Trustly, a Swedish FinTech company, is delighted to announce 2016 processed payment volumes comprised €3.2 billion. Trustly has now hit accumulated processed payment volumes of €6.5 billion, since the company was established in 2008.  

The 122% growth in payments volumes in 2016 comes on the back of Trustly’s expansion to an additional 21 European countries in late 2015. Trustly offers a unique online payment solution to its clients, allowing them to get paid by consumers across all of Europe. 

Trustly’s payment solution is proven to drive commercial success for its clients. As an example, Swedish digital bank Avanza enabled Trustly’s real-time deposit service to allow for its customers to top up their accounts from both mobile and desktop in late 2015. Thanks to Trustly’s service, Avanza has since seen a 7% increase in its customer activation rate.

Oscar Berglund, CEO of Trustly, said “We are delighted that our payment solution is increasingly preferred by consumers across the 29 European countries where we provide services, as well as it having a tangible positive commercial impact for our clients. Whether you run an e-shop or a digital. 

About Trustly

Founded in 2008, Trustly Group AB is a Swedish FinTech company that makes online banking e-payments fast, simple and secure. The company offers cross-border payments to and from consumer bank accounts at 190 banks in 29 European markets and connects businesses and consumers within e-commerce, travel, gaming and financial services.

FinTechCity London predicts Trustly will revolutionize the financial services sector and in 2016, the newspaper Dagens Industri awarded Trustly a Gasell award for being one of Sweden’s fastest growing companies.

InvestCloud Inc. is a global FinTech firm, has launched its first financial technology accelerator and incubator. Particularly, this is an InvestCloud Innovation Center, with Pacific Design Center headquarters in Los Angeles.  

The InvestCloud Innovation Center enables teams from banks, wealth managers and other financial services firms to undertake ‘residences’ to accelerate the development of new apps through access to InvestCloud’s full technology platform, in collaboration with a team of InvestCloud mentors. Residences are also available to FinTech startups looking to build their businesses using the InvestCloud platform.

The Innovation Center echoes InvestCloud’s beginnings in a Californian garage, when a team of six designed, built, and shipped its first product, PlayMyMillions, in just six months. Teams working at the Center will follow this approach, increasing the speed of delivery for digital projects and enabling large financial institutions to work with the flexibility of a startup, while affording massive technology leverage to startups and established firms alike.

John Wise, co-founder and CEO of InvestCloud, said, “The purpose of the Innovation Center is simple: to help both our clients and startups to deliver a new generation of digital solutions whilst eliminating the risk of development and decreasing the time to market.”

Participants will ‘show and tell’ their work on a weekly basis to demonstrate progress to InvestCloud and their own organization. Companies working at the Center can also create sub-teams from their own organization, or utilize InvestCloud’s staff and external partners.

The Innovation Center will also undertake research and investigation projects into the behaviors of high-net-worth individuals and other audience segments during their customer journey. This insight will be shared with participating organizations to better inform the creation of customer experiences.

InvestCloud offers the best environment, incorporating beautifully designed spaces with the highest level of security needed for the financial markets, to create a place where innovation and collaboration occur. In addition, new teams have access to all of our distribution partners and alliances, as well as the ability to connect with our clients, in order to promote and sell their financial apps – another unique approach.

Fiserv, Inc. is world’s major provider of financial services technology solutions. Today it has announced the results of Expectations & Experiences, specifically its quarterly consumer trends survey. The survey concludes that consumers use mixed digital and traditional channels to manage their finances and make payments, with millennials accessing mobile banking nearly three times more than other generations.

While consumer satisfaction remains high when it comes to primary financial organizations, with 76 percent rating them an eight or higher on a scale of zero to 10, many consumers express less satisfaction with their financial health compared to other areas of life.

 “The latest Expectations & Experiences survey underscores the day-to-day concerns about money that still loom large for consumers, even as there are more options available than ever before in how they can manage their finances,” said Mark Ernst, chief operating officer, Fiserv. “For banks, credits unions and billers, this is an opportunity to go beyond offering products to creating experiences that are essential to people’s lives, anticipating their needs and giving customers control and confidence in their financial futures.”

Digital Engagement

When it comes to how consumers access financial services, the shift towards self-service in online and mobile channels continues to mature. Online banking websites accessed via a computer remain the most frequent way consumers access their primary financial organization, six times on average in the past month. Among millennials, however, mobile leads in frequency by a significant margin: over a 30-day period, millennials accessed their financial organization via mobile app or browser 8.5 times on average versus 3.1 times for non-millennials.

Overall, while millennials reported lower satisfaction than older counterparts both with their financial health (32 percent vs. 38 percent, respectively) and primary financial organization (69 percent vs. 79 percent, respectively), they are the most engaged segment overall in terms of channel access. With the exception of using their financial institution’s website or visiting a physical location, millennials frequent other channels with greater or equal frequency than older generations.

Traditional methods of managing household finances and payments remain in the mix, even when many people don’t prefer them. For instance, while just 6 percent of consumers cited checks as their most preferred method of payment, 58 percent of consumers said they cashed a check within the last three months. Faster access to funds was identified as a need, with 44 percent of consumers needing immediate access to funds from a check within the last year. Common needs cited for immediate check funds include daily expenses (26 percent), covering bills (20 percent) or to avoid late fees on payments due (10 percent), among those who have ever cashed a check.

Signals of Financial Anxiety

Overall, the survey found consumers are less content with their financial health compared to other areas of life. Just 36 percent of consumers rated satisfaction with their financial health as an eight or higher on a scale of zero to 10, lowest among other rated aspects of life. Larger percentages of consumers rated their satisfaction as an eight or higher for emotional health (52 percent), social life (44 percent) and physical health (43 percent).

If asked to pay back a $500 loan today, 39 percent of consumers would have trouble or would not be able to pay the loan back. If they were to receive a $1,000 in funds unexpectedly, almost half of consumers (47 percent) said they would repay a debt.

Security Remains Top of Mind

Concerns about security of financial data and transactions are a persistent theme throughout the quarterly Expectations & Experiences surveys. When presented with various financial tools from either a financial organization or other company, the tools receiving the most interest were security-related: 65 percent indicate interest in security programs to safeguard mobile activity, while 58 showed interest in biometric methods (voice, fingerprint, palm scan, etc.) to replace passwords for identity verification for online or mobile banking.

People also showed interest in services that enabled them to secure their physical debit and credit cards via mobile devices. Among smartphone users with debit and/or credit cards, 60 percent indicated interest in using their smartphone to respond to credit or debit card fraud alerts, and an almost equal number indicated interest in receiving card transaction alerts for credit cards (61 percent) or debit cards (62 percent) to quickly identify fraudulent transactions.

Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has unveiled a monthly complaint snapshot disclosing consumer dissatisfaction about credit reporting system. The snapshot demonstrates that consumers keep struggling to resolve mistakes on their credit reports.

“Credit reports provide the means for consumers everywhere to take important steps in their financial lives,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “The Bureau will continue to work to ensure that credit reports are accurate and when disputed issues arise on credit reports consumers are able to resolve them quickly and with little hassle.” 

Category Spotlight: Credit Reporting

Credit reporting companies track the credit history and other information about consumers who are active in the financial marketplace. The credit reports produced by the reporting companies are used to judge a consumer’s eligibility to take out a mortgage, buy a car, and even get a job in some instances. As of Feb. 1, 2017, the Bureau had handled approximately 185,700 credit-reporting complaints. Some of the findings in the snapshot include: 

• Consumers report problems disputing complaints on their credit reports: Complaints submitted to the Bureau indicate that consumers continue to experience difficulties when submitting disputes to credit reporting companies.  
• Consumers complain about inaccurate information on credit reports: Consumers submit a high number of complaints about inaccurate personal information on their reports. Frequently consumers state that incorrect or unrecognized names and addresses appear on their reports. 
• Consumers report confusion about credit scoring: Consumers continue to be confused over the variety of scores and scoring “factors” that accompany credit score information. Consumers frequently express confusion when they receive varying scores from different reporting agencies. 

National Complaint Overview

As of Feb. 1, 2017, the CFPB has handled approximately 1,110,100 complaints nationally. Some of the findings from the statistics being published in this month’s snapshot report include: 

• Complaint volume: For January 2017, debt collection was the most-complained-about financial product or service. Of the approximately 29,000 complaints handled in January, there were 7,730 complaints about debt collection. The second most-complained-about consumer product was student loans, which accounted for 5,389 complaints. The third most-complained-about financial product or service was credit reporting, accounting for 4,620 complaints. 
• Product trends: In a year-to-year comparison examining the three-month time period of November to January, student loan complaints showed the greatest increase—388 percent—of any product or service. The Bureau received 497 student loan complaints between November 2015 and January 2016, while it received 2,425 complaints during the same time period a year later. This spike in complaints came around the time the CFPB took a major enforcement action against student loan servicer Navient. Additionally, in February 2016, the Bureau expanded the student loan intake form to include federal student loans.  
• State information: Georgia, South Dakota, and Mississippi experienced the greatest year-to-year complaint volume increases from November 2016 to January 2017 versus the same time period 12 months before; with Georgia up 59 percent, South Dakota up 43 percent, and Mississippi up 34 percent. 
• Most-complained-about companies: The top three companies that received the most complaints from September through November 2016 were Wells Fargo, Equifax, and TransUnion. 

Mastercard today announced a partnership with Getir that will introduce a payment experience for Getir's bot for Facebook Messenger.

Masterpass, the Mastercard digital payment solution and Getir, the pioneer of mobile retail, now offer a brand new shopping experience in Turkey. With this new solution, customers can use Getir’s bot for Messenger to choose products, place an order, and now make payments easier and secure, all without ever leaving the chat window. Customers simply search for ‘Getir’ in Messenger, chat with an intelligent bot in a natural, conversational way, and make a secure payment with Masterpass.

Customers can receive 10-minute delivery from Getir’s 600+ everyday items using Messenger, all the while making seamless one-click payments through Masterpass.

 With Masterpass payment technology and Getir’s unique delivery model (1 million deliveries as of January 2017), the two technology companies have streamlined shopping.

This is the first use of Masterpass payment technology using a bot for Messenger.

Masterpass is a digital payment service from Mastercard that enables consumers to look no further than their own trusted bank to make fast, simple and secure digital payments – across devices and channels – anywhere they want to shop: online, in-app, and in-store using contactless technology. Masterpass makes shopping easier than ever, and leverages the most advanced methods of payment security available today. 

Leading cyber-security software specialist ZoneFox, has today closed a £3.6 million Series A funding round. The round is led by Scottish business angel investment syndicate, Archangels, with co-investment from The Scottish Investment Bank, and TriCap and follows the £2.5 million in seed funding the company has taken since 2010.

Based in Edinburgh, ZoneFox focuses on providing world-class security systems that effectively combat the growing issue of insider threats to businesses across the financial, pharma, gaming and other business sectors. Its customers include healthcare firm Craneware, Zenith Bank and Rockstar Games.  It recently launched a new machine based learning solution, called ZoneFox Augmented Intelligence (AI). The product, which is the most advanced of its kind to be developed in the UK, has been created over the course of six years and is targeted at a wide range of business sectors.

This funding, which is the largest round ever to be led by Archangels, will be used to grow the business over the next year and beyond. As well as continued product development and innovation, ZoneFox will triple its headcount to 30 staff by the end of 2017, move into a new HQ in Edinburgh and also open a London office, where an extension of its sales and tech team will be based.

The announcement of this Series A round comes on the back of a strong 12 months for ZoneFox, which is headed up by Dr. Jamie Graves, a PhD graduate from Edinburgh Napier University. ZoneFox grew by 400% in revenue terms and appointed former BT and O2 Board Director, Steve Davies, as Chairman. It also won two Scottish Cyber-Security Awards, at the inaugural ceremony, for International Contribution to Cyber-Security and the overall Champion of Champions trophy.

Commenting on the funding round, ZoneFox CEO Graves said: “ZoneFox has been working exceptionally hard over the last six years to develop a product that will provide the modern enterprise with a truly 21^st Century cyber-security solution. Insider threats are a serious problem for the global enterprise. Such is the sophistication of these attacks and the methods used by cyber-criminals, the human mind alone can no longer be expected to monitor and combat such threats alone.

“We have established a strong reputation and generated a lot of interest from some global organisations, which have in turn become clients. Having the funding and support of Archangels, The Scottish Investment Bank and TriCap will allow us to continue to grow and develop ground-breaking solutions that will protect businesses.”

Niki McKenzie, Investment Director at Archangels added: “Archangels’ investors were keen to lead this round of follow on funding in an area that is currently underserved. Customers using ZoneFox report that the product is helping them to shape more robust, tailored and effective IT policies, alerting them to security threats from within their own walls.” 

Verifi, Inc. is the leader in providing payment and risk management solutions for card-not-present merchants. Today the giant has announced that recently launched operations in the UK have exhibited significant growth. Within the first quarter of launching in the UK, the Company has already rapidly increased their service footprint among its issuing bank partners as their award-winning Cardholder Dispute Resolution Network (CDRN) is adopted beyond their US base.

Cardholder disputes represent a significant share of credit card fraud throughout the world. According to Financial Fraud Action UK, fraud losses on UK-issued credit cards totaled £321.5 million in the first half of 2016, representing a 31 percent increase from the same period 2015.

Verifi commenced operation in the UK in mid-2016 and currently supports hundreds of merchants and recognized global brands in diverse industries ranging from digital music, information technology, entertainment as well as top High Street and UK ecommerce clients. In response to the Company’s rapid expansion and demand for services, Verifi has broadened their investments in facilities and key personnel to expand its UK-based chargeback network coverage. 

“The demand for CDRN in the UK has exceeded even our own expectations,” said Matthew Katz, CEO of Verifi. “We have shown great success in a short period of time and expect to extend our UK network coverage for CDRN to 70% by the end of 2017. We are also actively pursuing the overall EMEA region as a whole as the year progresses.”

CDRN’s unique and patented, closed loop process directly integrates with top issuers and provides unmatched service quality and accuracy for merchants and issuers to resolve disputed payments and dramatically minimize chargebacks and cardholder dissatisfaction.  Providing merchants visibility into fraud and non-fraud customer disputes in near real time, CDRN’s closed loop process affords the highest level of true chargeback protection while avoiding false positives that result in lost sales, increased manual review time and decreased profits.

CDRN supports more than 25,000 merchant accounts and has prevented over 3.4 million fraud and non- fraud chargebacks. Additionally, CDRN has been recognized as the Best Chargeback Management Solution the last four consecutive years in addition to Best Chargeback Prevention Service.

Volante Technologies Inc., a global leader in the provision of software for the integration, processing and orchestration of financial messages and payments, today announced support for the technology underpinning Microservices Architecture, as well as SWIFT Standards Release 2017.

Volante Designer version 5.2 provides comprehensive support for developing and deploying RESTful services – the building blocks of a microservices architecture.  As the financial industry shifts towards increasing standardization and collaboration, the responsibility falls on the underlying technology to provide seamless integration of applications and services provided by various institutions such as banks, corporates, service providers and regulatory institutions. Such close coupling is also required to address the regulatory requirements for APIs such as the Open Banking APIs and PSD2.

Internal applications, especially within large organizations, will also benefit from distributed RESTful services as they promote scalability, reusability and secure remote access. Volante has the ability to generate REST Client and REST server implementations for any service built using Volante Designer. Additionally, Volante provides native support to convert any standard message to JSON format and vice versa, further facilitating seamless communications using REST APIs. Using these tools, users can develop and deploy a wide range of services based on the REST architecture without writing a single line of code.

Volante has been a SWIFT partner for over 15 years and has developed a level of product and standards expertise that is unmatched in the FinTech industry. In Standards Release 2017, SWIFT has introduced significant changes in the payments and securities message categories. Notably, this release includes support for the Global Payments Innovation (GPI) Initiative which provides greater transparency for cross-border payments. Volante has implemented complete support for the new standards, which have been thoroughly tested so customers can be confident of communicating SWIFT messages over the SWIFT network without worrying about rejected messages or non-compliance in the face of continuously changing standards and market practices.

In addition to support for REST, JSON and SWIFT, Designer 5.2 features continuous improvement in standards support, platforms support and usability features. This includes: updated versions for standards such as NACHA, FIX, ISO 20022 and US-TCH-RTP; support for Postgres DB and other enhancements to Persistence Designer; and a new Connector for Mulesoft and updates to support for IBM Integration Bus (IIB).

Venkat Malla, VP, Product Management, Volante Technologies, said, “We continue to work closely with clients and industry participants in order to understand and anticipate their needs and challenges, which in turn determines our product roadmap. By introducing comprehensive support for REST and JSON standards, clients are able to not only interface with modern infrastructure like blockchain and DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) but also build out their own user interfaces.”

Fiona Hamilton, VP Europe and Asia, commented, “Being personally very active in standards groups, I continually see the ever-evolving nature of financial messaging standards. We respond by being dedicated to not only tracking and including those changes, but also offering support for those new standards quickly and efficiently. In the latest SWIFT release, firms will be able to take advantage of the benefits of GPI by enabling them to grow their international business, improve supplier relationships and achieve greater treasury efficiencies. By delivering updates within days of SWIFT publishing the final version, our clients have ample time to assess, test and incorporate the changes into their processes well ahead of the go-live deadlines.”

Dock9, an award-winning financial experience design agency, today unveils the findings of its annual Insurance User Experience (UX) report.

After researching the major UK insurers and aggregators, it found out that more than 1 in 4 are neglecting mobile and tablet users (28%) by failing to design websites for these devices. Those that do, nearly two-thirds, are not touch-optimized (57%). This means customers have a longer quote-to-buy journey than necessary – typically websites that are touch-optimized save users nearly a quarter of the time. 

Numerous reports have confirmed more people are now using their mobiles – instead of their desktops – to browse the web. Yet, a significant number of insurers appear to be either ignoring this shift completely, or having built basic compatibility with mobile and tablet, think their work is done. In an increasingly competitive mobile-driven industry, this should set the industry's alarm bells ringing, urging more businesses to take advantages of the big opportunities that touch devices offer.

Mark Lusted, managing director at Dock9 says, “For years innovation hasn’t been a primary focus for the insurance industry. But in the start-up era, where insurtech start-ups are attracting more consumer attention, this needs to change. Our research highlights best practices that businesses can learn from – whatever insurance niche they’re in.

“Those that rank highly have broken the traditional inertia in the industry by adopting modern user-centred design processes, including rapid prototyping and user testing. Incumbent insurers that do this can reap the benefits – after all, they already have the capital, know-how, regulatory approval and a sizeable number of customers. AXA is a good example of this, having invested in a fully responsive site that is touch-responsive they prove to be one of the biggest insurance giants in the UK.”

Building on last years’ report, Dock9’s 2017 research focuses on quote-and-buy journeys for commercial lines – including 10 commercial insurance providers and eight aggregators such as Aviva, AXA, Directline, GoCompare, Hiscox and MoneySuperMarket. Through heuristic reviews and real-user testing, it ranks players in terms of the best and worst online quote-and-buy experiences.

Other key findings include:

• Aggregators still on top – with few exceptions, UK insurance providers are lagging behind the aggregators
• GoCompare continues to set the bar – they were the highest scorers in last year’s report and continue to put UX as a priority. Their website is pleasing, simple, designed for mobile and touch-optimised for touchscreen devices
• AXA comes up trumps – out of all the insurance providers reviewed, AXA offers the best online quote-and-buy experience. Similar to GoCompare, its layout is simple and easy to navigate, offering customers help at every opportunity and designed with mobile devices in mind – not just desktop

Gareth Howell, Managing Director, Direct & Retail Partnerships, AXA Insurance says, “Making life easier for our customers is very important, which is why we put a great deal of time and effort into making sure potential policyholders are not overwhelmed when buying insurance from our website. We are delighted that our efforts have been recognised and will continue to work on making our quote and buy systems as friendly as possible.”