This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall in New York on September 11 and 12. Register today and save your spot.
Through its digital banking platform, Bankjoy empowers Panacea Financial, a neobank serving medical professionals, to offer more value for customers.
Features
Enables digital banks and neobanks to target specific markets with a superior digital banking experience
Integrates with a variety of core platforms and third-parties for a feature-rich UX
Why it’s great
Bankjoy’s intuitive digital banking platform, which integrates with a variety of core platforms and third-parties, is an excellent fit for neobanks aiming to offer more value to their customers.
Presenters
Michael Duncan, Co-Founder & CEO, Bankjoy Before founding Bankjoy, Duncan managed software development for a large credit union in Michigan, including the development of their mobile banking app. LinkedIn
Dr. Ned Palmer, Co-Founder & COO, Panacea Financial In addition to founding Panacea Financial in 2020, Palmer is an Instructor at Harvard Medical School and an Attending Physician at Boston Children’s Hospital. LinkedIn
Digital banking provider Bankjoy announced an integration with Fiserv Portico, a full-service account processing system.
The integration will enable credit unions working with Fiserv Portico to offer their members an online and mobile banking experience with a modern, intuitive UX.
Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022.
Michigan-based digital banking provider Bankjoy has integrated with Fiserv Portico, a full-service account processing system. The integration will enable credit unions using Fiserv Portico to offer an online and mobile banking experience that will attract new members and deepen current member engagement.
“Investing in a truly cutting-edge digital banking solution can seem out-of-reach for institutions without extensive engineering resources and IT budgets,” Bankjoy CEO Michael Duncan said. “Our integration with Fiserv Portico aims to solve this by giving credit unions more flexibility to roll out the digital banking features that today’s members expect in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.”
Founded in 2015 and built by credit union executives, Bankjoy gives credit unions the ability to offer a wide range of contemporary banking services. These services include both mobile and online banking, e-statements, online account opening, online loan origination, conversational AI, and more.
“Ongoing digital transformation over the last decade has accelerated the need for financial institutions of all sizes to deliver a state-of-the-art digital banking experience,” Duncan said. “Their success as an institution depends on this.” He added that, according to research from McKinsey & Company, the top performing financial institutions receive an average of 24-28 digital banking log-ins per account holder every month. These digital banking customers are driving revenue growth by an average of 10% to 15% each year.
Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. At the conference, the company showed how its Business Banking Platform provides SMEs with a single portal for multiple business accounts, and enables them to manage multiple users, control permissions, send transfers to multiple recipients, and more.
In addition to the company’s integration with Fiserv Portico, Bankjoy has also secured out-of-the-box integrations with third-party partners ranging from Allied Payments and Savvy Money to Vertifi and UrbanFT. This week’s integration news comes a month after Bankjoy announced securing new funding in a round led by Curql Collective. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Duncan said that the capital will help the company “help more community financial institutions thrive in an increasingly competitive environment.”
Bankjoy, a Michigan-based digital banking solutions provider, has secured new funding. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.
The round was led by credit union service organization (CUSO) Curql Collective and featured participation by current and prospective credit union clients of Bankjoy.
Bankjoy made its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall last September.
Digital banking solutions provider Bankjoyannounced a new investment round led by credit union service organization, Curql Collective. The amount of the funding was not immediately disclosed. In addition to Curql, a number of Bankjoy’s current and prospective credit union clients also participated in the round. Among these investors were AEA Credit Union, Community Wide Federal Credit Union, and Statewide Federal Credit Union.
“We are thrilled to bring Curql on as an investor as Bankjoy continues to grow, as this latest round of funding will allow us to pursue new opportunities to redefine the digital banking experience and help more community financial institutions thrive in an increasingly competitive environment,” BankJoy CEO Michael Duncan said.
A Finovate alum since 2016, Bankjoy most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall last September. At the conference, the Detroit, Michigan-based company showcased its business banking platform that makes it easier and more cost-effective for FIs to deliver digital banking technology to their banking customers. The platform provides a single portal for multiple business accounts, as well as the ability to manage multiple users, control permissions, send transfers to multiple recipients, and more. The Bankjoy Business Banking Platform features more than 60 integrations with core banking platforms and other third-party vendors.
“We build all of our products in-house,” Duncan said at the beginning of his FinovateFall demo in 2022, “because we believe that’s the best way for us to deliver the most seamless, and the most beautiful, and the most visually consistent digital experience across all these channels.”
Bankjoy’s funding news comes a little over a month after the company launched its Online Account Opening 2.0 solution. The new offering enables financial institutions to quickly and seamlessly onboard new customers. The process takes 90 seconds, including ID upload and a selfie match, to ensure a secure and efficient experience for members and clients. The company ended last year having inked deals with a trio of credit unions – Mobility CU of Irving, Texas ($350 million in assets); Lafayette FCU of Rockville, Maryland ($1.6 billion in assets); and SIU CU of Carbondale, Illinois ($465 million in assets).
“Over the last 12 months, 43 percent of small businesses have increased their use of online banking services via computers or tablets, and 40 percent used more mobile banking services, according to Ernst & Young data,” Duncan said. “Clearly, a majority of businesses now expect to be able to engage with their financial institutions through digital channels and this is what Bankjoy’s business banking platform was designed to solve.”
We featured Michael Duncan in our look at black and African American Finovate alums as part of our Black Heritage Month commemoration in February.
For a second year in a row, Finovate is commemorating Black History Month by showcasing those Black and African-American founders and executives who demoed their company’s fintech innovations on the Finovate stage in 2022.
Ariam Sium – VP of Product with FinGoal
Sium not only leads Product at FinGoal, the self-described “Listener. Thinker. Doer” also led FinGoal to a Best of Show award at FinovateSpring last year. In her role at FinGoal, Sium said that she uses the tenets of focus and value to govern each product decision made in the rapidly changing world of fintech.
FinGoal most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall in September. The Boulder, Colorado-based company offers an insights platform that helps financial institutions better understand their customers.
Joseph Akintolayo – CEO and Founder of Deposits
Akintolayo is a “builder of ethical products that solve complex problems in fintech, insurtech, and social enterprise.” As CEO and founder of Deposits, Akintolayo heads a startup that offers banks, brands, and communities a plug and play solution to deliver financial services such as payments and lending, without requiring coding experience.
Deposits made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in September. The Dallas, Texas-based company was founded in 2021.
Left to right: Joseph Akintolayo and Samuel Ailemen of Deposits
Samuel Ailemen – Director of Mobile and Identity at Deposits
As Director of Mobile and Identity at Deposits, Ailemen helped lead the company’s demo at FinovateFall 2022. A fraud prevention expert who is “building cool stuff everywhere”, Ailemen leverages his talent as “a software engineer who loves research” to solve real-world problems using new technologies.
Nathan Gibbons – Chief Experience Officer at QuickFi
Gibbons oversees the customer experience at QuickFi, a company that provides “nearly instant,” self-service 24/7 term financing to business equipment buyers. Demoing the company’s technology at FinovateFall last year, Gibbons and colleague Jillian Munson earned QuickFi its first Finovate Best of Show award.
A C-suite executive with QuickFi since 2018, Gibbons previously spent more than 11 years as Project Manager and later Vice President with First American Equipment Finance. QuickFi was launched by founders of First American Equipment Finance in 2018.
Michael Duncan – CEO and Founder of Bankjoy
Founder and CEO of Bankjoy, Duncan demoed his company’s Business Banking Platform at FinovateFall 2022. The company he launched in 2015 offers a range of modern banking technology solutions, including mobile and online banking, as well as a banking API.
Before founding Bankjoy, Duncan spent more than four years as a Programmer/Analyst and later Software Development Manager at Michigan First Credit Union.
Michael Broughton – CEO and Co-founder of Altro
Broughton co-founded and is CEO of Altro, a solution that helps consumers build credit through non-traditional recurring payment processes such as rent and even monthly subscriptions to services like Netflix. Altro’s app is free-to-use, and helps increase financial literacy while boosting existing credit and helping stabilize credit histories. The company made its Finovate debut last May at FinovateSpring.
Broughton is also Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for the USC Credit Union (since 2017), and was both a Scout at Sequoia Capital and a Thiel Fellow at The Thiel Foundation.
Christen Wright – Head of Product at Spave
As Head of Product at Spave, Wright was part of the three-person demo team that won Best of Show at the company’s Finovate debut last May at FinovateSpring. Spave is a financial wholeness solution that enables users to easily save and donate as they purchase products and services. The Spave app provides purchase tracking and analysis, goal setting, group giving, and more.
Wright has a diverse background, having served in senior management roles at AT&T and Delta Air Lines. A member of 100 Black Men of Atlanta, a mentoring and empowerment organization for African American youth, Wright is a graduate of the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, where he earned an MBA.
Anthony Heckman – as Director of Sales at unitQ
Heckman was part of the founding team at unitQ, a company that turns customer insights into data-driven decisions for firms ranging from Chime to fellow Finovate alum Klarna. At FinovateSpring 2022, Heckman led the company’s live demo of its unitQ monitor, which serves as a centralized, searchable, repository for customer feedback.
Heckman founded TWC Advisors in October of last year. The firm specializes in providing go-to-market and sales support to early-stage, high-growth, VC-backed startups.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall in New York on September 12 and 13. Register today and save your spot.
Bankjoy’s new Business Banking platform makes it easier for community banks and credit unions to deliver truly feature-rich digital banking technology to their business customers.
Features
Use one portal for multiple business accounts
Manage users & control permissions
Send transfers to multiple recipients & more
Presenter
Michael Duncan, CEO & Co-Founder Before founding Bankjoy, Duncan managed software development for a large credit union in Michigan, including the development of their mobile banking app. LinkedIn
Michigan-based banking solutions provider Bankjoy announced 16 new credit union partners.
Combined, credit unions represent more than 350,000 members and more than $3.3 billion in assets
The partnership news follows the company’s launch of a new small business banking platform.
Digital banking solutions provider Bankjoy has added 16 credit unions to its digital service ecosystem. The new partners combined represent more than 350,000 members and more than $3.3 billion in assets. Additionally, they serve members in states ranging from New Mexico, Texas, and Nevada, to Ohio, Illinois, and Alaska.
The credit unions newly partnering with Bankjoy include:
Cooperative Teachers Credit Union
Directions Credit Union
Elko FCU
Estacado FCU
Firelands FCU
Fremont FCU
Glass City FCU
Impact Credit Union
Las Colinas FCU
Lone Star Credit Union
Midwest Community FCU
OU FCU
Streator Onized Credit Union
Trius FCU
True North FCU
Pyramid FCU
“Credit unions like Estacado, Cooperative Teachers Credit Union and others are partnering with fintechs like Bankjoy to provide modern digital banking platforms that keep pace with members’ needs,” Bankjoy CEO Michael Duncan said. He highlighted growth in deposits in credit unions across the country, adding “as these trends continue, we’re adding more credit unions to our platform and look forward to helping them deliver a superior experience.”
Bankjoy’s partnership news comes in the wake of the company’s addition of a modern business banking platform to its offering. The platform, introduced in December, gives banks the tools its small business customers need and include solutions for invoicing, payroll, company formation, wire transfers, and entitlements.
Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, and founded in 2015, Bankjoy also reported late last year that it had been chosen as the first official Corelation Certified Partner. The partnership enables credit unions who use Corelation’s Keystone core to efficiently integrate with Bankjoy. It also makes it easy for Bankjoy’s credit union partners to migrate their core to Corelation without disrupting the member experience.
“To support the credit union movement, it is critical for fintechs to partner with likeminded organizations who are committed to a member-centric approach,” Duncan said. “Our collaboration with Corelation has been incredibly successful, delivering tremendous value to credit unions.”
A Finovate alum since 2016, Bankjoy has raised $1.8 million in funding from investors including SixThirty and CheckAlt.
The firms are Fort Community Credit Union, headquartered in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin; Alltrust Credit Union (formerly Southern Mass Credit Union) based in Fairhaven, Massachusetts; and Statewide Federal Credit Union, headquartered in Starkville, Mississippi.
“We couldn’t ask for a better way to start 2021, signing these three progressive credit unions,” Bankjoy CEO Michael Duncan said. “Since we are now officially in the digital age thanks to the pandemic, these credit unions are now poised to hit the ground running with our most advanced online, mobile, and voice banking technologies. We are excited to see how they will perform and how their members will take advantage of these new offerings.”
Founded in 2015 and making its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateFall in New York, Bankjoy provides financial institutions with a variety of digital banking solutions ranging from mobile / online banking, and e-statements to online account opening and loan origination, as well as access to conversational AI-based products. From flagship banks to credit unions, Bankjoy offers an out-of-the-box alternative to outmoded legacy systems that prevent banks and credit unions from being able to meet the rising digital expectations of their customers and members.
“Bankjoy will improve our credit union’s digital banking solution and offer an experience that is in line with our members expectations,” Alltrust Credit Union Vice President of Operations Stephanie Medeiros said. “Our partnership with Bankjoy will allow us to maintain our commitment to our members while delivering the latest digital technology.”
“The Bankjoy solution will allow our members to access and manage their account from anywhere,” Statewide Federal Credit Union CEO Casey Bacon added. “They will have access to all of the conveniences of modern banking at their fingertips.”
Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, Bankjoy has raised $1.8 million in funding from investors including SixThirty and CheckAlt. The company is an alum of the Y Combinator incubator program.
To steal a line from Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, when it comes to innovation in fintech, it takes two to make a thing go right. Whether the “thing” is an end-to-end digital transformation or creating the technology infrastructure to enable firms to build and market their own innovations, collaboration and partnership with fintechs increasingly seems to be the path that the most forward-looking banks and other financial institutions are pursuing.
With this in mind, here’s a look at some of the more interesting recent partnership announcements over the past month – with an eye toward what these collaborations might be saying about the near-term future of fintech.
DBS Bank: Headquartered in Singapore. Total assets of $420 billion (SGD 579 billion) in 2019. Largest bank in Southeast Asia. Operates in 18 markets around the world.
Objective: Faster “more cost efficient” financing for the 68,000+ SMEs on Infor’s Nexus network.
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC): Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Has 17 million clients in Canada, the U.S., and 34 other countries. Total assets of $1.2 trillion (1.49 trillion CAD) as of 2019.
Objective: The new build will allow the bank to develop “transformative intelligent applications” and to bring those solutions to market faster.
Orange: Telecommunications corporation headquartered in Paris, France. Fourth largest telecom in Europe and one of the ten largest in the world with 26 million customers. Total assets of $124 billion (€106 billion) and revenues of $49 billion (€42 billion) as of 2019.
Objective: Partnership will bring savings and micro credit services to underserved customers in Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal.
Lloyds Banking Group Headquartered in London, U.K., Lloyds is the country’s largest digital bank with 16.9 million active customers online and 11.5 million on mobile. Founded in 1765, the bank currently has total assets of more than $1 billion (£833 billion).
Partner: Form3
Project: Along with partners Google Cloud and Microsoft, Form3 will help the U.K.-based bank “investigate and develop” a cloud-payments-as-a-service platform.
Objective: The collaboration, which also includes a minority equity stake in Form3, will simplify Lloyd’s payment capabilities and support enhanced data and new overlay services.
Banca Ifis: Specialty commercial and corporate banking firm for SMEs headquartered in Venice, Italy. The firm has more than 130,000 retail clients in the country, and online funding and deposits totaling more than $4.7 billion (€4 billion).
Objective: Raisin’s customers in Germany will gain access to deposit solutions available from Banca Ifis. The collaboration will enable German customers to take advantage of relatively higher interest rates available in Italy.
Other fintech/financial institution partnerships of note this month:
Michigan-based Bankjoy announced a pair of new credit union partners late last week. The company, which enables credit unions and community banks to offer their members and customers a variety of mobile banking and online banking solutions, will work with both CACL Federal Credit Union of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and SIU Credit Union of Carbondale, Illinois, to help them add new members and enhance the experience for current customers.
“As digital demands continued to rise – as well as fraud – within the credit union industry because of COVID-19, we are pleased to provide our technology offerings to meet these growing demands at SIU and CACL,” Bankjoy CEO Michael Duncan said. “Having these progressive tools to make online processes more efficient and user friendly enhances the value of credit unions not only right now but for the foreseeable future, as well.”
CACL FCU, with 11,600 members and $146 million in assets, will leverage its new relationship with Bankjoy to boost its membership base by offering more mobile options. “We were blown away by the layout and advancements within the platform compared to the competition,” CACL FCU COO Joshua Burgess said in a statement. Burgess also praised Bankjoy’s voice banking solution Joy, which he called a “huge selling point.”
Bankjoy’s online and mobile solutions are equally likely to make a big impact with the even-larger SIU CU – which boasts 40,800 members and $344 million in assets.
These deals reflect a resumption of Bankjoy’s aggressive, partner-making pace from earlier this year. In April alone, the company announced that it was working with seven different credit unions representing 87,000+ members and more than $1 billion in assets combined. Also this spring, Bankjoy hosted a COVID-19 Online Summit to help address the impact of the global health crisis on the credit union industry.
“Our COVID-19 Online Summit was a very transparent event for credit union executives to freely exchange ideas and help each other,” Duncan told CU Times. “We’re all looking for more information to stay in front of this crisis and when you can get it from a peer that’s always a good thing.”
The global health crisis has been hard on credit union members, as well. The impact of COVID-19 on those who rely on credit unions for their banking was the focus of a Gallup study earlier this year. The survey revealed that credit union members were feeling more disruption in their financial lives due to the pandemic compared to the national average (76% versus 70%). The data also showed a significant increase in the number of credit union members who characterized their financial wellbeing as “struggling” or “suffering”.
Many of the recommendations – helping increase peace of mind, building hope, and reducing unnecessary stress – mirror those suggested by other financial institutions looking for ways to help their customers during the fight against the coronavirus.
Bankjoy and Zogo Finance are betting that helping credit unions and community banks educate their members rather than “sell” to them is the key to better engagement for CUs and better financial health for consumers.
In a strategy especially geared toward attracting Gen Z customers, Bankjoy and Zogo will offer credit unions a combined financial literacy program and online account opening solution. The combined technology enables new members to join in 90 seconds or less while improving their financial wellness. The partnership will enable credit unions to refashion their offers into educational opportunities rather than just sales pitches, and help the next generation as they grow from learning financial responsibility to taking financially responsible actions, like opening a savings account.
Zogo founder and CEO Bolun Li said that the partnership will enable users of his company’s platform to “take the next step and join a credit union.” Zogo Finance, which won Best of Show at its Finovate debut last fall, leverages behavioral finance – and real world rewards – to guide users of its technology through a series of 300+ educational micro-modules. These lessons, providing information on topics like using credit and successful savings, help users meet the national standards for financial literacy. Successful completion of a module grants the user points that can be redeemed as gift cards from leading brands.
For many fintechs, Gen Z represents an opportunity to market financial solutions based more on financial literacy and the balance between credit, consumption and savings, as opposed to debt-fighting strategies and longer-term family planning. As the median Millennial is moving into their thirties, the oldest Gen Zs are negotiating their teenage years and starting to develop the kind of financial habits that could stick with them well into adulthood.
GoMedici recently cited a RaveReviews study that indicated that the average Gen Z youth begins learning about financial planning at the age of 13. The study indicated that of its polled respondents, 60% of Gen Z had a savings account and 89% said that “planning for their financial future made them feel empowered.” The study added that it expects Gen Z to comprise as much as 40% of the consumer market as early as this year.
“Zogo is exactly the kind of value we have been looking for to add to our digital banking platform,” Bankjoy CEO Mike Duncan said. “Providing financial education to younger generations builds value on top of our digital banking ecosystem and delivers it through all our different channels to create a better member experience – especially for Gen Z.”
Zogo Finance finished 2019 with news that it had partnered with 11 community banks and credit unions in 12 different states. Founded in 2018, the company is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina.
Bankjoy also ended last year with new partners in the credit union community. An alum of FinovateFall from 2016, where the company demonstrated its API, Bankjoy announced in December that it was collaborating with three credit unions in Indiana and Texas that have a combined $500+ million in assets and 50,000+ members. Based in Royal Oak, Michigan, Bankjoy was founded in 2015.
Michigan-based digital banking solution provider Bankjoy is ending the year with three new credit union partners. The company, which demonstrated its API at FinovateFall 2016, announced this week that three credit unions in Indiana and Texas with a combined $500+ million in assets and more than 50,000 members, will join its technology ecosystem of online and mobile banking solutions.
The credit unions teaming up with Bankjoy are Mobility CU and Las Colinas FCU – both of Irving, Texas – as well as Fort Financial CU of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mobility CU has $223 million in assets and 16,500 members. Las Colinas FCU has $73 million in assets and 9,800 members. Fort Financial CU has $237 million in assets and 26,800 members.
Las Colinas’ FCU President/CEO Kevin Scott noted that the ability to deliver a robust mobile experience to members was a key factor in partnering with Bankjoy. The mobile experience, he said, must be able keep up with what customers are already enjoying from platforms like Amazon and Google if credit unions expect to compete. In that regard, Scott explained, “Bankjoy’s vision for their digital platform is closely aligned with our own.”
Bankjoy CEO Michael Duncan added that the company’s technology is designed to help credit unions succeed “today and well into the future, as products, services, and platforms continue to evolve at a rapid pace.” Bankoy’s platform offers online and mobile banking with built-in financial goal management, and the company’s marketing technology enables firms to issue highly-relevant advertising and information to customers and members across all digital channels. This includes voice, which Duncan recently demonstrated during a segment on CU Broadcast.
Mobility CU President/CEO Ron Perry specifically highlighted this aspect of the partnership, and said he looked forward to integrating with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Perry also pointed to the opportunity to grow deposits and loans by leveraging Bankjoy’s account opening and loan application processing technology.
Founded in 2015, Bankjoy made its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateFall. Headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan, the company offers an advanced banking API that enables financial institutions from flagship banks to credit unions to offer digital onboarding, mobile and online banking, online loan origination, and conversational AI-enabled services.
In addition to the partnerships announced this week, Bankjoy teamed up with financial literacy specialist Zogo Finance in November to help credit unions better attract Generation Z customers. Also that month, Bankjoy announced that Pyramid FCU, Cooperative Teachers FCU, and Mutual 1st FCU – with a combined $382 million in assets and 34,8000 members in Arizona, Texas, and Nebraska – would join its technology ecosystem.
Nutmeg CEO Martin Stead will leave his post in early 2020, and will be replaced by CFO and COO Jason Alexander.
Datasineforges technology partnership with digital marketing platform Mapp.
MacKay Municipal Managers chooses open architecture digital platform from Artivest for its financial advisors.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
