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The Best of Finovate Global 2023: Digital Transformation, Financial Inclusion, AI and Automation

The Best of Finovate Global 2023: Digital Transformation, Financial Inclusion, AI and Automation
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, FIS, Interview, Mambu, MasterCard, Nubank, WorldPay

Our final Finovate Global column of 2023 celebrates the conversations we’ve had this year with fintech innovators from around the world.

Stay tuned in 2024 for more interviews with some of the most interesting founders, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders in fintech and financial services.

“We developed BehaviorQuant because every financial decision is ultimately made by a person or a team. BehaviorQuant solves a core problem that underlies the entire investment industry: we don’t have systematic knowledge about the people and teams behind investment decisions. And that’s true for financial professionals and clients alike.” Dr. Thomas Oberlechner, founder and CEO of BehaviorQuant. Interview.

“Moniepoint solves the problem of fragmented, inaccessible, and low-quality financial services for businesses in emerging markets.  It is a full-service business banking platform seeking to provide all the digital financial services a typical business needs.” Tosin Eniolorunda, founder and CEO of Moniepoint. Interview.

“Eight hundred million voice conversations are recorded daily in Europe and many more worldwide. A tiny 1% of these conversations are checked for quality control, employee training, and business results improvement. Ender Turing is a conversations intelligence and automation platform to close 99% of the conversation gap for business growth.” Olena Iosifova, CEO of Ender Turing. Interview.

“Capital raising is broken. Private companies spend months and even years in the fundraising process, learning how to raise capital and repeating the same mistakes, approaching the wrong investors and often spamming them with irrelevant investment opportunities.” Ulyana Shtybel, CEO of Quoroom. Interview.

“At Refine intelligence, our mission is to help banks regain that superpower of really knowing their customers’ life stories, so their financial crime teams can quickly clear AML or scam alerts triggered by legitimate customer activity. We work with Risk, Financial Crime, BSA and AML teams. Fraud teams look at our technology to help with scam operations.” Uri Rivner, co-founder and CEO of Refine Intelligence. Interview.

“It was an honor to be ranked by CB Insights in its Fintech 250 list and, as one of only seven African start-ups featured, it speaks to the pioneering approach we are introducing to the world – revolutionizing payments and creating a financial services ecosystem for Africa.”

“As sub-Saharan Africa gains recognition on the global stage, we are seeing innovative and pioneering products emerge and rise in popularity amongst consumers, diversifying the products they can choose from.” Tayo Oviosu, founder and CEO of Paga. Interview.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Berlin, Germany-based cloud banking platform Mambu to power the new Neobank Engine launched by Trigger Software.
  • Mintos, a multi-asset platform based in Latvia, announced addition of personalized ETFs to its product suite.
  • Hungary’s OTP Bank partnered with Intellect Global Consumer banking (iGCB), the consumer banking arm of Indian banking technology copany Intelltect Design Arena.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Photo by Markus Spiske

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Finovate Global France: Automating Payments, Extending Loans, and Collaborating on Crypto

Finovate Global France: Automating Payments, Extending Loans, and Collaborating on Crypto
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, iProov, Mambu, MasterCard, Numeral, PaySend, Revolut, VISA

This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at recent fintech developments involving companies headquartered in France.

First up is news that European Buy Now, Pay Later firm Alma has partnered with BNP Paribas and new Finovate alum Numeral to automate payments.

“As part of our goal to create the most fluid and seamless experience for both merchants and customers, paying our 11,000 and growing merchants reliably and efficiently is critical,” Alma COO and co-founder Guillaume Desloges said. “Numeral enables us to scale with confidence and focus on our core business.”

Alma Finance and Strategy Senior Manager Simon Shohet explained that the integration of Numeral into both its systems as well as BNP Paribas’ systems, audit trails, and approval rules will enable automation of the process of managing “thousands of daily payments at scale.” Shohet added, “Thanks to Numeral, we can focus on the most critical incidents and rapidly solve merchant’s issues.”

Alma plans to eventually use Numeral’s platform to become a SEPA participant via BNP Paribas. This would enable Alma to issue IBANs in its own name, a strategic advantage for the firm.

Numeral made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in London earlier this year. At the conference, the Paris-based company showed how financial institutions can leverage Numeral’s platform to automatically send, receive, and reconcile SEPA payments. The platform also enables financial institutions to manage payment errors via SEPA R transactions. The company is on track to process €5B in 2023.

Also this week, we learned that Revolut will begin offering customer credit products in France at the end of the month. The company announced that consumer loans will be available to Revolut’s more than two million French users starting on May 30th.

Revolut currently offers lending products in other European markets. These markets include Ireland, Lithuania, and Romania. Mortgage products are not part of the current package. But Revolut VP of Growth Antoine Le Nel said that these products are in the pipeline.

Thanks to Revolut’s embrace of open banking, prospective borrowers will be able to apply for loans without having to deal with hardcopy paperwork. Instead, applicants will get virtual “instant feedback” on their loan requests. Loans come with zero opening fees and are available from as low as €1,000 to as high as €50,000. Terms range from three months to 84 months and interest rates range from a low of 3.9% to 21.12%.

France has earned a reputation for being friendly to the cryptocurrency industry. This week’s news of a partnership between Canada’s Advanced Payment Solutions (APS), Cyprus’ Armenotech, and France’s Tempo France is another modest testament to this.

Back in at the beginning of the year, Armenotech and payments company Tempo Finance teamed up to develop an ecosystem supported by the Stellar blockchain. This week, we learn that London-based Advanced Payment Solutions has joined the pact.

APS CEO Serik Igbayev highlighted the importance of giving businesses the ability to work with traditional and digital assets. And in a statement, Igbayev praised the partnership with Armenotech for playing a key role in making this happen. “Clients increasingly demonstrate a demand for services that would enable them to operate both traditional and digital assets, combining various payment methods,” Igbayev said. “We have successfully been using state-of-the-art Armenotech solutions to meet this demand.” These solutions included tools that facilitate the conversion between fiat and digital assets, as well as products for fraud protection, security, KYC, and ALM.

Tempo France is serving as the corporate payment operator for the alliance. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Paris, Tempo France provides a fast and secure bridge between cash and cryptocurrencies. The company offers online, offline, and digitally backed remittances to nearly 100 countries with more than 300 physical agent locations. Alla Zhedik is CEO.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Photo by Chait Goli

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Finovate Global VC Edition: Quona Capital Backs Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets with New Fund

Finovate Global VC Edition: Quona Capital Backs Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets with New Fund
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entrust Datacard, Finastra, Finovate Global, Mambu, MasterCard, Temenos, VISA

Good news for fintech startups in developing markets! Quona Capital recently announced that it has closed its latest fintech fund, its third, at $332 million. The venture capital firm, which specializes in emerging markets, noted that the amount raised topped its target of $250 million. The new fund, Fund III, will be focused on companies that are developing technologies that expand access to financial services for consumers and businesses in regions ranging from Latin America and India to Southeast Asia, MENA, and Africa.

“Since our earliest days, Quona has been dedicated to expanding the frontiers of financial inclusion – investing with conviction in markets and technology-enabled models improving access and quality of financial services for the masses,” Quona co-founding managing partner Monica Brand Engel said in a statement. “Our prior fund performance, robust pipeline of inclusive fintechs, and growing LP interest in our offerings are ringing endorsements of our view on the prospects of impact-oriented venture investing in emerging markets.”

With aggregate capital of more than $745 million, Fund II is the firm’s third fund since Quona Capital was launched in 2015. Those contributing to the fund as investors include global asset managers, insurance companies, both investment and commercial banks, endowments, foundations, family offices, and more. And while many of the investors in Fund III have invested in Quona Capital funds previously, the new fund did receive capital from 20 new investors, as well.

According to Quona Capital, the startups in its portfolio have served nearly nine million small and medium-sized businesses and over 30 million retail customers. Quona Capital startups have raised nearly $4 billion in capital and generated more than $800 million in revenues. Among these firms are India-based consumer lending company ZestMoney, Southeast Asia-based fintech marketplace ula, and long-time international remittance firm and long-time Finovate alum Azimo – which was acquired by Papaya Global earlier this year.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian neobank ZikZuk acquired tax e-filing platform TaxSpanner.
  • National Bank of Pakistan turned to Finastra to enhance its trade finance operations.
  • Lentra, a fintech based in India, secured $60 million in Series B funding for its loans-as-a-service business for banks.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • AstroPay introduced its Mastercard prepaid card in Brazil.
  • Mexico-based B2B payments company Mendel raised $60 million in new funding.
  • Brazil’s Agrolend, which provides credit to the country’s farmers, secured $27 million in Series B funding.

Asia-Pacific

  • Ant Group introduced its Buy Now, Pay later offering in Hong Kong.
  • Vietnam-based Sacombank partnered with Temenos to enhance digital banking.
  • Philippines-based neobank Tonik unveiled its all-digital lending products, Flex Loan and Big Loan.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian fintech Paga unveiled its Visa-branded card this week.
  • Pan-African paytech Cellulant secured a Payment Systems Operator license from the National Bank of Uganda
  • Samsung South Africa launched its digital wallet, Samsung Wallet.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Polish fintech Ramp locked in $70 million in Series B funding to build payment rails for cryptocurrency investors.
  • Co-investment platform for European startups SeedBlink secured licensing from the Romanian Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF).
  • Genome, an Electronic Money Institution based in Lithuania, partnered with Entrust to simplify digital payments.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • UAE-based Wio Bank went live with Mambu’s cloud-native banking platform.
  • Pyppl, a financial services platform based in the UAE, raised $20 million in Series B funding.
  • Saudi Arabia’s central bank presented its open banking framework.

Photo by Ricky Gálvez

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EU Toughens Crypto AML Rules; ADGM Academy and Singapore University Promote Fintech Literacy

EU Toughens Crypto AML Rules; ADGM Academy and Singapore University Promote Fintech Literacy
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finastra, Finovate Global, Mambu, ThetaRay

One of the many fascinating conversations I enjoyed at FinovateEurope last week was my chat with Trulioo Chief Technology Officer Hal Lonas. Among the topics we discussed was the way evolving regulations were impacting the business of keeping financial services companies compliant with regard to KYC and AML requirements.

This week we learned that the European parliament is moving closer to embracing another measure to tighten rules with regard to financial services – in this case, cryptocurrency transactions. Members of two parliamentary committees this week approved new rules to ban anonymous cryptocurrency transactions as part of an overall European Union-wide anti-money laundering campaign.

The new regulations will require all transfers of cryptocurrencies, regardless of size, to include information on the source and the beneficiary of the assets involved. This information, which will be made available to regulators, would cover transactions from wallet addresses that are held by private users (“unhosted wallets”). The new requirements, however, would not apply to P2P transfers made without an intervening provider.

“Illicit flows in crypto assets move largely undetected across Europe and the world,” Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs co-rapporteur Ernest Urtasun explained. “(This) makes them an ideal instrument for ensuring anonymity.”

The new policy has its critics. Supporters such as Urtasun have pointed to the disclosures of the Panama and Pandora Papers as good reasons for bringing additional scrutiny to cryptocurrency transactions. But critics such as Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer with Coinbase, suggest that the new regulations are based on a false premise: that cryptocurrencies represent a significant vehicle for illegal activity.

“The truth is that digital assets are in generally a markedly inferior way for criminals to hide their illicit financial activity,” Grewal wrote in a blog post earlier this week. “That’s why, according to the best research available, by far the most popular way to hide illicit financial activity remains cash.”

By contrast, Grewal noted “digital assets and the immutable nature of their blockchain technology actually enhances the ability to detect and deter illicit activity.”

The proposed legislation will now be voted on by the full parliament and national ministers.

April is Financial Literacy Month. Be sure to check out our themed coverage of financial literacy both on the Finovate blog in general and here in Finovate Global in specific all month long.

To this end, we found news of the Memorandum of Understanding recently signed by the Abu Dhabi Global Market Academy (ADGMA) and the National University of Singapore’s Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF) to be especially noteworthy.

The goal of the pact is to help bring thought leadership to the fintech community and bolster the fintech ecosystem in Abu Dhabi “and beyond.” There are three main pillars to the agreement: research and publication, technology development, and knowledge dissemination – each of which contributes differently toward the goal of facilitating knowledge exchange across regions and encouraging research collaboration.

What’s interesting about this initiative is the way it supports financial literacy and education among professionals already in the field of financial services. “We, at AIDF, look forward to the close collaborations with ADGMA in research advancements, the education of skilled professionals, and nurturing of FinTech entrepreneurs,” Duan Jin-Chuan, Executive Director of the Asian Institute of Digital Finance at the National University of Singapore, said. “We see these activities as a vital component in pursing a better future for our countries.”

The ADGM Academy, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE, was established in 2018 to build expertise, financial education, and literacy in the region. The Academy is part of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), an international financial center, and features coursework areas including banking and finance, digital and fintech, and entrepreneurship, as well as national, personal, and professional development.

FinovateEurope ended just a few days ago. Of all our events, our London conference often provides the best showcase for international fintech innovation – especially from developing economies and parts of the world not always considered to be fintech hubs in spite of their economies.

Below is a quick run-down of companies in this category that demoed their latest solutions at FinovateEurope last month.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by ArtHouse Studio

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FinovateEuorpe 2022 Sneak Peek: Persistent Systems and Mambu

FinovateEuorpe 2022 Sneak Peek: Persistent Systems and Mambu
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2022, FinovateEurope 2022 Sneak Peek, Mambu, Persistent Systems

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope on March 15 digitally and in London on March 22 and 23, 2022. Register today and save your spot.

Persistent Systems and Mambu will demo an intuitive solution that gives customers the ability to manage multiple financial accounts and enables seamless transfers to and from accounts using different currencies.

Features

  • Consolidated account balances from multiple accounts and currencies
  • Transfer of funds from one currency account to another
  • Transfer to third party accounts

Why it’s great

Customers are seeking digital wallets to hold and spend in different currencies. The Persistent solution and Mambu integration enables multi-currency wallets, quickly and globally.

Presenters

Rowhit Bhosale, Digital Banking Specialist at Persistent Systems
Bhosale is a digital banking specialist with over 10 years experience working in the financial services sector, evangelizing and supporting transformative initiatives for the global enterprises.
LinkedIn

Harjit Kang, Account Executive at Mambu
Focusing on supporting financial organisations to break away from monolithic managed services and move towards a best of breed composable ecosystem. Having been an early joiner at Mambu, Kang has real life use cases of such journeys.
LinkedIn

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Kuwait Issues Guidelines for Digital Banks; QR Codes Versus Cash in Argentina

Kuwait Issues Guidelines for Digital Banks; QR Codes Versus Cash in Argentina
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Mambu, NCR Corporation, Nordigen

According to a report from Medici, nearly 168 million people in the MENA region (Middle East and Northern Africa) do not have a bank account. In this environment, opportunities for both traditional financial institutions and new entrants are numerous. In some instances, financial services companies have launched their own digital banking portals in order to reach out beyond their current customer bases. In other cases, these firms have teamed up with challenger banks and innovative fintechs to help bridge the gap between the banked and the unbanked.

One of the challenges to reaching more potential customers in the MENA region has been regulatory, which makes this week’s news from the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) all the more notable. The CBK issued a set of guidelines for digital banks as part of a campaign to improve financial stability, encourage innovation, and help the country respond to its economic needs.

In drawing up its guidelines, the CBK relied on a study of the regulatory approaches taken by 25 central banks and 40 digital bank business models. The CBK noted that there were three main models for digital banking: as a unit within a traditional bank, a partnership between a bank and a digitally-based institution in which the bank manages core banking operations while the partnering institution manages customer relations and other operations, and as a standalone digital bank.

“The guidelines come in five parts covering the definition of digital banks, their legal framework, and licensed activities, as well as phases and procedures for establishment of digital banks,” CBK Governor Dr. Mohammad Y. Al-Hashel said. The new guidelines pave the way for interested parties to apply from now until June 30th. Initial approvals, according to the CBK governor, will be made by the end of the year.

For more on the digital banking landscape in the Middle East, with a particular focus on neobanks, check out this overview from Medici.

Speaking of central banks, the head of Argentina’s central bank, Miguel Ángel Pesce, recently gave an interview with the Buenos Aires Times. The main focus of the conversation was a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund to deal with the country’s $44.5 billion debt to the organization. The agreement, which includes a pledge to reduce the country’s fiscal deficit as well as other measures, comes after a two-year negotiation process and still requires the approval of both Argentina’s congress as well as the IMF board of directors.

Yet it was Pesce’s separate conversation with Buenos Aires reporter Jorge Fontevecchia – published this week – that may be of greater interest to followers of international fintech. In that interview, Pesce explained some of the more controversial policies of Argentina’s central bank toward fintechs, including deposit insurance requirements for payment service companies. Pesce defended the practice as a way of “making more independent the assets of companies lending out the assets deposited in them” and of assuring that companies that serve as financial intermediaries are regulated as such. Pesce acknowledged that while this policy has engendered “some resentment in the short term,” it is necessary to ensure a “solid system” that banking services customers can rely upon.

In terms of innovation, Pesce spoke positively about the launch and adoption of interoperable QR codes, which were made mandatory in Argentina for all electronic invoices starting in late December 2020. He noted that interoperable QR codes could do to physical cash what electronic checks have done to paper checks (“a very important step in this direction”). And while he offered no timetable on the transition, “it’s going to end up happening,” Pesce insisted.

Read the full interview at Buenos Aires Times

FinovateEurope 2022 is right around the corner. If you are an innovative fintech company with new technology to show, then there’s no better time than now and no better forum than FinovateEurope. To learn more about how to demo your latest innovation at FinovateEurope 2022 in London, March 22-23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by Shahbaz Hussain Shah from Pexels

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New Investment Drives Mambu’s Valuation to $5.5 Billion

New Investment Drives Mambu’s Valuation to $5.5 Billion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Mambu

Modern SaaS banking platform Mambu has secured an investment of $266 million (€235 million) in a Series E round led by EQT Growth. The funding, the largest to date for a banking software platform according to Mambu, gives the Berlin, Germany-based company a valuation of $5.5 billion (€4.9 billion).

“This latest round of funding will allow us to accelerate our plans in expanding our mission-critical banking platform to further enable composable business models which are agile and continuously evolving,” Mambu co-founder and CEO Eugene Danilkis said. Additionally, the company will use the new capital to expand its global footprint to support an international customer base that is currently active in 65 countries.

More than 50 million end users rely on Mambu’s technology every day. In Q3 of 2021, Mambu produced year-on-year growth of more than 1.2x. Also this year, the company has signed 40+ customers, with more than 55% of its new customers headquartered outside of Europe. Among the company’s more recent partnerships are its alliance with Capgemini to offer BaaS in the Asia-Pacific region, and its collaboration with Germany-based Raisin Bank, which launched its own BaaS offering using Mambu’s cloud banking platform. Other major deployments included N26, Raiffeisen Bank, and ABN Amro.

Founded in 2011 – and a Finovate alum since 2013 – Mambu most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage this September at FinovateFall. At the event, the company provided a birds-eye view of its SaaS cloud banking platform, showing how users can open an account, create and launch new solutions in minutes, and leverage integrations with Salesforce, Stripe, Marqeta, and others to include KYC, fraud and identity verification, CRM, and other services.

“Our vision in creating Mambu was always to create an industry-leading platform that will enable more than a billion people to have brilliant banking experiences,” Danilkis said in a statement accompanying this week’s funding announcement. “We want to be able to empower our customers to create any financial product anywhere in the world and create amazing customer experiences.”

Photo by spemone from Pexels

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The Philippines’ Lone Fintech Unicorn Secures $300 Million in New Funding

The Philippines’ Lone Fintech Unicorn Secures $300 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Mambu

In a round led by Warburg Pincus, Insight Partners, and Bow Wave Capital Management, Philippines-based mobile payment company Mynt has secured $300 million in new funding. The investment, which also featured participation from Itai Tsiddon, Amplo Ventures, Globe Telecom, and Ayala Corporation, gives Mynt a valuation of more than $2 billion and solidifying the company’s status as the biggest technology unicorn based in the Philippines.

“We have been able to continuously expand by introducing game-changing innovations while improving our profitability profile,” Mynt president and CEO Martha Sazon. “We are excited about our new partnership with Warburg, Insight, Itali Tsiddon, and Amplo, as they each bring strategic value to our team in the pursuit of our vision towards finance for all.”

Owned by Philippine mobile operator Globe Telecom, Mynt is the company behind the GCash app. The popular solution enables customers to buy prepaid airtime; pay bills at more than 600 partner billers throughout the Philippines; send and receive money anywhere in the country; as well as access savings, credit, insurance, and investment products and services. GCash currently has more than 48 million users.

Most recently, Mynt has piloted a new cash loan offering, GLoan, that enables qualified borrowers to take out loans of up to PHP25,000 (approximately $500 USD) that can be repaid over 12 months. GLoan joins the company’s GCredit offering, which disburses more than PHP1 billion ($200 million USD) in loans every month and has disbursed PHP15 billion ($3 billion USD) as of June of this year. Mynt notes that its GCredit solution has the best repayment rates with the lowest number of past-due and non-performing loans locally. Unsurprisingly, Mynt is also looking to offer Buy Now Pay Later services “within the year” as well.

Mynt’s GCash is also one of the growing number of financial apps to incorporate pro-environmental functionality into its solution. The app has a feature, GForest, that serves as a gamified environmental stewardship program that enables users to convert points earned from using GCash into a virtual tree. These virtual trees are then planted as actual trees in specific locations in the Philippines. Mynt says that it has 8.7 million users of GForest within the GCash app.

Founded in 2015, Mynt has been recognized as a leader in the digital transformation of payments and other financial services in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic. With nearly half the country’s population using its technology, Mynt is on pace to reach a gross transaction value of PHP3 trillion, more than triple of what was achieved last year. The company has reported peak daily app log-ins of 19 million and daily active transactions of 12 million.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Photo by Meo Fernando from Pexels

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Argentina’s Veritran Earns $225 Million Valuation, Joins Finovate’s Largest Latin American Cohort To Date

Argentina’s Veritran Earns $225 Million Valuation, Joins Finovate’s Largest Latin American Cohort To Date
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avaloq, Finovate Global, Mambu, Nubank, VeriTran

Low-code fintech platform provider Veritran has secured a strategic growth investment from Trivest Partners, a private equity fund based in Miami, Florida. The specific amount of the investment was not disclosed, but the company did report that funding gives the Buenos Aires, Argentina-based firm a valuation of $225 million.

“Today marks a major milestone for Veritran’s team, as we embark upon a new chapter of becoming the next fintech unicorn,” Veritran CEO and co-founder Marcelo Gonzalez said, “while continuing to democratize access to the digital economy.” Gonzalez highlighted Trivest Partners’ successful track record of working with “founder-owned businesses” and said the collaboration would help Veritran expand “into new geographies and reach new customers.”

Founded in 2005 and maintaining offices in the U.S., Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, and Guatemala, Veritran offers a low-code platform that helps companies integrate new, enabling technologies into their legacy systems. Companies looking to enhance customer engagement via digital channels ranging from mobile banking and digital wallets seek out Veritran’s technology to future-proof their retail and corporate banking operations, as well as digital payments and onboarding processes.

With 50 bank clients and 25 million users, Veritran processes 25 billion transactions a year on its platform. In August, the company announced that it had partnered with Visa to promote push payments, tokenization, and Click to Pay projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. The previous month, Veritran teamed up with behavioral biometric-based online fraud detection platform Revelock to help banks reduce fraud losses and call center costs. The partnership with Revelock – a Feedzai company – followed Veritran’s collaboration with another biometric technology company, FaceTec, which brought its facial recognition technology to the Buenos Aires-based firm’s low code platform.

Veritran’s funding announcement comes less than a month before it makes its return to the Finovate stage at FinovateFall in New York. The company will join what may be the largest contingent of Latin America-based fintechs ever assembled at a Finovate event (see below).

FinovateFall 2021 takes place at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York City, September 13 through 15. For more information, including how to attend our autumn fintech conference live or on-demand, visit our FinovateFall hub today.

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 Florencia Potter from Pexels

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Canada’s Latest Fintech Unicorn FreshBooks Scores $130 Million

Canada’s Latest Fintech Unicorn FreshBooks Scores $130 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Mambu, Nubank

From the snap election called by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the country’s recently expressed eagerness to accept refugees in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, there have been more than a few reasons for the Great White North to make news headlines of late.

Now fintech fans in particular have another reason to pay attention to what’s going on in the chronically under-discussed nation. FreshBooks, a cloud accounting software company based in Toronto, Ontario, has raised $130 million in new funding. This gives the firm a valuation of more than $1 billion, becoming Canada’s latest fintech unicorn.

FreshBooks CEO Don Epperson said that the funding, which included $50 million in debt financing, was an “injection of confidence” in the company’s mission to help small businesses digitize their accounting operations. Epperson added that the capital will fuel investment in markets that are experiencing significant increases in regulation and help those small business owners better “manage their finances” by “simplifying workflows.”

The Series E round was led by long-time FreshBooks investor Accomplice. Also participating in the funding were J.P. Morgan, Gaingels, BMO, and Manulife. New investor Barclays, one of FreshBooks’ platform partners, was also involved in the financing.

Founded in 2003, FreshBooks is active in more than 160 countries, including Croatia, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the U.S. – as well as its native Canada. The company’s technology has helped more than 30 million people better manage their finances, billing operations, and payments, while increasing customer engagement with its ten-time Stevie award-winning customer support. In July, the company announced that it was teaming up with the Ontario government in a data-sharing partnership to help understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small businesses. In May, FreshBooks co-founder Mike McDerment was featured in Profiles in Leadership where he discussed the company’s origins from its humble beginnings in “his parents’ basement” to the 500-employee company that is now among the top cloud accounting software firms in the world.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Andre Furtado from Pexels

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Ximena Aleman on Open Banking and Financial Access in Latin America

Ximena Aleman on Open Banking and Financial Access in Latin America
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Mambu, Nubank

The fintech industry in Latin America is among the world’s most vibrant. From the initiatives in Mexico to provide a legal framework that will enable local fintechs to flourish, to the innovations in central bank digital currencies in the Caribbean, to the rising fintech giants like Nubank in Brazil, financial technology is making a major difference in the lives of a growing number of Latin Americans.

For this week’s Finovate Global: Voices, we caught up with Ximena Aleman, co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer of Prometeo, to discuss fintech in Latin America and the power of open banking to improve financial wellness and create opportunity in the region.

Please tell us a little about Prometeo and what drove you to co-launch the company.

Ximena Aleman: Prometeo is a fintech company striving to create an open and connected financial market in Latin America (LATAM). We are building a huge highway of financial information across financial institutions and countries in LATAM. Prometeo is the largest Open Banking API platform in the region disrupting the financial sector in México, Colombia, Brazil, and six more countries. We provide a single point of access to information, transactions, and payments across more than 30 financial institutions and 45 APIs in nine countries of LATAM. 

As LATAM entrepreneurs, we are well aware of the tech gap in the financial sector between underdeveloped and developed countries. In particular, the lack of adequate tech infrastructure. So we decided to approach this as an opportunity to build not only a great solution but also a path towards financial access for the region. 

What are the drivers of open banking in Latin America?

Aleman: Open Banking is a disruptive innovation that reframes the way banking is carried out. Transactions and communications between customers and institutions are going from taking place behind closed doors to transparent exchanges in the public square. It is no wonder that traditional financial institutions initially viewed the practice with a measure of bemusement or even suspicion.  

However, there has been a marked shift in their thinking. Adoption has been slower in Latin America than in other parts of the world, but most of the open banking biggest names in the region have headquarters abroad. Open banking has been a hot topic globally; Latin American associates have taken note and ushered in the conversation.

Another factor that has changed the playbook is the COVID-19 pandemic. The restrictions on daily life and public interactions have forced even the most hard-rooted, traditional financial institutions to review their digital transformation strategies. If customers can’t visit branches, digital channels become the sole venue of exchange. 

What do you think it will take to get more women in leadership and founding roles in fintech?

Aleman: I think that as we move forward to a more “gender-balanced” society we have to rethink our financial exchanges from a gender perspective, too. There’s little offered in the financial sector for women and little by little some female fintech entrepreneurs are developing solutions for this segment (for instance, Emma Sanchez’s neobank for women, Jefa). If the startup ecosystem understands that half of the world’s population has been historically financially underserved, and the huge opportunity this is, it won’t take long for women to start developing custom-made products for that segment.

You have said two of the biggest challenges to diversity in fintech are funding and technical training. What can and should be done about this?

Aleman: The gap between VC investments in startups led by women is significant versus those led by men. In the last 10 years, fintech companies led by women have raised 1% of the total investment in fintech. The disparity is really significant.

I believe this gap is multifactorial: historically, the financial and the technology worlds were dominated by men. Also, among VC funds, women in the decision-making process are just a few in number and, per my own experience, men really value having another man as their counterpart. 

There’s a lot we can all do: all the stakeholders involved in the fintech sector should make their own changes and push to close the gap. As women, we have to create our support network on every front, talk to mentors, female start-up groups, and above all, be confident and trust your knowledge, your experience, and your ability to navigate through hostile environments. If you feel you are not strong enough in certain areas, seek training. Technical training and really knowing your business is key to build confidence and close this gap.

One of the biggest reasons why women receive less VC investment than men is that so few of them make up decision-makers in VC funds.

How has the pandemic impacted the work you do and the communities you serve?

Aleman: Open Banking has seen a rise in LATAM in the past year, so our business vertical – as everything related to digital transformation in the financial sector – has been benefited by how the pandemic reshaped human interactions. However, no one in LATAM can be a stranger to the economic challenges we are facing today and ahead. There have been huge increases in unemployment, debt, etc. In Uruguay, a year after the pandemic, surfing what might be the country’s second wave of COVID-19 cases, early in the morning in the small towns in the countryside, you will bump into people waiting in line just in one shop, in the local microfinance branch, to ask for credit or pay their debt.

There are many who do not know much about Uruguay. What do you think more people should know about the country?

Aleman: Of course. I’m very proud of my country. We are a small country down in South America, between Argentina and Brazil. We are popular for the quality of our meat and football players, but as noticeable as that is, we are a growing tech hub, in particular for financial services. Uruguay has a long history of providing high-tech software to the financial sector, for instance, we host four banking core software companies (Infocorp, Topsystems, Bantotal, and Mantentia – that was recently bought by Technisys). Most recently, we joined the fintech wave with great B2B solutions like Bankingly or our first local unicorn, dLocal. I think it is worth mentioning the government’s efforts to promote entrepreneurship through the Innovation Agency (ANII) and Development Agency (ANDE). We are well aware that Prometeo was possible thanks to their support and as a startup, we are a result of the whole ecosystem pushing us to grow.

What can we expect from Prometeo over the balance of 2021?

Aleman: We are pushing hard for Open Banking adoption in Brazil, México, and Colombia. For those countries, it’s a challenging shift so we want to provide the best possible solution. That’s why we are releasing a payment feature that allows automated payments across banks in those countries. At the same time, we are on a mission to provide full coverage across LATAM. So this year it’s all about expansion, coding, and growth! 

Learn more about fintech in Latin America and the work of Prometeo.

Here is our look at fintech 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 Pedro Slinger from Pexels

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Mambu and Signicat Team Up to Digitize Identity Management in Europe

Mambu and Signicat Team Up to Digitize Identity Management in Europe
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global, Mambu, Signicat

A just-announced partnership between two Finovate alums – Mambu and Signicat – will bring digitized identity management services to banks, fintechs, and financial service providers across Europe. The collaboration between the SaaS banking platform and the digital identity company is designed to help institutions in the region leverage innovations in identity management to boost customer acquisition, enhance the customer experience, and defend against identity fraud.

The single-API integration between Signicat’s identity platform and Mambu will enable users to apply a variety of digital identity verification solutions to a range of processes, including onboarding, identity authentication, and e-signatures. In their joint statement, both companies highlighted abandonment as one challenge the new integration will help companies meet. They noted that 63% of consumers in Europe quit at least one financial app in the last year, citing research conducted by Signicat.

At the same time, the integration also will help companies deal with the new environment for cybercrime, particularly identity fraud, which has flourished in the work-from-home, COVID-19 era. “Identity fraud continues to be a major threat to businesses across the globe and damages trust,” Mambu Managing Director for EMEA Eelco-Jan Boonstra said. “And with everyone working from home – the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this. Therefore financial service providers are relying on customer trust and loyalty more than ever.”

Asger Hattel, who took over as Signicat’s CEO in January of last year, underscored the way the pandemic had accelerated pre-existing trends toward digitization. “Global lockdowns have turned a desire for digital services into an urgent need,” Hattel said. “Our research into consumer attitudes towards onboarding show that financial service providers are struggling to keep up with consumer’s digital demands – and it is costing them customers.”

Mambu’s partnership with Signicat comes in the wake of the Mambu’s $132+ million (€110 million) fundraising last month – which brought the company’s total valuation to more than $2 billion (€1.7 billion). Also last month, Mambu announced the addition of new Chief Financial Officer Langley Eide. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Mambu is an alum of both our Finovate conferences – debuting in 2013 at FinovateAsia – and our event for developers and engineers – FinDEVr New York, in 2016.

Based in Trondheim, Norway, Signicat specializes in providing identity assurance worldwide, enabling banks to leverage existing customer identity to accelerate onboarding, improve access to services, and connect users, devices, and more across channels and markets. A Finovate alum since 2017, Signicat has raised $8.8 million in funding from investors including Horizon 2020, Viking Venture, and Secure Identity Holding.

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

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