Author: David Penn

Finovate Global MENA: Tabby Raises $200 Million, Finastra Powers Innovation in Qatar, Kuwait Promotes Financial Wellness for Teens

Finovate Global MENA: Tabby Raises $200 Million, Finastra Powers Innovation in Qatar, Kuwait Promotes Financial Wellness for Teens
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finastra, Finovate Global, MasterCard

Tabby, a Buy Now, Pay Later platform based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has secured $200 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Wellington Management. The investment gives the company a valuation of $1.5 billion, making Tabby MENA’s latest fintech unicorn. With participation from Bluepool Capital and existing investors STV, Mubadala Investment Capital, Arbor Ventures, and PayPal Ventures, the investment comes ahead of Tabby’s planned IPO in Saudi Arabia.

“Tabby set out with a purpose to reshape financial services – one that’s fair and responsible – and with this investment we can advance our mission across Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Tabby CEO and co-founder Hosam Arab said. “We’re very happy to have Wellington Management lead this round given their deep expertise in financial services.”

Buy Now, Pay Later services are an interesting development especially in markets where access to credit and financing products is limited. Tabby reports 10 million users and more than 30,000 brands on its platform. These brands include to of the largest retail groups in the MENA region. Managing more than $6 billion in annualized transaction volume, Tabby notes growth in its presence in physical stores, now representing more than 20% of the company’s total volume.

Meanwhile, some 600 kilometers to the east, Qatar-based CQUR Bank has forged a partnership with digital banking solutions provider Finastra. CQUR Bank will implement a pair of Finastra’s solutions – Trade Innovation and Corporate Channels – to power its new online banking portal.

Trade Innovation is an end-to-end solution for frictionless trade and supply chain financing. Corporate Channels is a digital banking platform that gives CQUR Bank a single portal to unify a variety of services for corporate clients. These services include trade, cash, supply chain finance, lending, and treasury operations.

“Corporate customers are increasingly demanding faster, digital, and connected services from their bank that truly elevate how they manage their finances and pursue new avenues for growth,” Finastra Managing Director, MENAT Lending, Kamal El Khoury explained. “By delivering new services and improving the end-to-end customer experience, the bank can future-proof its business while continuing to enhance economic growth through trade and sustainable development.”

Formed out of a merger between Misys and D+H in 2017, Finastra is headquartered in the U.K. The company has more than 8,000 financial institutions, including 45 of the world’s top 50 banks, using its software solutions and services. Simon Paris is CEO.

This week, Kuwait Finance House (KFH) launched the first shari’a-compliant digital bank in the country. Named Tam Digital Bank, the new institution was hailed as a major milestone in KFY’s digital banking transformation efforts.

“With its modern, youthful design, user-friendly and efficient usage, along with innovative banking services backed with advanced technology, we are confident that Tam will fulfull customers’ desires and exceed their expectations,” KFH Acting Group CEO Abdulwahab lesa Al Rushood said. “At KFH, we take account of factors such as convenience, speed, quality, safety, and innovation in line with our motto ‘Easy Banking Experience’.”

In order to open a Tam account, customers must be at least 15 years old. They must also have a civil ID, and a smartphone to download the Tam app. There are no documents to present and no bank branch to visit in order to get started.

KFH Kuwait CEO Khaled Yousef AlShamlan underscored the importance of appealing to younger customers. “Through Tam, youth will receive many benefits, including opening an account, transferring student allowance(s), tracking expenses, transferring funds, in addition to rewards program, points, offers, and exceptional discounts that meet all their needs, as well as 24/7 customer service,” AlShamlan said.

A pioneer in Islamic Finance and Shari’a Compliant Banking, Kuwait Finance House was founded in 1977 as the country’s first Islamic bank. KFH sits at the center of the KFH Group banking network. This network includes 430 branches, more than 790 ATMs, and 8,600 employees. KFH’s Shari’a compliant products and services cover real estate, trade finance, and investments, as well as commercial, retail, and corporate banking. In addition to Kuwait, KFH operates in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Malaysia, and Australia.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Photo by Abdullah Ghatasheh

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Silicon Valley Bank’s Nick Christian and the Future of Fintech on the Finovate Podcast

Silicon Valley Bank’s Nick Christian and the Future of Fintech on the Finovate Podcast
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Interview, Podcasting, Speaker series

With more than 100 new loans in Q2 and over a billion dollars in new loan commitments, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is “doing the same thing we’ve been doing for over 40 years,” according to SVB’s Head of National Fintech and Specialty Finance Nick Christian. Now a division of First Citizens Bank, Silicon Valley Bank has been a key component of the innovation economy since 1983, providing critical financial services to Bay Area technology entrepreneurs and their companies.

Nick sat down with Finovate Vice President and host of the Finovate Podcast Greg Palmer earlier this month in the wake of SVB’s recently released Future of Fintech report. The report looks at the outlook for innovation in the fintech sector based on SVB’s unique sector knowledge and proprietary data. How are cash reserves holding up for fintechs? Which direction are valuations going? What can we expect from funding growth heading into 2024? Nick and Greg discussed these issues and more including:

  • The resilience of early-stage companies in the face of the funding slowdown
  • The importance of becoming cash-flow positive
  • How embedded finance is revolutionizing payments and putting new emphasis on monitoring and compliance

Check out the conversation!

Photo by Faik Akmd

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BNP Paribas Partners with Factoring and Asset-Based Lending Solution Provider Lenvi

BNP Paribas Partners with Factoring and Asset-Based Lending Solution Provider Lenvi
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Lenvi
  • French bank BNP Paribas announced a partnership with factoring and asset-based lending solution provider Lenvi.
  • BNP Paribas will leverage Lenvi’s Riskfactor platform to help mitigate risk and enhance operational efficiencies.
  • Lenvi made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in March.

BNP Paribas announced last week that it is partnering with risk management solution provider for factoring and asset-based lending Lenvi. The French bank will deploy Lenvi’s Riskfactor as part of a multi-year contract to help the financial institution mitigate risk and improve operational efficiencies.

“Riskfactor allows businesses to harmonize responses and operations across jurisdictions, resulting in significant improvement in overall operations efficiency,” Lenvi CEO Richard Carter said. “We look forward to working together with BNP Paribas to support them in optimizing their risk management capabilities, while preventing fraud and improving overall efficiency. BNP Paribas’ commitment to risk management ensures a future-proof business.”

Riskfactor’s risk metrics analyze portfolios to identify unusual behavior, enabling users to investigate and take action on the highest risk accounts. Riskfactor automates risk processes and workflows, assigns follow up tasks for further investigation, and provides schedules to facilitate managing audits, debt verification, client and debtor reviews, and more. The platform oversees $63.4 billion (€60 billion) in lending and monitors more than 60,000 accounts worldwide. With deployments in 17 territories around the world, Lenvi notes that 90% of the receivables market in the U.K. use Riskfactor. BNP Paribas stated that it will deploy the complete Riskfactor product portfolio in eight countries in Europe.

“We are confident that Riskfactor will deliver on its promise and we are happy to have Lenvi’s support in implementing the solution,” BNP Paribas Global Head of Factoring Lionel Joubaud said.

BNP Paribas was founded in 2000 as the product of a merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) and Paribas. The ninth-largest banking group in the world by assets, BNP Paribas is the largest banking group in Europe. As of 2022, BNP Paribas had total assets of $2.8 trillion (€2.67 trillion).

Headquartered in Leeds, U.K. and founded in 1988, Lenvi demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope earlier this year. Last month, the company announced partnerships with financial data provider Validis and secured finance technology company Lendscape.

Photo by Paul Deetman

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Three Reasons Why Elon Musk Will Turn X Into a Financial Superapp (and Two Reasons Why He Won’t!)

Three Reasons Why Elon Musk Will Turn X Into a Financial Superapp (and Two Reasons Why He Won’t!)
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: List series

Last week, Elon Musk informed his employees that he wanted X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to become the next big thing in consumer finance starting next year. And while this seems like an audacious plan for the man behind Tesla and SpaceX, Musk is a member of the PayPal mafia, after all. Could he know something about turning X into a financial services superapp that the rest of us don’t?

Let’s take a look at a few reasons why Elon Musk might be crazy as a fox when it comes to turning X into a fintech superapp – and a reason or two why he might not stand a chance.

Payments: The Gift That Keeps Giving

Whether you see payments as the “gift that keeps giving” in fintech or merely the lowest hanging fruit for a platform looking to expand into financial services, the idea of adding payments to X as an initial step in the direction of becoming a financial superapp makes sense.

Moreover, Musk sees payments as not just an initial step, but a key one in terms of not just the success of X but the end of the bank account as we know it.

“When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life,” Musk said in an all-hands staff meeting last month. “If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”

As such X has already secured money or currency transmitter licenses in seven U.S. states: Arizona, Maryland, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. These licenses enable X to offer a range of payment services, including crypto payment services. Observers have suggested this means Musk is initially planning on offering a Venmo or PayPal like payment processing service nationwide.

Elon Musk Has a Payments Pedigree

Although often forgotten amid his achievements with satellites, rockets, and automobiles, Elon Musk is a member of the group that paved the way for PayPal. Known colloquially as the “PayPal Mafia”, the group of 20+ technologists includes a number of entrepreneurs who, like Musk, have gone on to do more great things in the world of technology. These include the founding of companies such as YouTube and LinkedIn.

Musk’s specific contribution to the group was his founding of online financial services and e-mail payment company X.com in 1999. Among the first online banks to be federally insured, X.com merged with online bank Confinity in 2000, which had launched its money transfer service PayPal the year before. Interestingly, it was Musk who has been credited for moving the combined entity away from internet banking and toward a focus on payments. Nevertheless, within a month Musk was replaced as X.com CEO by Peter Thiel. The company took on the name PayPal in 2001 and in the following year generated more than $61 million in its IPO.

Embedded Finance Empowers All

The rise of embedded finance has made it possible for virtually any platform that wants to offer financial services to do so. Writing in The Financial Brand, Jim Marous underscored embedded finance as an “existential threat” to banks that could “divert 50% of banking revenue to other providers.” He noted a projection from consulting firm Publicis Sapient that suggested that revenue from embedded finance will reach $160 billion by 2025.

And while early adopters of embedded finance were fintechs and other financial-adjacent companies, the ability to embed basic, widely used financial services into a wider and wider range of consumer experiences has proved irresistible. From ridesharing and retail to hospitality and social media, the opportunity to boost customer engagement and create new revenue streams via embedded finance is clear. And between Musk’s payments pedigree and his desire to monetize X, the rise of embedded finance could not come at a better time.

Increasingly, the question for platforms will not be “can I do payments with you?” Instead, it will be “why would I want to do payments with you?” In this, a popular social media platform will have some advantages that other platforms will not.

Are Elon’s Eyes Bigger Than His Plate?

Whether or not you are a fan of Elon Musk’s X-ification of Twitter, it is hard to see X as a finished product. Some of the platform’s earliest adopters have left or are considering leaving. This is often due to combination of technical issues, changes in functionality, or an environment that critics have described as “a cesspool.”

How fixable are these problems? Much of X’s technical woes have been attributed to staffing issues – Musk claimed this spring to have cut the company’s staff by 80% – and Musk’s own mercurial management style. And many of the changes in functionality – such as making popular features like Tweetdeck a premium service – are essentially just attempts to monetize a platform that has been undermonetized for years in the eyes of many. As for the debate over how much X differs from Twitter in terms of tone and civility, social media platforms inevitably track the tone and civility of the societies that support them. If X in 2023 is a less happy place than Twitter was in 2013, there’s probably a good reason for that. And it isn’t Elon Musk.

That said, the idea that X could grow from a social media platform with a growing list of unfixed flaws into a trusted and widely used financial superapp does seem to skip a step.

Would You Put Your Trust in Musk?

As the launcher of rockets and the developer of tomorrow’s cars, Elon Musk has earned widespread praise and acclaim. But his tenure at the top of X has been rocky – both in terms of technical issues with the platform as well as the alleged proliferation of unsavory actors. Kara Swisher, a technology journalist and writer who has known Musk for years, astutely pointed out in a recent interview that Musk was surprised that he was not able to immediately parlay his success in the world of technology into the world of media. As such, it is an open question as to whether or not people who trust Musk enough to drive his cars, also trust him enough to safely move their money.

Photo by SpaceX

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Cybersecurity Firm Adlumin Raises $70 Million in Series B Funding

Cybersecurity Firm Adlumin Raises $70 Million in Series B Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Adlumin, Alumni News, Daily news, Funding
  • Cybersecurity company Adlumin has raised $70 million in Series B funding.
  • Adlumin offers a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) platform that provides enterprise-grade security to small and middle-market organizations.
  • Founded in 2016, Adlumin made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019.

Washington, D.C.-based cybersecurity company Adlumin closed a $70 million Series B funding round last week. The company, which made its Finovate debut four years ago at FinovateFall, offers a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) platform that provides continuous threat detection and response. Adlumin’s technology also provides cybersecurity teams with the tools they need for threat hunting, incident response, vulnerability management, darknet exposure monitoring, and compliance support.

The investment was led by SYN Ventures. First In Ventures, Washington Harbour Partners, and BankTech Ventures also participated. The investment boosts Adlumin’s total equity funding raised since inception to $83 million.

Adlumin will use the capital to accelerate growth. The funding will also help the company meet the demand of the 200,000 middle market businesses in the U.S. for enterprise-grade cybersecurity technology. Adlumin enables businesses to leverage one license and one platform that serve as a command center for security operations. The platform enhances collaboration with service providers with pre-integrated solutions that augment the platform’s capabilities and enhance existing systems and processes.

Adlumin founder and CEO Robert Johnston underscored the importance of helping small and middle market organizations not just access the necessary technology, but also the necessary talent. “With a significant cybersecurity skills gap, hiring the right people is an expensive, challenging and sometimes impossible task for small and mid-sized organizations who are competing with big government and businesses for talent,” Johnston explained. “This is why empowering service providers – whose expertise can be multiplied across several organizations – will be essential to securing mid-market organizations, and why we built a platform that does exactly that.”

Adlumin’s platform also ensures visibility into the organization’s security posture. This transparency is complete and available in real-time. Adlumin’s customers can see why an alert was issued and how it was resolved; access investigation data, reporting, and threat intelligence on-demand; and more – whether they are running the platform themselves or having a third-party run it for them.

The company’s investment announcement after the launch of a pair of new security solutions for middle-market organizations. These new offerings were a subscription-based incident response service and no-cost warranty and discounted cyberinsurance policies. Earlier this month, Adlumin announced a partnership and integration with cloud native security pioneer Aqua Security. Over the summer, Adlumin announced a partnership with IT services provider MNJ Technologies.

Photo by Mark Stebnicki

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AlphaPoint Partners with Blockchain Protection Firm Coincover

AlphaPoint Partners with Blockchain Protection Firm Coincover
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: AlphaPoint, Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news
  • Digital asset infrastructure platform AlphaPoint announced a partnership with Coincover.
  • A blockchain protection firm, Coincover will provide enhanced security for AlphaPoint customers.
  • AlphaPoint made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2015 and returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateFall.

AlphaPoint, a digital asset infrastructure platform, has turned to blockchain protection firm Coincover to provide its customers with enhanced security. Courtesy of the partnership, AlphaPoint customers will be able to access Coincover’s Asset Protection solution which helps mitigate a variety of security threats including hacking, human error, and scams.

Coincover secures its clients against hacking and theft by proactively screening and protecting transactions. The company’s crypto threat intelligence and machine learning models continuously monitor activity across millions of digital wallets and transactions, flagging potentially malicious behavior. Coincover’s technology delivers proactive alerts that enable users to take action when abnormal patterns are spotted. The company has more than 300 partners worldwide, protects five million crypto wallets, and has checked $30 billion in transactions. David Janczewski is co-founder and CEO.

“By collaborating with Coincover, a top innovator in asset protection, we’re providing our customers with leading-edge insurance to safeguard their assets,” AlphaPoint CEO and co-founder Igor Telyatnikov said. “This partnership demonstrates our commitment to delivering complete peace of mind through institutional-grade security and infrastructure.”

AlphaPoint made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2015. The company returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateFall in New York. In the years since then, AlphaPoint has grown into leading digital asset infrastructure company with more than 150 customers in 35 countries. The company’s platform supports more than 10 million registered accounts, more than one trillion in trading volume, and billions in assets. AlphaPoint counts CME Group and XP Securites among its clients. El Salvador chose AlphaPoint to operate its Chivo Bitcoin wallet in 2022 as part of the country’s experiment in mass bitcoin adoption.

Earlier this month, AlphaPoint launched AlphaPoint Labs. The new entity provides advisory, development, and implementation services for FIs, exchanges, and businesses seeking to integrate digital assets and blockchain technology. This spring, the company forged a new partnership with cryptoasset risk management company Elliptic. Over the summer, AlphaPoint teamed up with verification platform Sumsub.

AlphaPoint is headquartered in New York. The company has raised more than $23 million in funding.

Photo by Lex Photography

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Eight Alums Raised More Than $293 Million in Q3 2023

Eight Alums Raised More Than $293 Million in Q3 2023
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: David's column, Funding, Fundings, Quarterly Funding

A few months ago we opined here on the Finovate blog that the funding woes that had plagued fintech in the first half of 2023 might abate in the second half.

If Q3 is any indication, then it will have to be the fourth quarter of the year when that happens.

Eight Finovate alums raised more than $293 million in Q3 of 2023. The number of alums raising funding was consistent with last year’s total. But the overall level of funding for Finovate alums was down from previous third quarters. In fact, the last time Q3 alum funding was less than $1 billion was in 2018, when 19 alums raised $400 million.

Admittedly, two of the eight alums to report funding in the third quarter of 2023 did not disclose funding amounts. This means that the total investment for Finovate alums in Q3 could be significantly higher than what is known today. And it was interesting to note how many fintechs that did secure investment over the summer months were headquartered in developing markets. But that aside, for markets in the U.S., the U.K., and Europe, in particular, the fintech funding drought continues to define the terrain.

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q3 2022: More than $1 billion raised by eight alums
  • Q3 2021: More than $1.1 billion raised by 14 alums
  • Q3 2020: More than $1.2 billion raised by 14 alums
  • Q3 2019: More than $1 billion raised by 21 alums

Top Equity Investments for Q3 2023

The top equity investment of the quarter among Finovate alums was clearly the $110 million raised by SpyCloud. The company, which won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2017, specializes in helping businesses fight account takeover fraud, as well as other types of cybercrime.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, and founded in 2016, SpyCloud gives organizations visibility into exposed credentials actively traded on the dark web. In response, SpyCloud’s platform not only uncovers these stolen credentials, but also leads to the capture of 40 million exposed assets every week. The company’s Q3 investment takes its total equity funding to more than $168 million.

Also noteworthy in the third quarter were the investments secured by Tradeshift ($70 million), ThetaRay ($57 million), and Splitit ($50 million).

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q3 2023.

July 2023: More than $4.5 million raised by three alums

August 2023: More than $232 million raised by four alums

September 2023: $57 million raised by one alum

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the third quarter of 2023 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

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Payments Platform Paysend Partners with Western Union

Payments Platform Paysend Partners with Western Union
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, PaySend, Western Union
  • Payments platform Paysend announced a partnership with Western Union this week.
  • The partnership will enable consumers to send money via Western Union directly to Visa and Mastercard debit cards.
  • Paysend made its Finovate debut in 2016 at FinovateEurope.

International payments platform Paysend inked an agreement with Western Union today. The partnership will enable consumers to send money via Western Union’s branded digital solution directly to both Visa and Mastercard debit cards. Paysend will provide a single API that ensures seamless processing of these Western Union customer payments at live FX rates, 24/7, 365 days a year.

“Paysend’s mission is to make money transfer easier for everyone,” Paysend Executive Chairman and co-founder Abdul Abdulkerimov said. “We are thrilled to join forces with Western Union, a company known for its global reach and commitment to financial inclusion. Together, we will empower millions with accessible cross-border money transfer services.”

The remittance market continues to be a major source of economic growth for communities around the world. The World Bank estimated that remittances grew 5% to more than $800 billion last year. This week’s partnership comes in the wake of a pilot program recently launched by the two companies. The program will help customers send money from the U.S. and U.K. to Pakistan, the U.K., and Spain easier -with additional locations coming soon. The news also follows strategic collaborations between Paysend and Visa and between Paysend and Mastercard that were announced last month. These partnerships are part of the company’s effort to expand its ability to improve cross-border payments for SMEs and individuals. “Our mission at Paysend is simple,” Abdulkerimov said, “to deliver the world’s simplest money transfer service.”

Founded in 1851, Western Union today serves as one of the largest money transfer businesses in the world. The company is active in more than 200 countries and territories, and facilitates fund transfers in nearly 130 currencies. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Western Union offers wire transfer, mobile money transfer, and other fund transfer services. These offerings include Western Union Connect, which facilitates fund transfers between the U.S. and China. Last week, Western Union reported Q3 results that, according to company President and Chief Executive Officer Devin McGranahan, “exceeded our expectations and demonstrate a continued positive trajectory against our ‘Evolve 2025’ goals.”

Paysend made its Finovate debut in 2016 at FinovateEurope, and returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateSpring. Headquartered in London, the company this year has forged partnerships with global onboarding and payroll platform RemotePass, payroll platform Ontop, and Spanish-language content and media company, TelevisaUnivision.

Paysend has raised more than $272 million in funding. Global PayTech Ventures and InfraVia Capital Partners are among the company’s investors.

Photo by Pixabay

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Finovate Global Singapore: Multi-Currency Wallets, MAS on Scams, and the OCBC OKs AI

Finovate Global Singapore: Multi-Currency Wallets, MAS on Scams, and the OCBC OKs AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entersekt, Finovate Global

Arguably the premier fintech hub in Asia, Singapore has benefitted from its own strong growth, the emerging economies of its neighbors, and a robust regulatory regime in the form of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

According to the 2022 FinTech State of Play report from the Singapore Fintech Association, Singapore has more than 1,000 fintech firms in its jurisdiction. The majority of fintechs in Singapore are involved in payments, financial services infrastructure, regtech, lending, and money management. Payments is considered the most mature sector within the industry. At the same time, observers have highlighted regtech as an area of potential opportunity for growth.

This week in Finovate Global we take a look at handful of recent developments in Singapore’s fintech industry. These items include a new investment, positive signs for AI adoption in financial services, and new regulatory guidance from the MAS.

Singapore-based multi-currency mobile wallet company YouTrip has secured $50 million in funding. The Series B round was led by venture capital firm Lightspeed. The investment takes YouTrip’s total capital raised to more than $105 million. The company plans to use the funding to launch new products and features, invest in technology, and expand into new markets. YouTrip also expects to offer GooglePay later this year.

“YouTrip launched in 2018 with the bold vision to empower everyone with a smarter and more convenient way to pay in foreign currency,” YouTrip CEO Caecilia Chu said. “The latest funding round is a testament to our strong potential in the B2C and B2B payment spaces.”

YouTrip is a mobile financial platform that offers a multi-currency mobile wallet and a contactless Mastercard. Users can make fee-free payments in more than 150 currencies. YouTrip also features 10 selected currencies that are available for in-app exchange. This enables users to lock in favorable exchange rates when they become available.

In a blog post at the company’s website, YouTrip thanked its customers for not abandoning the company during the pandemic. “You stuck with us through thick and thin – supporting us when we expanded to e-commerce to help you continue saving on FX transactions as you stayed safe indoors,” the company noted.

YouTrip achieved profitability in April. The company processes $10 billion in payments annually. These payments come largely from the consumer side of YouTrip’s business. This includes facilitating payments for users traveling overseas, transactions on international websites, and corporate spending by SMEs that use YouTrip’s YouBiz service.

How eagerly are financial services companies embracing AI? OCBC Bank Singapore announced this week that it is making a new AI-powered chatbot available to its 30,000-member staff across 19 countries. The bot, OCBC ChatGPT, was developed in partnership with Microsoft Azure, and operates similarly to Open AI’s ChatGPT.

The solution will be used to help bank employees with writing, research, and ideation, and comes to OCBC Bank after a six-trial. Approximately 1,000 OCBC employees participated in the trial, and reported completing their tasks twice as fast with the bot – including fact-checking – compared to without.

OCBC Bank is currently working with four specific generative AI functions. These roles are: Wingman, which helps coders write code; Whisper, which transcribes and summarizes voice calls; Buddy, which retrieves data from company documents and records staff meetings; and Document AI, which provides summaries of documents like financial reports.

“We are excited to be one of the first banks in the world to deploy generative AI tools at scale,” OCBC Head of Group Data Donald MacDonald said. “We believe that these tools have the potential to transform the way our employees work by automating a wide range of time-consuming tasks, freeing up their time to focus on more strategic and value-added work.”

Looking for someone to blame when it comes to phishing scams? The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) have weighed in with a new paper proposing a Shared Responsibility Framework (SRF) for phishing scams. The framework points to specific actions both financial institutions and telecommunications companies need to take in order to mitigate the damage from phishing scams. The SRF also requires these entities to pay affected scam victims when these actions are not carried out.

“This incentivizes vigilance by all parties in the ecosystem to uphold safety in e-payments,” MAS Deputy Managing Director Ho Hern Shin said. Additionally, the two entities proposed heightened standards in the E-payments User Protection Guidelines (EUPG) to strengthen anti-scam efforts. IMDA Deputy Chief Executive Aileen Chia praised the involvement of telecommunications companies in the effort to fight phishing. “The inclusion of Telcos in the Shared Responsibility Framework as supporting infrastructure providers serves to strengthen the ecosystem against scams,” Chia explained.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Saudi Arabia-based fintech Hala introduced new Chief Technology Officer Saleem Arshad.
  • UAE-based digital payments provider Hubpay launched its cross-border “Collect & Remit” solution.
  • Egyptian bank Banque Misr partnered with telecommunications company Etisalat Misr to launch e-payment technology company, SuperPay.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India’s first digital escrow platform Escrowpay raised $6 million in funding.
  • Mint reported that India ranked third among countries with the most fintech unicorns.
  • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced an investigation of Kazakhstan fintech Freedom Holding over compliance issues.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Uruguay-based cross-border payments processor dLocal forged a partnership with ACE Money Transfer.
  • Open Finance platform Belvo teamed up with Colombia’s MOVii to help fight digital payments fraud.
  • Plata, a Mexico-based fintech platform, turned to South Africa’s Entersekt to boost security for its Plata credit card.

Asia-Pacific

  • Triple-A, a Singapore-based digital currency payment institution, raised $10 million in Series A funding.
  • GoTo Financial partnered with Indonesia’s Bank Jago to launch new bank account for everyday transactions, GoPay Tabungan by Jago.
  • International B2B payment infrastructure platform Thunes has teamed up with China Construction Bank to enhance cross-border payments.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Disrupt Africa profiled Ghana-based payments infrastructure startup PAL.
  • Cameroon-based fintech Koree won the 2023 Ecobank Fintech Challenge
  • Rest of World featured Nigerian money transfer app OPay.

Photo by Stijn Dijkstra

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Payoneer Partners with Etsy to Streamline Payments to Sellers in Emerging Markets

Payoneer Partners with Etsy to Streamline Payments to Sellers in Emerging Markets
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Payoneer
  • Payments platform Payoneer has collaborated with Etsy’s seller offering, Etsy Payments.
  • The partnership will enable Etsy to streamline payments to sellers, empowering entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
  • Payoneer made its Finovate debut ten years ago at FinovateAsia 2013.

Etsy Payments has a brand new partner. The company, the bespoke seller offering from global online marketplace Etsy, has announced a collaboration with payments platform Payoneer. The partnership will help Etsy streamline payments to sellers. It will also give entrepreneurs in emerging markets better opportunities to grow their businesses. This includes the ability to offer a broader range of services and to make payouts to sellers in their preferred currency.

The collaboration will launch in the Ukraine and Thailand initially. By the end of the year, the service will be live in India, Japan, Argentina, Chile, and Peru, as well.

“Through this partnership, we are able to leverage Payoneer’s global reach and world-class payment technology to bring efficiencies at scale and provide seamless payouts to sellers in their local markets and the currency of their preference,” Etsy VP & GM Payments and Risk, Chirag Patel said.

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, Etsy launched its Etsy Payments service in 2017. The option was previously called Direct Checkout and payments were processed by PayPal rather than Etsy. Etsy Payments enables sellers on the marketplace to offer buyers a wide range of payment options. These choices include Visa, PayPal, and Mastercard, as well as ApplePay, GooglePay, and Klarna, and buyers can transact in local currencies.

“This collaboration will help create opportunities for the often-underserved sellers in emerging markets, giving them better access to global demand,” Payoneer SVP Americas Ya Wen explained.

New York-based Payoneer made its Finovate debut in 2013 at FinovateAsia. The company returned to the Finovate stage two years later to present its technology at our developers conference FinDEVrNewYork. In the years since, Payoneer has grown into an international business payments platform with millions of customers, support for 70 currencies and 22+ languages, and coverage of more than 190 countries.

Payoneer began 2023 with a new Chief Financial Officer, Bea Ordonez. A few months later, the company introduced a new Chief Executive Officer, John Caplan, as well. So far this year, Payoneer has forged partnerships with software company Zoho, remote work outsourcing platform INSIDEA, Egyptian marketing firm Stllr, and cryptocurrency startup belo. The company acquired Israel-based data platform Spott in August and, in September, expanded its long-term relationship with Airbnb.

Payoneer is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker PAYO. It has a market capitalization of $2 billion.

Photo by Oleksandr P

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Conversations on Core Banking, Automation in Lending, Innovations in Fraud Prevention

Conversations on Core Banking, Automation in Lending, Innovations in Fraud Prevention
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Speaker series

When it comes to Finovate conferences, our Streamly Video Series might be the next best thing to being there.

Today we’re featuring a trio of conversations from our FinovateFall conference in September, captured by our Streamly Video Team.

How is bank modernization enhancing the customer experience? How are the best lenders in financial services leveraging enabling technologies like AI? How is automation revolutionizing the fight against financial crime? Check out our Streamly interviews with:

Emily Steele, President and COO at Savana

David Snitkof, SVP of Growth at Ocrolus

Devon Anderson, Account Executive, Mid-Market at Quavo

Photo by Donald Tong

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Praxent Partners with WealthBlock to Build Digital Experiences for Capital Raises

Praxent Partners with WealthBlock to Build Digital Experiences for Capital Raises
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Praxent
  • Digital design, engineering, and implementation specialist Praxent has teamed up with WealthBlock.
  • Via the partnership, the two companies will build digital experiences to facilitate capital raises for venture fund and crowdfunding managers.
  • Praxent demonstrated its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr 2021.

A partnership between Praxent and WealthBlock will bring custom digital experiences to venture fund and crowdfunding managers to help facilitate the capital raising process.

WealthBlock offers a white label platform for private asset management firms and crowdfunding portals. The company’s technology streamlines investment presentation, investor onboarding and document e-sign, as well as investor reporting. The partnership will empower clients to build and launch customized digital journeys that will engage investors and boost conversions.

Praxent CEO and founder Tim Hamilton praised WealthBlock as an industry leader in the investor management technology space. “WealthBlock is powering the future of funding deals,” Hamilton said. “Together, we are creating and integrating bespoke, secure user experiences that drive revenue and growth for companies looking to raise capital.”

WealthBlock CEO Trilliam Jeong underscored the importance of self-service in the capital raising space, calling it critical to success. Additionally, Jeong credited Praxent’s experience in financial services – and with the company’s platform – for making Praxent “the ideal partner.” He added, “By joining forces, we enable clients to accelerate the secure launch of custom experiences that allow them to more effectively onboard and serve investors.”

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Praxent helps financial services companies develop differentiated fintech solutions that yield quantifiable results. The company has assisted more than 400 organizations as they enhanced their customer relationships via a combination of human-centered design, front-end engineering, and product integration.

Founded in 2000, Praxent made its Finovate debut at our developers conference, FinDEVr, in 2021. In August of this year, the company announced partnerships with Insurance Systems Inc. and small business lender NEWITY. In September, Praxent introduced new Chief Revenue Officer Robin Smith. Smith previously served as Vice President of North America for Finovate alum Mambu.

Photo by Scott Webb

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