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Finovate Global China: Fintech’s Future, Cross-Border E-Commerce, and Digital Wallets

Finovate Global China: Fintech’s Future, Cross-Border E-Commerce, and Digital Wallets
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Temenos

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are meeting in California this week. With that in mind, Finovate Global turns to China for the latest fintech news from the world’s second most populous country.

For context, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) released its Fintech Development Plan for 2022-2025 almost two years ago. In its analysis of the PBOC’s Plan, China Briefing noted that the country had “much to gain” from innovation in fintech and financial services. In large part this was because of China’s “insufficient supply of inclusive finance, especially in rural areas.” The country reached a consumer fintech adoption rate of 87% in 2019. And, again, further fintech adoption in rural areas could cause this rate to quickly climb even higher.

What obstacles confront China’s fintech sector? China Briefing suggests that “unbalanced application of intelligent technology” is among the issues to be resolved – or at least better managed. The report references the so-called “Matthew Effect” in which stronger positions become stronger and weaker positions become weaker to describe the one of China’s bigger challenges when it comes to innovation in financial services.

Read the report from China Briefing to learn more about how China plans to “leapfrog improvement of the fintech sector”.

China’s JD.com launched its enhanced authentication solution for imported goods in the region, JD Smart Check. The new process is part of the company’s cross-border e-commerce platform, JD Worldwide.

JD Smart Check has three main focuses: improving quality inspections for cosmetic products, leveraging blockchain technology to enhance anti-counterfeiting activity, and providing on-demand authenticity inspections for products shipped by direct mail. New X-ray fluorescence analysis to provides fast, on-site assessment of cosmetics and personal care products at JD’s logistic centers. With regards to anti-counterfeiting efforts, the company leverages serialized tracking codes, supply chain monitoring, and product inspection videos to ensure accurate scrutiny of inventories. Lastly, JD Worldwide will be able to better serve direct mail shoppers by adding reports from authoritative centers to its product inspection services.

China’s largest retailer by revenue, JD.com serves nearly 600 million customers. The company operates the largest fulfillment infrastructure for any Chinese e-commerce firm.

Ant Group has forged a partnership with Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet). The partnership will enable travelers from eight nations – representing eight different supported digital wallets – to use PayNet’s DuitNow QR in Malaysia.

The DuitNow QR network consists of more than 1.8 million merchant touchpoints throughout Malaysia. The eight supported wallets are Alipay (China), AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR), HelloMoney by AUB (Philippines), Hipay (Mongolia), MPay (Macau SAR), Naver Pay (Japan), Toss Pay (South Korea) and True Money (Thailand). Group CEO of PayNet Farhan Ahmad said that the cross-border digital payments collaboration with Ant Group signified “a new Silk Road emerging” that will be “powered by cross-border payment functionality.”

The Ant Group/PayNet partnership comes as a recent report commissioned by Alipay indicates that increases in average consumer spending over the past few years will help accelerate intra-Asia cross-border travel and payments. The companies noted that the partnership extends “beyond connectivity” to include joint marketing efforts that will boost merchant and brand visibility in digital wallets.

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 Lian Rodriguez

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Finovate Global Philippines: Insurtech, SuperApps, and Turning Corner Shops into Banking Hubs

Finovate Global Philippines: Insurtech, SuperApps, and Turning Corner Shops into Banking Hubs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Finovate Global, MasterCard, Temenos, VISA

Philippines-based digital bank Tonik has entered the insurance business. The neobank announced a new strategic partnership this week with life insurance company Sun Life Grepa Financial, Inc. (Sun Life Grepa).

The partnership will enable Tonik to offer its customers Payhinga, a credit life and disability insurance product. Payhinga gives policyholders access to life and disability insurance with coverage of up to 120% of the loan amount. Further, policyholders can use a two-month payment holiday to reschedule upcoming loan payments in the event of financial difficulty.

“The partnership with Sun Life Grepa will significantly expand our suite of products, and insurance is a highly sought-after addition our customers have been requesting,” Tonik Country President Long Pineda said.

The Philippines’ first, digital-only neobank, Tonik offers loan, deposit, and payment products to consumers via its digital banking platform. The bank teamed up with FC Home Center, launching its Shop Installment Loan with the retailer in August. In June, Tonik announced that it had reached the one million customer milestone. Greg Krasnov (CEO) founded Tonik in 2020.

Speaking of digital banks based in the Philippines, UNO Digital Bank is teaming up with Collabera Digital. A digital engineering services provider, Collabera Digital will help the bank develop and integrate a mini app within superapp GCash.

Collabera Digital provided the strategy to address key issues such as AML and KYC, and built an integrated API platform. The leading superapp in the Philippines, GCash provides a wide range of financial services including money transfer, billpay, savings, investments, insurance, lending, and more. UNO Digital Bank’s integration into GCash will boost access to financial services to individuals across the socio-economic spectrum. The integration also supports the growth of the digital economy via services like mobile banking and digital wallets.

“Our partnership with GCash is significant in scaling and increasing our customer reach,” founder and CEO of UNO Digital Bank Manish Bhai said. “As a greenfield bank, built independently of a larger traditional institution, we have to be innovative in identifying opportunities to grow and expand. GCash, with their 90+ million users and active thrust towards financial inclusion, is a great partner leading to a win-win proposition for both the entities.”

UNO Digital Bank was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Taguig, a city in the Manila metropolitan area. The institution had total assets of $29 million (PHP 1.78 billion) as of end of year 2022.

What are fintechs in the Philippines doing for small businesses? Merchant fintech platform yufin announced a series of partnerships this week designed to bring new services to Philippines-based merchants. The new additions to yufin’s partnership ecosystem include wholesaler Lots for Less, delivery firm Transportify, and streaming content company Vivamax.

Shubhrendu Khoche, President and co-founder of yufin Philippines, noted that the new partnerships will drive greater digital adoption by businesses throughout the value chain. “As the financial growth engine for small merchants, these new partnerships will create more reasons for digital payment for our small merchants, their shoppers, and suppliers,” Khoche explained.

Founded in 2021, yufin aims to raise the income of 10 million households at least by 50% in the next five years. The company’s partnership ecosystem helps turn small, corner shops into preferred banking and credit hubs for their customers. With a goal of partnering rather than competing with local banks, yufin offers assisted digital financial services that enable underserved communities to leverage technology to improve financial outcomes.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South Africa’s Lipa Payments secured full SDK certification for Tap to Phone from both Visa and Mastercard.
  • Kenyan fintech and mobility solutions company Data Integrated won approval to operate as a Payment Service Provider from the country’s central bank.
  • Stitch, a business payments company based in South Africa, raised $25 million in Series A funding.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • German B2B Buy Now Pay Later payments provider Mondu registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
  • Polish fintech Verestro integrated the Quicko Wallet money transfer service within the Slack application.
  • Cloover, a climate-based fintech based in Germany, raised €7 million in pre-seed funding.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian fintech Aurionpro acquired loan management system Omnifin for $9.8 million.
  • Pakistan-based SadaPay enabled Apple Pay invoicing for freelancers in the country.
  • Indian credit card company Slice earned the approval of the Reserve Bank of India to merge with North East Small Finance Bank.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Digital banking and payments solutions provider i2c announced a partnership with Peru’s Banco de Credito.
  • Payments platform Airwallex inked an agreement to acquire Mexico-based payment service provider MexPago.
  • Chile-based fintech Forpay launched a new feature that enables companies to directly charge bank accounts with requiring intermediaries.

Asia-Pacific

  • Vietnam’s Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank (LPBank) teamed up with Temenos to update its core banking platform.
  • International payments provider Nium expanded its B2B travel payments offering in the Asia-Pacific region.
  • BigPay teamed up with payments platform Thredd to support its expansion into Thailand.

Photo by Meo Fernando

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Temenos Unveils Generative AI Solution to Help Banks Boost Personalization

Temenos Unveils Generative AI Solution to Help Banks Boost Personalization
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Temenos
  • Temenos unveiled a new solution, based on Generative AI, that automatically classifies customers’ banking transactions.
  • The new offering will help banks offer more personalized insights and recommendations to their customers.
  • Temenos’ Generative AI solution is part of the company’s strategic AI roadmap. Other use cases for the technology include chatbots and guiding customer journeys.

How will financial services companies take advantage of Generative AI? One way, courtesy of a new solution from Temenos, will be to leverage the technology to automatically classify customers’ banking transactions. This functionality will make it easier for banks to offer personalized insights and recommendations to their customers.

While traditional AI and machine learning technologies have been deployed by financial services firms in a variety of contexts, generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) offer these companies the ability to enhance both operations and customer experiences even further. This is due to the fact that Generative AI and LLMs outperform traditional AI and machine learning approaches when it comes to understanding language, images, sound, video, and code – and then leveraging these inputs into a variety of solutions for customers.

Temenos’s new Generative AI-based offering enables banks to automatically classify and label customer transactions. The technology has a high degree of accuracy and operates in multiple languages. The automatic customer transaction capability has a number of use cases including cashflow prediction, customer attrition analysis, next best product, and more.

“We have continually invested in embedding Explainable AI and ML capabilities into our banking platform and making available all products through an easy-to-use interface or APIs,” Temenos President of Product and COO Prema Varadhan said. Varadhan referred to the new offering as part of the company’s strategic AI roadmap and underscored the value of transparency and explainability when it comes to deploying AI.

Temenos has deployed explainable AI in a wide variety of use cases ranging from wealth management, AML, credit scoring, smart money management, collection optimization, and more. However, transaction classification is the first instance of leveraging Generative AI in a Temenos product. The company said in a statement that it plans to extend the technology to chatbots and customer interfaces, as well as in guiding customer journeys and responding to customer queries.

A Finovate alum since 2013, Temenos was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The company serves 3,000 customers and its open platform enables more than 1.2 billion individuals to conduct their daily banking activities. Two-thirds of the top 1,000 banks in the world and more than 70 challenger banks in 150+ countries use Temenos’ technology. Max Chuard is CEO.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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Finovate Global Indonesia: Kredivo Raises $270 Million; Broom Scores $10 Million in Pre-Series A Funding

Finovate Global Indonesia: Kredivo Raises $270 Million; Broom Scores $10 Million in Pre-Series A Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Temenos

Kredivo Holdings has raised $270 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Japan’s Mizuho Bank. Square Peg Capital, Jungle Ventures, Naver Financial Corporation, GMO Venture Partners, and Openspace Ventures also participated. Kredivo will use the funding to enhance its status as a digital financial service provider, particularly via online lending, credit cards, and its buy now, pay later offering. The company will also use the capital to power the launch of its neobank brand, Krom.

“The upcoming expansion into digital banking is deeply synergistic with the existing Kredivo product and also opens up a very promising channel for us to become the digital financial services platform of choice for tens of millions of consumers in Southeast Asia,” Kredivo Holdings CEO Akshay Garg said. “Finally, we are delighted to have Mizuho join us as a valuable investor and strategic partner.”

Formerly known as FinAccel, Kredivo Holdings operates a number of brands including its digital credit platform, Kredivo, which serves customers in Indonesia and Vietnam. Kredivo Holdings also maintains a bank entity, Krom Bank Indonesia (formerly Bank Bisnis Internasional). Most recently, the company announced that it is launching an Indonesia-based neobank called Krom.

The new funding takes Kredivo Holdings’ total equity capital to nearly $400 million, according to TechCrunch. Valuation information was not immediately available. Garg indicated to TechCrunch that the firm’s valuation has increased by 4x to 5x with each valuation round.

Last spring, Kredivo launched its Infinite Card. The offering is a virtual card that enables Kredivo customers to transact on e-commerce and online platforms using their linked Kredivo accounts. The Infinite Card can be used across all of Mastercard’s online merchant network.

Broom, an Indonesian firm that enables automobile dealers to secure short-term funding by using their car inventories as collateral, has raised $10 million in pre-Series A funding. The round was led by Openspace Ventures, and featured participation from MUFG Innovation Partners, BRI Ventures, AC Ventures, and Quona Capital. Broom will use the capital to diversify its product mix and “accelerate inventory turnover” for its customers.

The investment takes the company’s total capital to $13 million. Valuation information was not immediately available.

Founded in 2021 by CEO Pandu Adi Laras and CFO Andreas Sutanto, Broom launched its flagship service, Buyback, a year later. Buyback supports used car dealers in Indonesia who often struggle to secure financing. Laras noted that car dealers typically must wait until they sell enough of their existing inventory in order to raise the capital to acquire new inventory. Instead, with Buyback, dealers get access to short-term working capital via a temporary car sale service with a built-in repurchasing option. Rather than a loan, Buyback involves a temporary sale – including a change of ownership – after which the dealer can buy back the inventory “at a slightly higher price.”

With more than 5,000 used car dealer customers in Indonesia, Broom said that its technology has enabled dealers to triple their inventory size. Broom noted that the used car market in Indonesia is estimated to be worth $65 billion, with analysts expecting the market to grow to $70.3 billion by 2027.

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 Tom Fisk

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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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German Neobroker Trade Republic Earns $5 Billion Valuation; Binance Labs Secures $500 Million to Fund Web3

German Neobroker Trade Republic Earns $5 Billion Valuation; Binance Labs Secures $500 Million to Fund Web3
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Buckzy Payments, Efigence, Finovate Global, Nubank, Temenos

European investment and savings platform Trade Republic has topped up its 2021 Series C round with an investment of €250 million led by the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan. The funding gives Trade Republic a valuation of more than $5 billion (€5 billion), and will enable the company to “double down” on its product.

“We are amid a transformation of pension systems in Europe,” Trade Republic co-founder Christian Hecker said. “The financing will help us to invest strongly into product innovation to empower millions of Europeans to put their money to work. Improving our valuation in the light of the current market environment is the true testament to our progress in the last twelve months and the large potential ahead.”

Trade Republic enables its more than one million European customers to invest in equities, cryptocurrencies, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), as well as fractional savings plans. With more than six billion euros in assets under management, Trade Republic offers investors the ability to invest in 9,000 stocks and ETFs; take advantage of 4,000 stock and ETF savings plans; and participate in more than 50 cryptocurrency-based savings plans. Trade Republic also provides access to 300,000 derivatives including warrant bonds, “knock-out products”, and factor certificates.

Trade Republic was founded in 2015 by Christian Hecker, Thomas Pischke, and Marco Cancellieri. The company is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.

Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of international cryptocurrency exchange Binance, has raised $500 million to invest in companies that are “building Web3”. The capital comes from VC firms DST Global and Breyer Capital, and featured participation from a variety of family offices and corporations which remained unnamed.

The new fund arrives at a time when cryptocurrrency prices are in a significant retreat. Binance Labs has suggested that the current weakness in digital asset prices might provide an opportunity for investment in companies involved in everything from NFTs to blockchain infrastructure. “The goal of the newly closed investment fund is to discover and support projects and founders with the potential to build and to lead Web3 across DeFi, NFTs, gaming, Metaverse, social, and more,” Binance Labs Executive Director of Investments and M&A Ken Li said.

The new fund will invest in projects in a wide range of development stages including incubation, early-stage venture, and late-stage growth. Binance Labs has invested in and incubated more than 100 projects from more than 25 countries. The firm’s portfolio includes companies such as blockchain research firm Dune Analytics, as well as blockchain networks such as Elrond, The Sandbox, and Polygon.

In other international fintech news, Canadian Finovate alum Buckzy Payments announced an expansion to the Netherlands and its plan to pursue an EMI (Electronic Money Institution) license. The company, which demoed its real-time cross border P2P payments solution at FinovateFall 2019, opened a new office in Amsterdam this summer. The firm also noted that an EMI license will enable members of the Buckzy Payment Network to leverage virtual account services and real-time payments across the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) of 36 European countries and territories.

“Europe is a mature, technologically advanced market that is also a hotbed of fintech innovation thanks to its adoption of open API technology,” Buckzy President and CEO Abdul Naushad said. “(This) has opened up the financial sector and created opportunities for innovative new companies to provide new products and services. More and more of our customers around the world want to send and receive real-time payments to and from Europe, and we are enabling them to do so.”

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 energepic.com

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Temenos Serves Up ESG Investing-as-a-Service

Temenos Serves Up ESG Investing-as-a-Service
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Temenos
  • Banking technology provider Temenos is launching ESG Investing-as-a-service.
  • The tool will help banks and wealth managers offer a digital experience that allows end customers to build an investment portfolio that reflects their values.
  • The move comes amid a time of major growth for ESG investing, which is expected to exceed $53 trillion by 2025.

ESG investing has been on the rise for the past couple of years. According to Bloomberg, money held in sustainable mutual funds and ESG-focused ETFs rose by 53% in 2021 to reach $2.7 trillion and ESG assets are on track to exceed $53 trillion by 2025. Banking software provider Temenos has taken note of this and is launching a new tool to help banks and wealth managers compete in the new environment.

Temenos’ ESG Investing-as-a-service, which can be run in the cloud or on-premise, combines Temenos’ market data management and digital capabilities such as filtering, scoring, and modeling techniques with external data feeds. The company generates easy-to-understand ratings to evaluate hundreds of ESG factors such as carbon footprint, water usage, diversity and gender equality, and executive compensation.

“At Temenos, our purpose is to power a world of banking that creates opportunities for everyone,” said Temenos Product Director of Wealth Alexandre Duret. “With the new ESG Investing service, we will help private banks and wealth managers to become compliant, and their customers invest with a purpose. Available as a service on our open platform for composable banking, it provides a fast track for our banking clients to launch innovative ESG investment products underpinned by robust, compliant processes, including new MiFID rules applicable in the EU from August 2022.”

Banks and wealth managers can leverage the tool to create ESG compliant products, with a lower cost of development. Ultimately, they can offer a digital experience that allows end customers to choose investments that they feel good about and build a portfolio that reflects their values.

Temenos serves 3,000+ banking and financial institutions worldwide representing 1.2 billion end customers. The Switzerland-based company has embedded sustainability practices into its own operations with ESG governance, reporting, and measurable targets. The Carbon Disclosure Project awarded Temenos an A- rating along with platinum recognition.

Photo by Monstera

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Fintech in India: Neobanks, Crypto Exchanges, and Google Pay Loans

Fintech in India: Neobanks, Crypto Exchanges, and Google Pay Loans
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Finovate Global, Nordigen, Salt Edge, Temenos

This week’s Finovate Global takes a look at developments in the Indian fintech industry. Leading off is news that Indian neobank Niyo has secured $100 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Accel and Lightrock India and also featured investment from Beams Fintech Fund, Prime Venture Partners, and JS Capital, among others. Niyo, founded in 2015 by Vinay Bagri and Virender Bisht, will use the capital to support product innovation, marketing, and branding, as well as increasing its distribution footprint and adding talent.

“We have always strived to offer tangible value and a delightful experience to our customers,” Bagri said in a statement. “In the process we are transforming the way India banks.” Co-founder Bisht highlighted the impact of the pandemic on the pace of digitization of financial services in the country. “We are seeing massive tailwinds for digital products since COVID,” he noted.

Niyo collaborates with banks to offer digital savings accounts and other banking services. The neobank serves four million customers via its banking and wealth management operations and says that it is adding customers to its platform at a rate of 10,000 new users a day. With more than $3 billion in transactions, Niyo claims it is the biggest consumer-based neo-banking platform in India.

Earlier this month Niyo introduced the country’s first, fully digital salary account. Over the next three months, the company plans to offer additional banking products including personal loans, credit cards, and integrated forex.

The soaring interest in cryptocurrencies is another trend that has accelerated in recent years. To help more institutions take advantage of the opportunities in digital assets, Indian crypto exchange WazirX has unveiled new tools to help institutions build cryptocurrency exchanges.

“We can relate to you when you say – Building a crypto exchange is difficult,” WazirX co-founder and COO Siddharth Menon wrote on the company’s blog earlier this week. “While we have learned it the hard way, we want to simplify it for you.”

WazirX’s BUIDL with WazirX program will enable organizations to build their own crypto exchanges leveraging WazirX. The program includes tools, support, guidance, access to angel and VC investors, and more. The exchanges built via WazirX’s new offering will feature access to 300+ of the highest liquidity markets, and the ability to leverage WazirX’s custody and exchange infrastructure for cryptocurrency withdrawals and deposits.

“To be the world leader, we believe that India should build more for Web3,” Menon added. “This is a billion-dollar opportunity, and that is why we at WazirX are here to support you.”

Founded in 2017, and recognized as India’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, WazirX enables cryptocurrency traders and investors based in India to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and many other digital assets. The company was acquired by international cryptocurrency exchange and blockchain ecosystem Binance in 2019. Nischal Shetty is CEO.

From neobanks to cryptocurrencies to embedded finance, we now turn to news that Google Pay users in India are now able to apply for and receive personal loans in their bank accounts via the Google Pay app. Loans of up to $1,332 (100,000 rupees) are available and can be repaid over a period of as many as 36 months.

The new service is being offered in partnership with India-based digital finance company DMI Finance, who also will determine eligibility for the financing. The loans will be processed in “near real-time” and are geared toward supporting financial inclusion by helping Indian consumers access short-term credit.

“Our teams have worked closely together to bring transparent and seamless credit to millions of Google Pay users,” DMI Finance co-founder and joint Managing Director Shivashish Chatterjee said. “We look forward to scaling this new partnership in the years to come and make the promise of financial inclusion a reality for many millions more.”

FinovateEurope 2022 is less than one month away. 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 and 23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!

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 NEOSiAM 2021 from Pexels

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ThetaRay Forges Historic Partnership with UAE’s Mashreq Bank to Enable Secure Cross-Border Fund Transfers

ThetaRay Forges Historic Partnership with UAE’s Mashreq Bank to Enable Secure Cross-Border Fund Transfers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Nordigen, Nubank, Temenos, ThetaRay

Historic news out of the Middle East leads off our international fintech coverage this week on Finovate Global. Israel’s AI-powered transaction monitoring innovator ThetaRay has been selected by the UAE’s Mashreq Bank to help ensure secure cross-border transfers for its correspondent banking business.

The partnership marks the first time that an Israel-based fintech company has teamed up with a financial institution from the UAE. The collaboration was made possible by the historic Abraham Accords, signed in the fall of 2020, which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.

“Mashreq Bank is our first customer in the UAE,” ThetaRay CEO Mark Gazit said. “We look forward to accelerating collaboration with additional financial institutions in the UAE and the entire Middle East, as part of the continued expansion of ThetaRay’s global reach.”

Making its Finovate debut in 2015, ThetaRay offers banks and financial payment providers the ability to detect anomalies in multiple data sets, regardless of size or source. This makes the company’s cloud-based, SaaS AI analytics platform is especially effective in monitoring cross-border payments, an area that has become increasingly vulnerable to financial crime – including money laundering – in recent years. ThetaRay estimates that the cross-border payments market will grow from $37.15 trillion in 2020 to nearly $40 trillion by 2026, potentially attracting an even greater number of fraudsters and thieves.

“ThetaRay’s technology, underpinned by advanced machine-learning based models complementing rules, sets the foundation for next-generation transaction monitoring,” Mashreq Bank’s Group Head of Compliance and Bank MLRO Scott Ramsay said. “By combining speed and agility with efficiency, it allows banks to effectively thwart financial crime risks in the increasingly complex space of cross-border payments.”

A leading MENA-area financial institution, Mashreq Bank is the oldest privately owned bank in the UAE, founded in 1967 as the Bank of Oman. Last fall, the bank announced a partnership with Visa to develop a new digital reconciliation platform for business expense tracking. Mashreq Bank was also the first regional bank to launch an API developer portal, going live with the platform back in October. A month later, the institution reported a net profit of $72 million (AED 265 million) for the nine months ending September 30th.

“Mashreq’s advanced digital transformation program has continued to deliver outstanding service to customers throughout the nine months ending 30th September 2021,” Group CEO Ahmed Abdelaal said. He highlighted the role of digital platforms in supporting the bank’s growth, and embraced the “development of a diverse, inclusive, and enabling working environment” courtesy of Mashreq’s adoption of a “work from anywhere culture.”

FinovateEurope 2022 is just one month away. 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 and 23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!

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 Manprit Kalsi from Pexels

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Temenos Joins the Buy Now Pay Later Revolution with Explainable AI-Powered Offering

Temenos Joins the Buy Now Pay Later Revolution with Explainable AI-Powered Offering
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Temenos

Just when you might have thought that the momentum behind the Buy Now Pay Later phenomenon might be waning, banking software company Temenos announced today that it is launching its own BNPL offering.

Temenos brings its patented Explainable AI technology to the BNPL party with its Temenos BNPL. The company says that the new solution will give banks and fintechs new revenue opportunities, enable them to access new markets, and strengthen their relationships with both customers and merchants with its ethically-driven lending program.

“In an extremely competitive market, financial services providers need to evaluate new business models to drive revenue,” Temenos CEO Max Chuard explained. “As the strategic technology provider for over 3,000 banks worldwide, we are committed to empowering our clients to pioneer and adopt those new, profitable business models. Buy-Now-Pay-Later has shown the industry that we can come up with new solutions to old problems.”

Temenos BNPL brings transparency to the automated decision-making and credit offer-matching aspect of the Buy Now Pay Later process. Courtesy of embedded Explainable AI, the technology allows clients to pre-approve loan applications or offer variable installments in real-time, contingent on pre-determined criteria. The technology offers visibility into the credit decisioning and provides a recommended payment timetable during the application process so the borrower can be assured of being able to make the repayments as scheduled.

Temenos BNPL is core banking system agnostic – accessible via the Temenos Banking Cloud, which means that institutions and businesses can deploy the technology along with Temenos Transact or any other core banking system. In a statement, Temenos noted that one company – “a global payments provider” – went live with its own Temenos BNPL-based Buy Now Pay Later service and received 22 million loan applications in nine months. The product launch was reportedly the fastest and most successful in the company’s history. It was also especially popular with customers, 70% of whom are repeat users of the technology with 50% using the technology more than once within three months.

“(Buy Now Pay Later) has challenged the way we think about customer engagement, acquisition, and retention,” Chuard said. “We are very excited to launch this new solution to enable our clients to offer alternative financing that is fast, seamless, and scalable.”

Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

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Temenos, Jack Henry Secure New Bank, Credit Union Partnerships

Temenos, Jack Henry Secure New Bank, Credit Union Partnerships
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Jack Henry, Temenos

Every week is a good week to be a Finovate alum. But for those alums that focus on forging partnerships to help credit unions and banks transition from legacy systems to modern, cloud-based environments, the first full week of December so far has been especially productive.

Westmark Credit Union, an Idaho-based financial institution with more than $1 billion in assets, announced yesterday that it will swap out its current core banking system for Jack Henry & Associates‘ Symitar. The credit union cited Symitar’s open and flexible architecture, including the ability to both use the core “as-is” as well as to introduce additional functionalities in the future should they choose to. Symitar will provide Westmark CU with built-in workflows to bring automation – and lower error rates – to key processes.

“Symitar’s workflows and connectivity provide the opportunity to realize significant financial and efficiency gains,” Westmark Chief Information Officer Don West said. “And most importantly, it gives us the optionality we need to integrate with the products and service providers of our choice. With Symitar, we can build the best technology plan for our unique business needs, fueling future growth and keeping a highly competitive pace with the accelerated speed of change in today’s market.”

The transition will also take Westmark from an in-house core banking system to one that leverages a private cloud environment instead. This will enable the credit union to focus less on managing the day-to-day tasks of core maintenance and hardware updates and more on improving their member experience.

Speaking to this point, Jack Henry & Associates VP and President of the company’s Symitar division, Shanon McLachlan noted, “Jack Henry has seen a significant movement from on-premise to the private cloud environment with approximately 30 existing customers a year making the move, and this isn’t limited to any asset size. While this shift continues to be a huge trend, so is the need to have a modern core that enables credit unions to provide their members with the options they need to succeed,” McLachlan said.

Jack Henry & Associates made its first Finovate appearance at FinovateFall in 2010. Headquartered in Monett, Missouri, the company announced a major collaboration with fellow Finovate alum Envestnet | Yodlee last week to enable financial institutions to access consumer-permissioned financial data.

Another major fintech/financial institution partnership announced by our Finovate alums in the first half of this week is the collaboration between Trusted Novus Bank, a Gibraltar-based institution, and banking software company Temenos. As part of a “complete, end-to-end digital transformation,” the bank will trade its legacy core banking and front office systems for Temenos Transact and Temenos Infinity on the Temenos Banking Cloud.

“We want to expand our retail, corporate, and private banking and scale fast to increase our customer base,” Trusted Novus Bank CEO Christian Bjørløw explained in a statement. “With the Temenos Banking Cloud, we can deliver personalized, real-time customer experiences on a scalable platform that will foster innovation and keep the bank at the forefront of technology, and at the same time be true to our vision and values.”

The oldest established bank in Gibraltar, Trusted Novus Bank was reorganized in 2020 with goal of growing its business and enhancing the digital experience for its customers, as well. With its new core and front office system and access to the Temenos Banking Cloud, the bank will be able to build and offer personalized, real-time customer experiences that are customized for its different lines of business. Trusted Novus Bank will also be able to take advantage of straight-through-processing (STP) and automation, enabling its professionals to prioritize value-added, customer-facing services rather than on time-consuming administrative tasks.

“With banking services powered by the Temenos Banking Cloud, Trusted Novus can dramatically reduce costs and turbocharge innovation to deliver outstanding customer experiences,” Temenos President of International Sales Jean-Paul Mergeai said. “Trusted Novus has exciting plans to extend its banking services on our platform, and we will be working closely to ensure rapid time-to-value.”

A Finovate alum since 2013, Temenos operates worldwide and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The company recently announced that it was moving its North American regional headquarters to new offices in Manhattan, New York.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

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Strands and Credolab Bring Smart Money Management to Banks

Strands and Credolab Bring Smart Money Management to Banks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, CredoLab, FICO, Finovate Global, SplitIt, Strands, Temenos

Barcelona, Spain-based Strands and Singapore’s credolab announced a partnership this week that will give banks a new solution to help their customers make better decisions with their finances. The collaboration will embed credolab’s credit scoring technology into Strands personal finance management platform, giving banks the real-time ability to obtain relevant customer insights with embedded risk assessments.

“Strands’ expertise in developing customizable digital money management solutions for banks will add great value to our clients globally,” credolab founder and CEO Peter Barcak said. “We are confident that our embedded technology will help Strands develop solutions to promote a more delightful way of banking that empowers customers with meaningful interactions, and makes them happier, more loyal, and more profitable.”

In their joint statement, Strands and credolab noted that retail banks often face challenges when it comes to improving customer engagement and providing long-term value to their customers. They blame a lack of relevant data, as well as the inability to generate significant insights into customer behavior and preferences. The integrated solution will serve as a “one-stop shop” for banks to realize new potential revenue sources by helping their customers be smarter with their money.

“By partnering with credolab, Strands is in a stronger position to deliver state of the art financial management solutions to banks worldwide,” Strands CEO Erik Brieva said. “This collaboration will allow us to embed next generation scoring technology into our AI-driven product suite, meeting financial institutions’ increasing demand for smart, highly customizable, and scalable FinTech white-label solutions.”

Credolab demonstrated its CredoScore technology at FinovateAsia 2018. This spring, the company has announced a collaboration with regional credit risk and decision analytics company Qarar to help the UAE-based company enhance its credit risk scoring processes.

Strands made its most recent Finovate appearance last month at FinovateAsia Digital. Teaming up with Tearsheet to publish its guide to “Banking as a Service,” in May, Strands began the year with news that CEO Brieva had been named to Analytics Insight’s Top 10 Most Inspiring CEOs.

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 American and the Caribbean

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