Strands, a leading provider of personal financial management (PFM) and machine learning solutions for banks, today announced that 500 banks and 100 million banking customers worldwide are using digital banking services powered by the company’s award-winning technology.

The company is now active in 87 countries, and serves 500 of the world’s largest banks including; Barclays, Bank of Montreal, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Commercial Bank of Africa, Davivienda, Deutsche Bank, and Interbank. This represents a significant milestone for both Strands and the wider market, as it highlights the accelerating demand for digital money management providers from customers regardless of geography and growing collaboration between fintech companies and banks.

Erik Brieva, CEO, Strands, said: “To deliver innovative services, meet regulatory demands, and lay the foundation for long term growth, financial institutions must make the shift from transaction provider to insights-driven business. By harnessing customer data banks will be able to deliver personalised services that go beyond simply moving money to help customers manage their money and ultimately meet life goals. But banks cannot do this alone. To make this shift they must collaborate with specialist technology companies. The 500 bank milestone is a testament to how financial institutions across the globe are transforming their businesses in collaboration with fintech organisations like ours.”

The company offers a wide range of digital banking technologies, including Strands PFM, and works with financial institutions to shift their services towards a more customer-centric model.

Money movement to money management

Over the past year, Strands has secured a number of major deals with financial institutions across the globe. This includesCommercial Bank of Africa (CBA) – Kenya’s largest privately owned bank – which chose Strands PFM to underpin its mobile-first digital banking service in Eastern Africa, CBA Loop. Within the last year, Strands has also successfully expanded into LATAM, signing deals with Davivienda, the third-largest bank in Colombia, and InterBank, a major Peruvian bank.

Based on the deals signed in Q12017 alone, the company has already reached 50% of its annual revenue target. This represents a 500% increase in sales compared to Q12016. Most recently, the company has signed deals with major banks in Argentina, Brazil and the US.

In addition to this, Strands is working with existing customers including Barclays and Deutsche Bank to evolve their current digital banking platforms. Barclays’ customers can now manage their money by tracking spending, setting budget limits and saving goals using Barclays ‘Money Tools’ underpinned by Strands.

By forging strong relationships with other industry leaders, the company has also been able to rapidly integrate its software into existing and new systems whether bank-led or third party, improving functionality and accelerating time to market. Strands’ technology can be integrated with any core banking system including FIS, Temenos and Fiserv.

Strands Meta-Aggregator empowers banks to provide customers a holistic financial picture by bringing all of their accounts together in one place. To enable this Strands has secured partnerships with leading account aggregation companies like Envestnet | Yodlee which has expanded Strands’ potential addressable market through open APIs. The alliance between Strands and account aggregators is designed to offer banks a direct path to digital banking transformation.

Digital banking revolution

Recently, Strands has expanded its technology portfolio to now cover a wide range of digital banking products. Strands Business Financial Management (BFM) – a solution tailored to SME banking customers – addresses the underserved SME market. With BFM Strands hopes to revolutionise the digital experience in SME banking, helping banks to become true business partners to their SME customers. With millennial entrepreneurial ventures on the rise throughout the world, many banks are expected to incorporate Strands BFM in the near future.

Strands is in its strongest trading position since the company’s foundation. With a customer base that includes the world’s largest banks, and an ambitious executive team in place to support the increasing demand for its solutions, Strands is anticipating 2017 to be another year of strong growth.

Strands raised $55million in funding between 2006 and 2007. Since fund raising the company has seen strong organic growth and has been cash flow positive for the last five years.