Financial-identity-as-a-service (FiDaaS) pioneer – and FinovateFall alum – Juvo announced earlier this week that it is working with Mastercard’s Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) team to bring its FiDaaS platform to financial institutions throughout the region.
“Financial institutions across LAC face a dilemma,” Juvo CEO and founder Steve Polsky explained. “Consumers can’t demonstrate their creditworthiness to gain access to credit. Without access to credit, however, consumers can’t establish creditworthiness.”
Juvo’s technology leverages machine learning to analyze transaction data to assess an individual’s ability to repay loans and meet other financial obligations. The company’s partnership with Mastercard is in large part a product of its participation in Mastercard’s Start Path fintech startup engagement program last August. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Juvo was founded in 2014.
Innovation in the wealth management space is increasingly an international affair. This week, Israel-based portfolio construction technology provider BondIT announced that it has agreed to merge with Germany’s Scorable. Headquartered in Berlin, Scorable provides AI-powered credit analysis and will, per this transaction, combine its technology with BondIT’s in order to offer an integrated portfolio-management-and-research-as-a-service solution for asset managers and financial advisors.
“Fixed income investors still rely heavily on manual-driven procedures, but in light of market and cost pressures, intelligent automation is increasingly necessary to stay competitive,” said BondIT CEO Etai Ravid. “Merging our technologies allows us to even better serve the evolving digital needs of our clients by helping them optimize their portfolio and risk management to boost efficiency, performance and scale.”
Making its Finovate debut at FinovateFall in 2016, BondIT offers a scalable platform that uses both machine learning and data science to provide financial analysts and advisors with optimized portfolios and portfolio analysis. Founded in 2012 and based in Herzliya, Israel, BondIT has raised $18.5 million in funding from investors including Fosun International.
Here is our look at fintech around the world.
Central and Southern Asia
- Fintech Futures profiles Indian fintech PayNearby that is leveraging small, brick and mortar retailers to provide ATM and branch banking services.
- Pakistan fintech Tag earns “in principle” approval for an electronic money institute license from country’s central bank; plans to launch financial superapp.
- Express Computer looks at the evolution of fintech in India.
Latin America and the Caribbean
- Banco Pichincha Peru teams up with U.S.-based no-code mobile security platform Appdome to secure its mobile app.
- The Central Bank of the Bahamas launches digital sand dollar, a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
- Brazil’s central bank launches PIX instant payments platform; suggests possible return of WhatsApp.
Asia-Pacific
- Singapore’s Lu International and Thailand’s Kasikornbank (KBank) partner to introduce new wealth management platform.
- P2P investment network SeedIn, based in Singapore, announces rebranding to BRDGE; expansion to Indonesia.
- Hong Kong based digital payment services platform Statrys raises $5 million in funding.
Sub-Saharan Africa
- The days of paper checks in South Africa are numbered according to a joint communique from the country’s Reserve Bank, Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), and other government agencies and banking industry associations.
- Chipper Cash, which offers no fee, P2P payment services in seven African countries, raises $30 million in funding.
- Nigerian fintech Wallets Africa partners with Visa to provide customers with physical Visa cards for domestic and international payments.
Central and Eastern Europe
- Revolut introduces Open Banking options for its German customers.
- German fintech and challenger bank Vivid Money secures $17.6 million in funding.
- Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) goes live with its API marketplace; signs partnership with Estonian fintech Sparq.
Middle East and Northern Africa
- UAE-based payment service for retailers Spotii announces expansion to Saudi Arabia.
- Trade Arabia takes a look at the fintech agreement between the Israeli Securities Authority (ISA) and the Abu Dhabi Global Market Financial Services Regulatory Authority (ADGM FSRA).
- Two Israeli companies – ChargeAfter and Personetics – join Visa Fintech Partner Connect to bring payment technology innovation to Europe.
Photo by Elianne Dipp from Pexels
