Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Bento for Business Raises $9 Million in New Funding.
  • Sensory’s Biometric Technology Now Powers Security for 24 Banking Apps.
  • DefenseStorm Selected by NAFCU as Preferred Cloud-Based Cybersecurity Partner

Around the web

  • Coventry Building Society to deploy Temenos T24 core banking platform for savings and mortgage servicing.
  • Finastra partners with Indonesian data center to bring IFRS 9 compliance capabilities to regional and medium-sized FIs in the country.
  • Akamai Technologies named a leader in Web Application Firewalls in The Forrester Wave’s Q2 2018 evaluation.
  • Payoneer partners with the Republic of Estonia’s e-Residency program to make cross-border payments easier for e-residents in India.
  • Twilio introduces a new developer-first, API-first partner program, Twilio Build.
  • Ping Identity forges strategic partnership with enterprise identity governance company, SailPoint Technologies.
  • Coinbase CEO follows Ripple’s lead on philanthropy.
  • Quadient teams with Quertum for software distribution in the Nordics and U.K.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Daon Partners with Tradelink to Bring Biometrics to Dah Sing Bank.
  • AI Foundry Overhauls Agile Mortgages Solution.

Around the web

  •  Klarna partners with EMaC, a U.K. automotive service plan provider, for a drive now, pay later service.
  •  Paysend triples its customer base over the last 6 months.
  • eToro announces that clients can now invest directly in shares on the platform.
  • MX appoints Ben Holzman, a former managing director of Bain Capital Ventures, as new COO.
  • TechCrunch: Coinbase opens its crypto index fund to accredited U.S. investors.
  • Langley FCU to deploy Symitar Episys core processing platform from Jack Henry & Associates.
  • Mambu announces new board member, former SAP CEO, Henning Kagermann.
  • Revolut partners with Cyprus-based telecommunications company, PrimeTel.
  • First Data and Mastercard collaborate on a digital disbursement platform for business customers.
  • Entersekt opens new office in Atlanta, Georgia to support the company’s growth in North America.
  • The Open Bank Project collaborates with Citizens Bank on innovation event.
  • First National Bank Texas ($1.8B Assets) selects Insuritas to power turnkey insurance agency.
  • Prosper resumes operations for Montana residents

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate

  • Pindrop Security Partners with Bank of the West.
  • InComm Acquires Gift Card Impressions.
  • Trustly Brings New Payment Options to Alpha Fintech’s AlphaHub Platform.

Around the world

  • Algomi hires Scott Eaton, former EMEA COO at MarketAxess, as its new CEO.
  • Envestnet | Yodlee launches AI FinCheck. an AI-powered financial wellness assistant for financial service professionals.
  • FICO and Equifax partner to launch FICO Risk and Affordability Decision Suite powered by Equifax to help banks measure repayment risk.
  • Dashlane integrates with new Apple Security API rolling out in iOS 12.
  • WSJ features Coinbase’s move into Japan.
  • LendKey names Lewis Goldman Chief Marketing Officer.
  • VyStar CU leverages technology from Fiserv to power its mobile banking app.

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.

Coinbase Unveils Institutional Grade Solutions for Cryptocurrency Trading

Coinbase Unveils Institutional Grade Solutions for Cryptocurrency Trading

In crypto, when the going gets good, the good go institutional.

Digital asset platform Coinbase has launched a set of new tools and resources designed to help institutional investors take advantage of the boom in cryptocurrencies. The solutions, as Coinbase General Manager Adam White described them in a blog post earlier today, represent the sort of “institutional grade products and services” that will enable FIs to participate in the cryptocurrency markets.

First up is Coinbase Custody. Designed in partnership with an SEC-regulated broker-dealer, Coinbase Custody provides secure crypto storage and third-party auditing and financial reporting validation. We first reported on Coinbase Custody last fall when the company announced that access to an early version of the technology would be available in 2018.

Second, Coinbase announced further development of its electronic marketplace, Coinbase Markets, with the launch of a new engineering office in Chicago. The company plans to leverage the area’s “large talent pool of engineers with deep exchange infrastructure experience” to add new features to Coinbase Markets, such as low latency performance, on-premise data center colocation services, institutional connectivity and access, and settlement and clearing services. The goal, White wrote, was “tighter markets, deeper liquidity, and increased certainty of execution.”

Third, Coinbase Prime will give institutional investors the specialized resources they need in order to effectively trade cryptocurrencies. This includes lending and margin financing for qualified customers, high touch and low touch execution services, as well as new market data and research products. Coinbase Prime will also feature multi-user permissions and whitelisted withdrawal addresses.

Last in the company’s suite of solutions launched today was the Coinbase Institutional Coverage Group. These sales, research, operations, and client services support professionals work exclusively with institutional clients and bring years of experience from companies like the New York Stock Exchange and Morgan Stanley, and agencies like the SEC and CFTC.

“The cryptocurrency market is maturing rapidly as more sophisticated institutional participants enter the space,” White wrote. He noted that 100 hedge funds have been created to speculate and invest in cryptocurrencies in recent months and that “some of the world’s largest financial institutions” have gone on record with plans to develop crypto trading desks.

Founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, California, Coinbase demonstrated its Instant Exchange platform at FinovateSpring 2014. The company added its first Chief Technology Officer last month, appointing Balaji Srinivasan to the post as part of the its acquisition of digital currency startup, Earn.com. Also in April, Coinbase launched a new fund, Coinbase Ventures, to support early-stage crypto startups. With a valuation of $1.6 billion, Coinbase is one of fintech’s more recent unicorns (startups with more than $1 billion valuation) and the first bitcoin company to achieve unicorn status.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Optimove Acquires PowerInbox’s DynamicMail Business.
  • CardFlight Teams Up with Paya to Bring EMV-Ready Payment Solutions to Merchants.
  • Coinbase Unveils Institutional Grade Solutions for Cryptocurrency Trading.

Around the web

  • Currencycloud and Cashplus partner to help SMEs save on international payments.
  • New risk screening feature from Thomson Reuters filters unstructured data to help FIs fight financial crime.
  • IdentityMind Global to help decentralized private social media platform, ONe Network, meet KYC and AML compliance requirements.
  • Honor Credit Union ($850 million in assets) to launch member-owned, digital insurance agency courtesy of new partnership with Insuritas.
  • Consumers Credit Union ($968 million in assets) credits boost in deposit account openings to December deployment of digital sales platform from Gro Solutions.

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.

 

Coinbase Acquires Earn.com; Adds Balaji Srinivasan as First CTO

Coinbase Acquires Earn.com; Adds Balaji Srinivasan as First CTO

Digital asset exchange platform Coinbase has acquired Earn.com, a startup that enables sending and receiving of digital currency payments for targeted microtasks. The deal, valued at $100 million, will put Earn.com CEO and co-founder Balaji Srinivasan at the helm as Coinbase’s first Chief Technical Officer.

Calling Srinivasan “one of the most respected technologists in the crypto space,” and “one of the technology industry’s few true originalists,” Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on the company blog that “as CTO of Coinbase, Balaji will serve an important role as the technological evangelist for the company.  Balaji will evangelize for both crypto and for Coinbase, educating the world and recruiting crypto-first talent to the company.”

Earn.com, the company Srinivasan co-founded, works by enabling senders to pay users in digital currency for replying to emails and completing tasks. Large-scale commercial email senders and average email users alike benefit from Earn.com’s paid email platform. Commercial senders can use the technology to pay email recipients to respond to surveys and messages recruiting, fundraising, and marketing products and services. Average email users can make money via their Earn.com accounts by replying to these emails, as well as use the prices on incoming email to prioritize and manage inboxes.

Srinivasan was a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz when he became CEO of the bitcoin mining company that would become Earn.com. In 2015, he helped the company pivot to take advantage of the growing feasibility of Bitcoin micropayments by creating a new solution, paid email, that offered a new direction for the company and a clear use case for digital assets in micropayments.

“As of today, Earn,com is a fast-growing, cash-flow positive business with a multimillion dollar revenue run rate,” Srinivasan wrote in an article titled The Turnaround at Medium.com. “I think it’s fair to say that it’s one of the first truly useful blockchain-based applications, where users can earn money in their spare time while senders can pay people to actually reply to their emails and fill out their surveys.”

“We’re going to be doubling down on the Earn business within Coinbase,” Armstrong said. “(They) have built a paid email product that is arguably one of the earliest practical blockchain applications to achieve meaningful traction.”

The Earn.com acquisition and new CTO come amid a busy spring for the cryptocurrency platform. Earlier this month, the company announced the launch of Coinbase Ventures, a new venture fund to support early-stage cryptocurrency and digital asset-based startups, and added Rachael Horwitz as Vice President of Communications. In March, Coinbase unveiled a set of new tools to help cryptocurrency investors and traders remain compliant with tax laws, and introduced its Coinbase Index Fund to give crypto investors exposure to all digital assets listed on its exchange.

Coinbase began the year with another successful talent grab: acquiring the engineering team from Memo.AI. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, Coinbase demonstrated its Instant Exchange solution at FinovateSpring 2014. One of fintech’s more recent unicorns with a valuation of more than $1.6 billion, Coinbase has raised more than $225 million in funding and includes Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Bank of Tokyo – Mitsubishi UFJ, and Andreessen Horowitz among its investors.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Ephesoft Unveils Mortgage Document Capture Solution.
  • Coinbase Acquires Earn.com; Adds Balaji Srinivasan as First CTO.

Around the web

  • ThreatMetrix introduces its first product integration with LexisNexis since the company was acquired in February.
  • Finastra makes its mortgage lending solutions available via the cloud courtesy of partnership with Microsoft.
  • Ambassador Michael Froman joins Mastercard as vice chairman and president of strategic growth.
  • Moneyhub opens its API to U.K. challenger banks Monzo and Starling.
  • Coinbase acquires Cipher Browser to support its decentralized mobile browser offering.
  • Fortytwo Data appoints Luca Primerano as chief AI officer.
  • Coindesk: Mastercard Eyes Blockchain for Fighting Fake Identities.
  • Infosys to acquire Creative and Consumer Insight Agency, WONGDOODY.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Coinbase Launches Coinbase Ventures to Support Early-Stage Crypto Startups.
  • Kabbage and Ingo Money Team Up to Power Faster Loan Payouts to SMBs.

Around the web

  • Carter Bank & Trust ($4.1 billion in assets) partners with Fiserv as part of strategic, digital transformation.
  • Phillips 66 to offer digital payments at the pump courtesy of integration with Mastercard’s Masterpass.
  • Ephesoft unveils latest version of its smart document capture solution, Transact 4.5.
  • BioCatch wins “Best Innovation in Securing Transactions” at Florin Awards.

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.

Coinbase Launches Coinbase Ventures to Support Early-Stage Crypto Startups

Coinbase Launches Coinbase Ventures to Support Early-Stage Crypto Startups

Volatility in cryptocurrency markets continues to spell opportunity for digital asset trading platform and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The company announced on Friday that it was launching a new venture fund called Coinbase Ventures to support crypto-based startups.

“We’ll be providing financing to promising early stage companies that have the teams and ideas that can move the space forward in a positive, meaningful way,” wrote Coinbase Head of Corporate and Business Development and Business Operations Emilie Choi at the Coinbase blog. “At least in the beginning, our goal is simply to help the most compelling companies in the space to flourish. This means that we don’t have the strategic requirement of formalizing partner relationships with such companies, as some corporate venture programs do,” Choi explained. “Our focus is on building strong relationships and helping to spur on the development of the ecosystem.”

Interestingly, Choi added that some of Coinbase Ventures’ investments may be “in companies that ostensibly look competitive with Coinbase.” By way of explanation, Choi said Coinbase was “comfortable” investing in potential competitors because “we’re taking a long term view of the space, and we believe that multiple approaches are healthy and good.”

The launch of Coinbase Ventures comes amid a flurry of activity for the cryptocurrency exchange platform. A month ago this week Coinbase unveiled its Coinbase Index and Coinbase Index Fund, a market cap weighted index and related fund that provide investors with exposure to all the digital assets available on its GDAX exchange. More recently, Coinbase made available new tax tools to help cryptocurrency investors and traders comply with IRS guidelines as they relate to reporting gains from digital asset transactions.

Additionally, Coinbase announced support for the withdrawal of Bitcoin forks across its products “in the coming months”. The decision will make it easier for customers to withdraw assets associated with Bitcoin Forks, though Coinbase noted that supporting withdrawal for a bitcoin fork does not mean the asset will be available for trading on the platform. “Assets that are listed for trading will be independently evaluated using the Digital Asset Framework,” according to a post at the Coinbase blog. The company hopes that the simultaneous internal and external announcement would help it avoid the controversy surrounding the trading of Bitcoin cash last December.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Coinbase demonstrated its platform at FinovateSpring 2014. The company, which has raised more than $225 million in funding, launched its crypto eCommerce acceptance platform, Coinbase Commerce in February, and began the year with the acquisition of the engineering team from Memo.AI.  Named to the Forbes Fintech 50 for the second year in a row earlier this year, Coinbase earned unicorn status last August after closing a $100 million Series D round that boosted the company’s valuation to an estimated $1.6 billion. Founder Brian Armstrong is Coinbase’s CEO.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • PaySimple announces latest payment integration with Profit Rhino’s selling app for home service companies.
  • The Financial Times ranks Transferwise, Kantox, Zopa Featurespace, Trustly, Kreditech on its FT 1000 list of Europe’s fastest growing companies.
  • Jumio and Insights Network partner to deliver “Passport” for blockchain projects.
  • LendingTree launches Credit Analyzer, a free credit and debt analysis tool.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Nordic Capital Fund Acquires Majority Share of Trustly.

Around the web

  • Coinbase granted e-money license by U.K’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA); joins Faster Payments Scheme courtesy of partnership with Barclays Bank.
  • ACI Worldwide announces contract extension with DBS.
  • Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade for Vietnam (Vietcombank) picks trade finance platform from Finastra.
  • nCino and Enforce partner to accelerate cloud adoption for financial institutions.
  • Tradeshift partners with Canon Business Process Services.
  • Pindrop partners with Aeriandi to detect fraudulent calls through cloud platforms.
  • GMO’s Z.com Trade adds Trustly as payment option.
  • Kabbage teams with New Media to advertise to more than five million small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) that do business in New Media’s markets.
  • OnDeck appoints Kenneth Brause as CFO.
  • Sandia Area Credit Union hires Insuritas to launch member-owned, digitally-powered insurance agency.
  • Oregon Community CU selects Alkami Technology’s digital banking platform to provide its more than 150,000 members with a modern digital banking offering.
  • Bankjoy selected to compete in Google Demo Day in March.
  • TSYS implements new payment solution, Advanced AuthControl, with Walmart and Sam’s Club locations around the U.S.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • FinovateEurope Best of Show Winners Announced.
  • Welcome to Day Three of FinovateEurope.

Around the web

  • Ripple partners with Japanese banking consortium to launch mobile payments app, MoneyTap.
  • S&P Global to acquire Kensho in cash and stock deal valued at $550 million.
  • Banque du Caire to deploy core banking technology from Temenos.
  • TransferTo and Sentbe team up to provide real-time money transfers from South Korea to more than 60 countries.
  • Coinbase unveils new index fund to provide investors with exposure to all digital assets on its GDAX exchange.
  • Entersekt launches Connekt, a digital commerce enablement solution that makes it easy to add new payment services to banking apps.
  • Finicity partners with MortgageHippo to streamline and accelerate the verification process in mortgage lending.
  • Baker Hill announces strategic alliance with Built Technologies, a Tennessee-based construction lending software provider.

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.