Web browser Opera to buy digital challenger Fjord Bank - FinTech Futures

#fintech #acquisitions #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks #mergersandacquisitions

Opera , a freeware web browser founded in Norway, intends to buy Lithuania-based fintech start-up Fjord Bank.

The digital challenger was founded in 2017 by Norwegian and Swedish investors Svein Ovrebo, Joakim Mandorsson and Stig Myrseth.

The deal, agreed in May, saw Opera acquire a 9.9% interest in Fjord Bank via a share subscription on 3 July 2020. The acquisition of the remaining 90.1% of Fjord Bank is pending regulatory approval.

In December 2019, the digital challenger landed a specialised bank licence from the European Central Bank (ECB).

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Web browser Opera to buy digital challenger Fjord Bank - FinTech Futures

Opera, a freeware web browser founded in Norway, intends to buy Lithuania-based fintech start-up Fjord Bank. The digital challenger was founded in 2017.

UK challenger Monument to tap Britain's mass affluent - FinTech Futures

#fintech #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks #affluence #afluent #startups #startupstrategy

Monument Corporation, a new UK fintech challenger, is looking to tap Britain’s mass affluent population. Co-operative Bank’s former chief executive, @Niall Brooker, is chairing the venture. Mintoo Bhandari, a former managing director at Apollo Global Management – one of the world’s largest alternative investment manager firms, is leading the venture alongside Brooker.

The start-up reckons around 3.5 million consumers fall into this bracket, which it defines as people with a net worth between £250,000 and £5 million.

Through the last 18 months of the building process, Monument has interviewed roughly 1,800 mass affluent consumers. It says 93% of these respondents “expressed dissatisfaction” with their current banking provider. “Increasingly, private banking is focused on the ultra-high net worth and lags when it comes to embracing modern technology,” says Bhandari.

The start-up also says it is the first bank to offer an entirely digital lending journey for buy-to-let and property investment lending of up to £2 million. The bank will offer live chat, video and co-browsing features.

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UK challenger Monument to tap Britain's mass affluent - FinTech Futures

Monument, a new UK fintech challenger, is looking to tap Britain's 3.5 million mass affluent population with savings and lending products.

How A Tech Entrepreneur Broke Records With A $189M Valuation Pre-Launch On The Road To $1B

#fintech #banks #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks #startups #startupstrategy

Fintech is forecast to achieve a #CAGR of 25% through 2022, reaching a market value of $309B. Traditional banks’ legacy approach to IT holds them back from being more customer-centric. And in a recently published World Retail Banking Report, 2020 by Capgemini and Efma, 78% of financial services leaders said cybersecurity is the biggest obstacle to collaborating and becoming more customer-centric.

Fintech startups excel at #analytics, #AI and #machinelearning to see how they can become more empathetic and helpful to customers. Fintech startups are also succeeding today because their design provides customers the freedom to interact with them as they want and treat cybersecurity as a part of customer experience. There’s been a 667% increase in spear-fishing email attacks related to Covid-19 since February alone, further underscoring the need for designing in cybersecurity to the platform level.

Fintech startup leaders are delivering excellent user experiences with apps based on adaptive design today. They’re also able to scale how many credit cards can be on a single account and integrated into a single card using polymorphic technology that thwarts fraud attempts.

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How A Tech Entrepreneur Broke Records With A $189M Valuation Pre-Launch On The Road To $1B

Bottom Line: Traditional banks aren't innovating fast enough to improve credit card fraud, endpoint cybersecurity, AI-powered end-to-end identity verification and more intuitive user experiences creating new opportunities for startups. Fintech is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25% through 2022, reaching a market value of $309B.

Finin: COVID19 Crisis A Great Opportunity for Neo-Banks

#fintech #startups #startupindia #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks

Finin claims to be India’s first direct consumer digitized bank that eases the customer money management, investment, savings account through digital mode using advanced AI driven technology and payment programs. Suman Gandham, Founder & CEO, Finin – The Future of Banking explains to Techplus Media Group how neo banks are changing wealth management in India.

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Finin: COVID19 Crisis A Great Opportunity for Neo-Banks

Finin claims to be India's first direct consumer digitized bank that eases the customer money management, investment, savings account through digital mode using advanced AI driven technology and payment programs. Suman Gandhan, Founder & CEO, Finin - The Future of Banking explains how neo banks are changing wealth management in India.

Startup Strategy: How can challenger banks differentiate themselves?

#challengerbanks #neobanks #digitalbanks

Please read what John Ellmore, Director, Know Your Money, has to say on how challenger banks are distinguishable for their modern fintech practices and how they further can differentiate.

Challenger banks have distinguished themselves by revolutionising the banking process. They pose a disruptive presence to retail banking across the value chain. It’s no secret that challenger banks employ attacking business models. With market saturation not far away, challenger banks can differentiate themselves more than ever and stand out from the crowd by -

1. Leveraging data they collect to generate insights, realise value and effect a hyperpersonal approach to their customers

2. Challenger banks would be well advised to seek streams of income from beyond the realm of traditional banking.

3. Driving down costs with digital capabilities by using data and analytics and leverage automation and AI to drive down the cost to serve, minimise human touchpoints and improve both cross-sell ratios and service levels.

4. Challenger banks would be well advised to vie for the finest talent by looking beyond the usual rewards to both attract and retain their workers.

5. Evolve the business strategy models

6. Reshaping the fintech ecosystem

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How can challenger banks differentiate themselves?

Challenger banks are distinguishable for their modern fintech practices-but with market saturation never far away, how can they further differentiate?

Startup Strategy: Lanistar partners with Jumio ahead of "polymorphic" debit card launch

#fintech #kyc #videokyc #video #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks #strategy #startupstrategy

Lanistar, a UK-based fintech set to launch a “polymorphic debit card” later this year, has partnered with Jumio for its onboarding.

California-based mobile payments and identity verification firm Jumio will help Lanistar verify users remotely.

Customers will submit a picture of their government-issued ID and a corroborating selfie with certified liveness detection. Jumio can also verify secondary documents, should a user need to submit them.

Jumio’s customers to date include Monzo, Middle East-based Bank ABC, Airbnb and easyJet.

The US fintech cites Signicat data, which suggests nearly 40% of potential new accounts go down the drain due to clunky onboarding.

Key takeaway:

Neobanks should be able to adopt remote KYC methods such as video KYC so that prospective customers are not frustrated while onboarding, which is very crucial that may impact the customer base.

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Lanistar partners with Jumio ahead of "polymorphic" debit card launch - FinTech Futures

Lanistar landed a $2.5 million seed investment in March.

FinTech Startup Funding Alert: Memo Bank launches business offering and lands €20m

#fintech #bank #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks #lending #lendingsolutions #lendingtech #startups #smesector #smes #fundingalert #startupfunding

Formerly known as Margo Bank, the newly named Memo Bank, a French fintech, is launching its exclusive business offering, which is set to tap small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Alongside its launch and lending licence, the start-up has landed a €20 million funding round led by Paris-based, BlackFin Capital Partners | Investors in Financial Services, and existing French investors, Daphni and Bpifrance Digital Venture.

The bank targets SMEs that generate over €2 million a year and houses more than ten employees. Its key focus will be on delivering paperless credit lines to businesses in just a few days, directly competing with France’s online lenders, rather than the country’s neobanks.

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Memo Bank launches business offering and lands €20m - FinTech Futures

Memo Bank has launched its business offering which is set to tap SMEs, in addition to obtaining a licence and securing a €20 million funding round.

Neobanking Space: Credit Sesame's banking service uses i2c payments platform

#fintech #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks #startupstrategy

Credit Sesame, the California-based credit and loan finder, has chosen payments solution provider i2c Inc. to power its digital banking service, Sesame Cash.

Sesame Cash, launched in March this year, uses the insights it has gathered on users’ banking habits to promote healthy credit behaviours and good cash management.

Silicon Valley-headquartered i2c Inc. offers payment solutions based around credit, debit, prepaid and lending. Sesame Cash will use i2c’s platform to set and control all its card, banking and payments programmes.

The fintech wants to offer a smart bill pay service, savings round-up of transactions to save or pay down debt, reward programmes and credit-building features.

Other features will include early paydays, direct deposits, the ability to freeze or unfreeze the debit card in-app, and virtual card integration with “most major mobile wallets”, the fintech has said.

Founded in 2010, Credit Sesame claims to monitor more than $35 billion in loans. Its business model gives its members free access to credit score monitoring, credit reports, and identity protection tools, as well as recommendations regarding a variety of loan types.

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Credit Sesame's banking service uses i2c payments platform - FinTech Futures

Credit Sesame, the California-based credit and loan finder, has chosen payments solution provider i2c to power its digital banking service, Sesame Cash.

UK challenger Picnic Bank to address 'fintech for good' - FinTech Futures

Picnic Bank, a UK start-up focused on ‘fintech for good’, is set to launch its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending platform in September, before rolling out its fully licensed banking service sometime next year.

Whilst Picnic Bank lends to SMEs, earning interest on the loans, and taking referral fees from partners, it intends to build its bank in the background. But upon launch in September, it will be offering payment cards alongside its lending service until the full bank comes into play.

Once the bank is built, the start-up will look to offer three account tiers. The first will be a gamified, ‘eco-concierge’ to inspire users to live greener lifestyles. The second will be a ‘fintech for good’ toolbox, with features such as overdraft alerts – West points out that UK consumers needlessly waste £2 billion a year on overdraft fees. The third account in Picnic Bank’s suite will be focused around debt rebuilding, specifically to help those loaded with student loan debt, or debt due to losing a job.

The toolbox will also offer a guarantor to bring account holders back into the clear if they go into a negative balance. As well as Picnic Bank’s own features, the toolbox will offer services from a series of partners such as Better.com, a fintech eliminating fees from the UK mortgage process, Omnipresent, a German fintech which builds impact funds, Pynk, a social investment platform, and Fundsurfer, a crowdfunding and investment platform.

A number of other fintechs are either starting up, or are adapting their offering to the ‘fintech for good’ space. UK challenger Kestrl is set to launch later this year with an ethical banking offering which would track carbon emissions through open banking and allow users to donate through an integrated charity donation platform.

Netherlands-based challenger bank bunq, which has been around since 2015, revamped its banking app at the beginning of this month to allow users to donate to charities in the app and create their own local charities which they can invite other members to.

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UK challenger Picnic Bank to address 'fintech for good' - FinTech Futures

Picnic Bank, a UK start-up focused on 'fintech for good', is set to launch its SME lending platform in September, before its fully licensed banking service.

The Ideal Neobank: We're still a long way from the perfect digital bank | Sifted

#fintech #startupstrategy #neobanks #challengerbanks #digitalbanks

Former Lloyds Bank director Alessandro Hatami explains what he thinks digital banks need to do next and feels that the so called neobanks are not doing the right thing.

He opined that there are three things banking customers fundamentally need — and are worth disrupting to look like in ‘The Ideal Neobank’:

1. A Payment Account: Imagine a bank that allows you to seamlessly pay anyone, anywhere: be it your babysitter, your favourite retailer or a holiday home abroad.

2. A Credit Line: Instead of an overdraft, personal loan, credit card, car finance or a mortgage you get a credit line. The bank knows you and will advance cash (with guarantees if required) as you need it. You make one payment a month — like a subscription — to pay for it.

3. A Savings/Protection Tool: You have some excess capital and the bank enables you to buy any product in the market that allows you to protect and grow it. And your bank would sell you any such product in the market that meets your needs — whether or not it’s their product or a third party’s.

Many banks and fintechs claim they already offer this, but he is not sure their customers agree. These neobanks still sell financial products rather than financial solutions.

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We're still a long way from the perfect digital bank | Sifted

Over the last decade, so-called "challenger" banks like Monzo, Starling and Revolut have served as beacons of opportunity, promising a new way of banking. This has prompted their predecessors - the incumbents - to undergo several phases of digital transformation; something I watched first-hand when I was a digital exec at Lloyds Bank.

Cloud Technology for FinTech - Banking on the cloud in the face of COVID-19 and beyond

#cloudtech #cloudtechnology #postcovidworld #techonlogy #ai #artficialintelligence #saas

This conversation about use of cloud is now more important than ever, as firms adjust to new realities, including more remote workforces and more digital interactions with customers.

One example of utilising cloud-based tools to accelerate digital transformation efforts is through processing vast amounts of data to reduce development and roll out of new and innovative financial products. For Atom bank, the UK’s first mobile-only bank, success depends on having agility and scalability to develop new solutions and experiences quickly in response to customer demand, while keeping costs low. By embracing the cloud, the challenger bank has been able to move on from on-premise hosted data centres, becoming more responsive to the needs of its customers through new app features or entirely new products and also building more software-as-a-service (#SaaS) and resilient architectures for future innovation.

Similarly, Revolut turned to the cloud to scale at speed without sacrificing stability. Tapping into cloud technology has allowed the organisation to automate updates and maintenance and redesign its slow and costly backup system, whilst maintaining resilience and control over security.

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Banking on the cloud in the face of COVID-19 and beyond - FinTech Futures

Banking on the cloud in the face of COVID-19 and beyond

Credit Sesame acquires Canadian challenger STACK for international expansion

Source: FinTech Futures

Credit and loans company, Credit Sesame, has announced its acquisition of Canadian challenger bank, STACK.

The two firms had been in partnership since the 2019 design of Sesame Cash, a no-fee digital banking service “to help consumers grow their cash and credit together” which launched in March.

The move is part of an attempted international expansion. Credit Sesame’s credit services will be integrated with STACK’s digital banking offering to bring cash and credit management to Canadian consumers.

The combined firm aims to roll out several new features and resources designed to help consumers manage and grow their cash and credit faster, which the company expects will “further accelerate customer demand.” These include a smart bill pay service, savings roundup of transactions to save or pay down debt, and additional rewards programs and credit-building features.

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Credit Sesame acquires Canadian challenger Stack for international expansion - FinTech Futures

Credit and loans company Credit Sesame has announced its acquisition of Canadian challenger bank Stack.

Australia's Judo Bank closes on $147 mn Series C round of funding for SME loans

Judo Bank, an Australian neobank that provides loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has raised $147 million in a Series C round of funding.

The raise comes just 10 months after the Melbourne-based startup raised a $261.6 million Series B that was considered to be “the largest private investment” in a local startup, according to AVCJ. It also comes weeks after Judo Bank secured $500 million in government funding for its SMB loans.

With this latest financing, Judo Bank has raised a total of about $500 million in equity, according to Crunchbase data, in addition to a known $450 million in debt. The Series C made Judo Bank a #unicorn in Australian dollars with a valuation north of $1 billion in local currency, or $653.7 million in U.S. dollars. Existing backers participated in the round, including Bain Capital Credit and Ironbridge Capital.

Founded in 2017, Judo Bank got its license to take deposits last year. The bank now has more than $1.5 billion in deposits and has written more than $1.5 billion in loans, with around 10,000 customers across both loans and deposits, according to startupdaily.net.

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Australia's Judo Bank Closes On $147M Series C For SME Loans

Judo Bank, an Australian neobank that provides loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has raised $147 million in a Series C round of funding. The raise comes just 10 months after the Melbourne-based startup raised a $261.6 million Series B that was considered to be "the largest private investment" in a local startup, according to AVCJ.

Credit focused fintech startup Upgrade raises $40 mn after reaching $100 mn run rate

Upgrade, Inc., a credit-focused fintech startup, announced that it has raised a $40 million Series D round that the company says gives it a $1 billion valuation. The company is a fintech startup with a credit-focus today, though it intends to add more neobank-like tooling in Q3.

Key takeaways:-

1. Upgrade, Inc. has a different philosophy than some credit card providers, in the view of its founder and CEO, Renaud Laplanche. “Banks have an incentive to keep customers in debt as long as possible,” he said during an interview with TechCrunch. Upgrade, Inc., in contrast, offers lower rates — cards starting at 6.9%, under what the CEO described as a market-normal entry rate of 12% to 13% — and set repayment periods for debts so that customers don’t wind up in a credit cycle that never ends, sapping them of financial health.

2. One constant in the fintech world is the offering of more services to existing customers, helping drive up their lifetime value (LTV) and thus making their cost to acquire (CAC) more palatable.

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Credit-focused fintech startup Upgrade raises $40M after reaching $100M run rate

This morning Upgrade, a credit-focused fintech startup, announced that it has raised a $40 million Series D round that the company says gives it a $1 billion valuation. The Upgrade round slots neatly into a few trends TechCrunch has noted in recent quarters, including fintech startups raising at ne...

RBC Backed startup Mydoh launches banking offering for kids

Launched more than two weeks ago in Canada, the initial offering of Mydoh lets parents sign up and invite their kids who get a virtual smart card which can be pushed to a digital wallet such as Apple Pay.

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RBC-backed start-up Mydoh launches banking offering for kids - FinTech Futures

Mydoh, a start-up wholly owned by Canada's largest bank RBC, has launched a banking offering for kids aged 8-18.

Is Monzo's 40% drop in valuation a sign of things to come for fintech startups?

Source:- FinTech Futures

Is Monzo Bank’s 40% drop in valuation a sign of things to come for tech start-ups?

London-based digital bank, Monzo Bank, is set to be the next fintech company facing the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic as investor interest has dampened across various industries over the past few months.

According to sources close to the raise, Monzo Bank is set to close its latest round of funding at around a £1.25 billion valuation, which falls considerably short of the £2 billion secured at the conclusion of its last funding round in June of last year.

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Is Monzo's 40% drop in valuation a sign of things to come for tech start-ups? - FinTech Futures

Is Monzo's 40% drop in valuation a sign of things to come for tech start-ups?

Monzo co-founder joins new challenger bank GBB as non-exec Chairman

GBB, one of the UK’s latest aspiring challenger banks, has landed Monzo Bank’s co-founder Paul Rippon as its non-executive chair, the Telegraph reports.

GBB has already raised more than £10 million from investors – most of which are from the North, as the start-up is based in Newcastle. The fintech aims to land its banking licence before the end of this year.

Key takeaway:-

Upon launch it says GBB will offer secured property development loans of between £1 million and £5 million, with 90% of lending supporting regional property developers, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and construction companies.

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Monzo co-founder joins new UK challenger bank GBB as non-exec chair - FinTech Futures

GBB, one of the UK's latest aspiring challenger banks, has landed Monzo's co-founder Paul Rippon as its non-executive chair.