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Plaid Partners with Gen Z Personal Finance App Buddy

Plaid Partners with Gen Z Personal Finance App Buddy
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Plaid

Gen Z-focused personal finance app Buddy has teamed up with open finance specialist Plaid. The partnership will enable Buddy users to manage their finances and track their spending more easily thanks to Plaid’s open finance APIs. Plaid’s APIs ensure secure connections between users’ financial accounts and financials apps. The integration will allow users to easily monitor accounts and expenses in a single location, as well automate their savings.

“By using apps like Buddy, younger generations can gain better control over their finances and make more informed decisions, helping them to develop healthy habits that will serve them well in the future,” Buddy founder and CEO Olle Lind said. “By teaming up with Plaid, we are making this process quicker and more painless than ever before, helping millions across the world budget and plan for the future they want and deserve.”

Buddy is among the top personal finance apps in the U.S. and Canada. The app has three million users and operates in 175 countries. The Stockholm, Sweden-based company was founded in 2017.

Plaid’s partnership announcement with Buddy came just days after Plaid reported that it was working with fellow Finovate alum Finastra. The two companies announced that Plaid had integrated with Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform. The integration will provide account verification tools to make it easier and more secure for customers to link their financial accounts to financial apps.

“As the world continues to embrace open finance, it is critical that we deliver the services community banks, credit unions, and all financial institutions need to make it simpler and easier for their customers to connect the various pieces of their financial picture,” Finastra Chief Product Officer of Universal Banking Narenda Mistry said.

April has been a busy time for Plaid. The company launched its Instant Payouts feature earlier in the month. The new offering is a real-time payment tool to send funds instantly via Plaid’s Transfer solution. In April, the company also announced a partnership with mobile banking app Monzo.

Plaid has been a Finovate alum since 2014. The company’s network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Europe. Plaid has raised more than $734 million in funding from investors including American Express Ventures and Bedrock Capital. The company achieved a valuation of $13.4 billion in the spring of 2021. Founded in 2013 by Zach Perret and William Hockey, Plaid is based in San Francisco, California.

Photo by Scott Webb

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FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Deserve

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

Deserve’s configurable credit card platform helps FIs reduce fraud with card controls, deploy launches and feature releases quickly, and drive top-of-wallet with superior cardholder experiences.

Why it’s great

Deserve provides financial institutions with a fully-configurable credit card platform including cutting-edge card issuing, processing, and superior mobile cardholder experiences.

Presenters

Rajan Annadurai, CTO
Annadurai leads the vision, strategy, and execution of the Deserve credit card platform.
LinkedIn

Shiv Bhatt, Head of Product
Bhatt leads Product at Deserve and delivers on a roadmap to provide partners with an integrated full-stack platform that is configurable with fast deployment.
LinkedIn

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FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Finturf

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

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

Finturf provides a complete point-of-sale financing solution for contractors, medical offices, retailers, and other businesses, connecting customers to multiple lenders.

Features

  • Includes multiple lenders all in one place and automated lender matching
  • Provides control over lenders and offers presented to customers
  • Delivers detailed application status, as well as user and company performance

Why it’s great

Finturf’s multi-lender platform boosts sales by increasing approval rates, with flexible financing options.

Presenter

Narek Khachatryan, Head of Product
Narek Khachatryan is an accomplished fintech product executive who excels in product strategy, scaling startups, and point-of-sale financing, with strong problem-solving and collaboration skills.
LinkedIn

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FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: FINTEQ & Smart Faktor

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: FINTEQ & Smart Faktor
By Madeline Clines Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2023, FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek, FINTEQ & Smart Faktor

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

FINTEQ is a technology startup from Poland building the next-gen risk-free payment accelerator and striving to change how companies improve their cashflows in a healthy and sustainable way.

Features

  • Lowers purchasing costs in the supply chain
  • Provides debt free trade finance alternatives for suppliers
  • Generates extra profits for the business

Why it’s great

FINTEQ has created a mobile payments accelerator in a supply chain.

Presenters

Rafal Chrabol, CEO
Chrabol is an executive in IT and finance with more than 15 years of experience. He is the Founder and CEO of FINTEQ and the Board Advisor for financial technology at the Polish Corporate Treasurers Association.
LinkedIn

Aleksandra Chrabol, Media Editor
As a highly creative and open-minded media editor, Chrabol is responsible for delivering the most relevant and eye-catching content across all digital networks.

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Fresh Faces at FinovateSpring

Fresh Faces at FinovateSpring
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2023

With new challenges come new opportunities, and fintech has always been at the forefront of creating tools to help consumers, businesses, and traditional financial institutions overcome their obstacles. And given all of the changes taking place in financial services, there’s never been a better time for fintechs to shine. That’s why at FinovateSpring next month, we’ll showcase 50+ fintechs as they demo their newest developments from the Finovate stage.

So far this year, we have 25 new demoing companies. We wanted to highlight them because we figured they might be new to you, as well. Here’s a rundown of the new-to-Finovate demo companies currently on the roster:

1kosmos
1Kosmos automates user onboarding for workers and customers, protecting against stolen and synthetic identities while eliminating ATO and fraud.

9Spokes
9Spokes unlocks the potential of open data, giving financial institutions a powerful set of tools to engage business customers.

AI Squared
AI Squared simplifies and accelerates AI integration to provide increased adoption of AI to impact organizations and lives.

AutoCloud
AutoCloud offers risk management for multi-cloud infrastructure as code.

Bankable Fintech
Bankable Fintech offers an unbiased source for financial technology partnerships, vendors, and service providers.

bluCongnition
bluCognition provides machine learning, deep learning, artificial intelligence, and big data services.

Cloverly
Cloverly provides tools for businesses and organizations to become carbon neutral by connecting online buyers to local renewable energy through its Sustainability-as-a-Service platform. 

Curinos
Curinos’ machine-learning, AI-driven engine, Amplero, allows financial institutions to break free from rules-based marketing and achieve true personalization.

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

Deserve
Deserve’s mobile-first credit card platform is fully-configurable and offers cutting-edge card issuing, processing, and underwriting technologies.

FINTEQ & Smart Faktor
Smart Faktor’s FINTEQ is an Early Payments Platform that factors in sustainability. The company’s supply chain financing turns a business’ working capital into profits. 

Finturf
Finturf brings point-of-sale financing to brick-and-mortar retailers and service providers like home improvement contractors and medical offices.

Front Financial
Front Financial offers users real-time, aggregated data from their third party accounts. The company authenticates into over 300 banks, brokerages, CeFi exchanges, or DeFi wallets without screen scraping.

Hyperswitch
Hyperswitch is a payment facilitator-as-a-service that helps merchants connect to any number of and a wide variety of payment processors.

IDMERIT
IDMERIT is the one-stop shop for customer and business verification, helping companies fight fraud and meet KYC and AML regulations.

Kani Payments
Kani Payments offers transaction reporting and reconciliation as well as business intelligence that helps businesses make informed decisions.

ModernTax
ModernTax is API platform that democratizes access to tax records for business services companies.

Pangea Technologies
Pangea’s FX hedging platform powered by AI addresses FX risk and global currency volatility for companies that have global costs, revenue, or employees.

pave.dev
Pave helps credit risk teams to identify healthy borrowers, optimize credit limits, and improve collections outcomes.

PayTic
PayTic offers software-as-a-service that helps card issuers and fintech businesses control risk and compliance through digitizing the payments back-office functions.

Savana
Savana is a core-agnostic digital delivery platform that enables truly frictionless interactions between banks and their customers across channels.

Setuply
Setuply offers a client onboarding automation platform that delivers innovation and experiences for clients and vendors.

The Lazu Group
The Lazu Group is an equity, diversity, and inclusion firm that helps organizations move from intention to impact and future-proof their business model.

Total CollectR
Total CollectR is a white-label solution that leverages AI to help customers resolve delinquent accounts using the communication channels they prefer. 

Wink
Wink enables any institution to offer identity and payments experiences through biometrics.

Be sure to keep an eye out for demo updates leading up to the event, which takes place May 23 through 25 at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco. Don’t miss your chance to register!

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

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Super.com Raises $85 Million for Savings Super App

Super.com Raises $85 Million for Savings Super App
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Super.com raised $85 million in a Series C funding round led by Inovia Capital.
  • Super.com did not disclose its current valuation but said that it has “increased significantly” since 2021.
  • Super.com rebranded from Snapcommerce in October of last year.

Super.com is bringing in an $85 million investment today in a Series C fundraising round that boosts the company’s total funding to $186 million. While there is no update on Super.com’s current valuation, the company noted that it has “increased significantly” since it closed its Series B round in March of 2021.

The round was led by Inovia Capital with contributions from new investors Harley Finkelstein, Deb Liu, Allen Shim, Josh Proctor, Chris Best, Neha Narkhede, and Mike Lee. Existing investors Telstra Ventures, Acrew, Lion Capital, Full In Partners, NBA star Steph Curry, and others also contributed.

“Raising our Series C is proof of investor confidence in our ability to scale the business responsibly. This will allow us to both continue investing in growth while driving improving margins,” said company CFO Daniel Weisenfeld.

Super.com rebranded from Snapcommerce in October of last year and offers a savings app to help users save money, access credit, and find travel experiences. In 2022, the company launched SuperCash, a secured credit card product that offers cashback while helping users build their credit.

In addition to helping consumers track their SuperCash transactions, the Super.com app also offers deals and savings opportunities when purchasing travel experiences and shopping major brands. Since the company was founded in 2016, it has helped its five million customers save more than $150 million.

“Super.com’s diversified business model now drives savings across all facets of our customers’ lives, from travel to fintech. It’s great to see market excitement match our own as we rapidly build the first savings super app focused on everyday Americans,” said Super.com CEO Hussein Fazal.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

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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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