? Regulation.

Regulation

Though the concept of ESG investing has been around for more than a decade, there have only recently been efforts to formalize regulation surrounding ESG disclosure, investment, and ESG practices and financial products. Europe, for instance, has come up with its European Green Deal, a set of proposals to stem climate change, support sustainable innovation, and transition Europe into a climate-neutral continent by 2050.

Europe isn’t the only region with a “green” vision. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of key measures some countries are taking:

Australia
The Australian Government plans to introduce mandatory sustainability and ESG reporting requirements for large businesses and financial institutions based in Australia. The requirements will be put in place in stages and will begin as soon as next year.

The U.K.
The U.K.’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) requires U.K. companies to disclose energy use, carbon footprint, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within their annual financial reporting. In 2021, The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) released Greening Finance: a Roadmap to Sustainable Investing in 2021.

At the start of 2023, the European Parliament implemented The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), policy aimed to enhance transparency in sustainable investing and ultimately prevent greenwashing. Also going live in January 2023 is The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), an initiative put into place by the European Parliament to broaden the Non-Financial Reporting Directive’s (NFRD) and fix weaknesses surrounding ESG regulation and reporting.

India
By the end of March 2023, India’s top 1,000 listed companies by market capitalization were required to begin filing a Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) to the Securities and Exchange Board (SEBI) of India. In addition to general disclosures, companies need to document their compliance with National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBCs) and submit metrics on nine ESG factors, including ethics, sustainability, and human rights.

The U.S.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a plan to issue a set of reporting standards for ESG in March of last year. As part of the plan, the SEC would require firms to report their climate risks, risk management, ESG governance, and GHG emissions. While the ruling on these proposed mandatory climate risk disclosures is expected to occur this month, SEC Chair Gary Gensler may be considering changes to the plan before it goes into effect.

Also notable is Nasdaq’s Board Diversity Rule that requires companies listed on Nasdaq’s U.S. exchange to publicly disclose board-level diversity statistics each year. If companies fall short of expectations, they are required to explain why they do not have diverse directors.

Canada
Currently, Canadian firms are not subject to mandatory ESG reporting. However, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) issued a notice last year stating plans to require large Canadian financial institutions and insurance companies to disclosed ESG efforts and climate impacts starting in 2024.

ESG fintechs

Though some fintechs do not fit the requirements of ESG reporting, many have either incorporated ESG elements into their business or structured their whole business around an ESG element. In fact, according to Crunchbase, there are 300 fintechs with an ESG focus. Check out Finovate’s ESG scholarship winners or take a look at the following notable fintechs emphasizing ESG:

  • Spiral allows banks to increase customer engagement by embedding sustainability and social impact capabilities.
  • Enfuce offers payment, open banking, and sustainability services to banks, fintechs, financial operators, and merchants.
  • Treecard is a green finance platform that allows consumers to spend, save, and invest responsibly.
  • Connect Earth connects carbon data to drive sustainable finance.
  • Single.Earth is a fintech startup tokenizing nature to make it the new gold.
  • Datia is a data platform for sustainable finance, working with forward-thinking financial institutions to automate their ESG workflows.
  • The Upright Project develops an AI-enabled quantification model to measure the net impact of companies and funds.
  • SparkChange provides specialist carbon data that empowers better ESG investment products, risk management, and financial reporting.

Photo by Artem Podrez

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FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Finalytics.ai

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Finalytics.ai
By Madeline Clines Posted on
Categories: Finalytics.ai, FinovateSpring 2023, FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 23 and 24. Register today and save your spot.

Finalytics.ai is the first community financial institution platform to apply real-time multi-faceted data with machine learning to produce a segment of one digital experience for consumers.

Features

Finalytics.ai seeks to go beyond personalization to impact the top and bottom lines of their clients by:

  • Increasing deposits
  • Increasing loan applications
  • Increasing digital engagement

Why it’s great

The Finalytics.ai platform is the only built-for-purpose solution that leverages internal and external data with machine learning to create an experience tailored to the individual’s needs each time they engage.

Presenters

Craig McLaughlin, Co-Founder & CEO
McLaughlin’s focus is on Finalytics.ai’s partnerships with leading community financial institutions. He is regularly featured in banking industry media.
LinkedIn

Mark Ryan, Co-Founder & Chief Analytics Officer
Ryan’s focus is on ROI goals, data strategies, digital channel reporting, and process establishment for data analysis.
LinkedIn

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FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Deception And Truth Analysis (D.A.T.A.)

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Deception And Truth Analysis (D.A.T.A.)
By Madeline Clines Posted on
Categories: Deception And Truth Analysis (D.A.T.A.), FinovateSpring 2023, FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 23 and 24. Register today and save your spot.

D.A.T.A. provides lightning fast and highly accurate analysis of investment due-diligence documents for their level of deceptiveness and truthfulness.

Features

  • Provides unique actionable insights for investment decision makers
  • 350x faster than investment professionals
  • Scientifically rigorous and validated

Why it’s great

Accurate assessment of deceptiveness and truthfulness is predictive of future investment outcomes.

Presenters

Jason Voss, Co-Founder & CEO
Voss is a retired five-star and Lipper #1 portfolio manager. He is an author, deception scientist, conscious capitalist, and meditator.
LinkedIn

Nandan Shah, Co-Founder & COO
Shah is an accomplished executive with a background in public and private market investing and a passion for entrepreneurship.
LinkedIn

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FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Setuply

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Setuply
By Madeline Clines Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2023, FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek, Setuply

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 23 and 24. Register today and save your spot.

Setuply is a client onboarding solution that optimizes provider revenue recognition while reducing time to value for customers.

Features

  • Client IMPACT Control Panel – addresses client transparency and engagement
  • ScaleUP Onboarding Engine – predictable, scalable, and repeatable
  • Professional Services Automation – provides improved capacity and throughput

Why it’s great

Onboard faster and live better with Setuply’s complete client onboarding solution.

Presenters

Rachel Lyubovitzky, CEO
Lyubovitzky is a successful B2B enterprise tech entrepreneur, accomplished leader, and investor with a passion for effective strategies, successful execution and continued innovation.
LinkedIn

Kelly Blackledge, Product Manager
As a seasoned B2B Product Manager, Blackledge leverages her expertise in market research, user experience design, and agile development to deliver powerful solutions that drive the business forward.
LinkedIn

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Celebrating Earth Day with Finovate’s Environmental/Sustainability Demo Scholarship Winners

Celebrating Earth Day with Finovate’s Environmental/Sustainability Demo Scholarship Winners
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daizy, Energy Shares, List series, Little Blocks

The Finovate Sustainability and Inclusion Scholarship Program is an opportunity to showcase innovative startups that are embracing strong ESG principles as a key part of their offering. To commemorate Earth Day this weekend – and the importance of the “E” in ESG – we’re highlighting three companies that have earned scholarships in the Environmental/Sustainability category.

Daizy

Founded in 2019, Daizy won the Sustainability category of our Finovate Scholarship program in FinovateFall 2022. The company’s technology leverages AI to help investors access the data-driven stories behind the biggest companies in the U.S. Daizy has combined its expertise in ESG, analytics, data visualization, and natural language processing to offer an app that enables users to link their brokerages accounts, build watchlists, as well as track and search for new investment ideas using Daizy’s NLP portfolio, stock, and crypto search functionality.

Daizy Chief Operating Officer Andrew Peddar at FinovateFall 2022.

Based in the U.K., Daizy has raised $3 million in funding. Deborah Yang is co-founder and CEO. Follow Daizy on Twitter. Connect with Daizy on LinkedIn.

Energy Shares

Energy Shares won the Environmental category of our Finovate Demo Scholarship program for FinovateFall 2022. The company is a FINRA-registered broker-dealer and equity crowdfunding platform for utility-scale renewable energy projects in the U.S. Energy Shares facilitates access to investment opportunities in renewable energy projects, opportunities that were previously only available to institutional, corporate, and select retail investors. Via the Energy Shares platform, investors and developers can connect and collaborate to support renewable energy initiatives and support the growth of the renewable energy industry.

Energy Shares Social Media and Community Manager Chloe Breau and CMO Mark Kapczynski at FinovateFall 2022

Energy Shares was founded in 2020. The company is headquartered in Pasadena, California. Follow Energy Shares on Twitter. Connect with Energy Shares on LinkedIn.

Little Blocks

Hyderabad, India-based Little Blocks won the Environmental category of the Finovate Demo Scholarship program for FinovateEurope 2023. The company leverages industrial IoT sensors and blockchain technology to foster access to risk capital for expenses like machinery purchases. Little Blocks’ technology tokenizes each machine and ownership is distributed among the token holders, each of whom has a stake in the underlying cash flows. This enables manufacturers to pay based on the actual use of the machine rather than a fixed monthly loan repayment.

Little Blocks co-founder and CEO Hanu Panchakarla at FinovateEurope 2023.

Little Blocks was founded in 2022 and is funded by a grant from the Startup India Seed Fund.

Photo by Harry Cunningham @harry.digital

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SmartAsset Acquires DeftSales to Help Advisors Grow their Practices

SmartAsset Acquires DeftSales to Help Advisors Grow their Practices
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, SmartAsset
  • Financial advice platform SmartAsset has acquired advisor prospect engagement company DeftSales.
  • The company has integrated DeftSales into its SmartAdvisor advisor growth solution, renaming the technology DeftSales by SmartAsset.
  • The new tool helps advisors respond to leads instantly, enabling them to engage warm leads before another advisor follows up first.

Financial advice platform SmartAsset is acquiring prospect engagement company DeftSales this week for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in 2020, DeftSales offers tools that integrate with a range of CRM platforms to automate financial advisors’ business development outreach and provide analytics insights on client engagement. The technology helps advisors respond to leads instantly, enabling them to engage warm leads before another advisor follows up first.

“We are enormously excited to announce the acquisition of DeftSales and we look forward to integrating their solutions with our own SmartAdvisor platform,” said company CEO and Founder Michael Carvin. “The feedback from advisors using DeftSales has been incredibly clear – by automating many tasks, it dramatically decreases the work required to be successful in converting SmartAdvisor prospects into clients.”

SmartAsset has integrated DeftSales into its SmartAdvisor advisor growth solution, renaming the technology DeftSales by SmartAsset. The new solution integrates SmartAsset’s compliant user interface with DeftSales’ automated campaigns and analytics. DeftSales by SmartAsset offers automated emails and text messages, FastCall technology that enables advisors to follow-up on leads while they are busy with a current client, and an analytics dashboard to monitor engagement efforts.

DeftSales Co-Founder and COO James Fason will join the SmartAsset team as Director of Engineering.

SmartAsset has a mission to help people make smart financial decisions. The company’s educational content, calculators, and tools reach 75 million people each month. In 2021, the New York-based company raised $110 million in funding, boosting its total funding to more than $161 million. And the company is still growing. SmartAsset has brought on 27 new hires so far this year.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

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NayaOne Wins Tender from Financial Conduct Authority to Build Digital Sandbox

NayaOne Wins Tender from Financial Conduct Authority to Build Digital Sandbox
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, NayaOne
  • Digital sandbox developer NayaOne secured the Digital Sandbox tender from the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
  • In the past year, NayaOne has built digital sandboxes and marketplaces for Lloyds Banking Group and FinTech North.
  • NayaOne won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in March.

FinovateEurope Best of Show winner NayaOne has scored again this year. The London, U.K.-based fintech has secured the Digital Sandbox tender from the country’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The Digital Sandbox will give startups a safe and secure environment to build, test, and develop their fintech solutions. All with the full support of the FCA.

“We are thrilled to have been selected for this prestigious opportunity to collaborate with the FCA on driving innovation in financial services,” NayaOne CEO Karan Jain said. “We believe that our digital transformation platform and synthetic data technology will be a valuable asset in helping fintech companies to develop and test their products more efficiently and effectively.”

The FCA’s decision comes in the wake of a pair of pilot projects, in 2020 and again in 2022. The initiatives gave startups access to synthetic and publicly available data in order to test and develop their solutions. The FCA announced that it would make the digital sandbox permanent in the summer of 2023. NayaOne has built a business of creating digital sandboxes for financial institutions, such as Lloyds Banking Group and FinTech North. And it is this experience – according to FCA Chief Data, Information, and Intelligence Officer Jessica Rusu – that makes the company well-positioned to help the FCA fulfill its goal of “promoting solutions to complex regulatory challenges like APP fraud, greenwashing, and scam detection.”

NayaOne demoed its Digital Sandbox in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope. The company’s platform helps make innovation, integration, and partnership an easier – and faster – process for banks. NayaOne offers single key access to more than 200 technology vendors; a secure, digital sandbox environment; and 2.5 billion data points to support tech evaluation. The company reports that it has enabled banks to accelerate their proof-of-concept timeline from 12 months to only two months. This saves banks up to 80% in costs and significantly increases productivity.

NayaOne’s Digital Sandbox announcement comes as the company reports that Bambu is now available via the NayaOne Marketplace. Bambu is a Singapore-based B2B roboadvisor and fellow Finovate alum. A three-time Best of Show winner, the company most recently demoed at FinovateFall in 2021. “We recognize NayaOne’s commitment to enable banks and financial institutions to take advantage of revolutionary innovations in financial technology by bringing banks and fintechs together for innovation,” Bambu founder and CEO Ned Phillips said. “As a wealth technology provider, we at Bambu want to bring our award-winning financial solutions to the forefront, and we look forward to doing so on the NayaOne Digital Transformation Platform.”

NayaOne was founded in 2019. Karan Jain joined the company as CEO in 2021.

Photo by Jorge Sepúlveda

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