Live Oak Ventures, the investment arm of Live Oak Bancshares, Inc., has announced an investment in AgencyKPI, the developer of the first business intelligence platform designed to address and manage data in the insurance industry.

Live Oak participated in the Series B round of financing which will support the software company’s growth and add resources to continue building cloud-based software that strengthens the ability of independent insurance agencies to assess data to remain nimble and profitable.

“As a bank that lends to independent insurance agencies across the country, we see the extraordinary value AgencyKPI is providing,” said Stephanie Mann, Live Oak’s EVP of Corporate Development and Strategy. “Their business intelligence platform is driving transparency, efficiency and overall better performance for our customers. Live Oak is excited to invest in companies such as AgencyKPI that leverage next-generation technology to support business growth.”

The insurance industry operates on fragmented legacy systems, and AgencyKPI set out to help solve the problem with an intelligent platform that seamlessly connects the data used across networks, brokers, agencies, carriers, and wholesalers so independent insurance agents can gain operational efficiencies.

“We are thrilled to have a strong innovator like Live Oak Ventures participating in our Series B. Live Oak understands the insurance industry and clearly agrees with us that insurance carriers, networks and independent agencies will all benefit from a deeper understanding of their data. They believe in our vision and support our direction and we can’t be more thrilled to have them among our investors,” said Bobby Billman, co-founder of AgencyKPI.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today outlined enhanced resilience measures that financial firms should consider adopting to ensure the continued safety of the financial markets amid an increasingly complex technology landscape.

As DTCC outlines in a new white paper, “The Power of Technology Resilience: A Framework for the Industry,”  the twin dynamics of firms moving their infrastructures to virtual environments including the cloud, and adopting new and innovative technologies at a rapid pace, can introduce new types of risk. This evolution has reinforced the need for firms to ensure that resilience practices are embedded into technology development initiatives, including the delivery of their applications and the continued modernization of infrastructure.

“There is no one-and-done approach to resilience,” said Lynn Bishop, Managing Director and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at DTCC. “We believe we’ve laid the foundation for a solid and robust framework for ensuring technology resilience, but we intend to continue working with our clients and stakeholders to refine our approach and continue evolving.”

Given DTCC’s role as critical infrastructure for the global markets, the firm follows strict recovery and resumption methods across services to enhance its resilience. As part of this, DTCC developed a resilience framework to prepare for a vast array of scenarios, including cyberattacks, natural disasters, and pandemics. The new white paper, which builds upon measures first outlined in the firm’s 2019 report, Resilience First, details four resilience principles that should be considered during the development of all software, services, and components, including:

1. Plan – Firms should define the criteria to help support the delivery of resilient solutions in a repeatable and standardized manner.
2. Build – Firms should employ common architectural patterns that can be leveraged by all teams to help deliver repeatable, resilient solutions. Firms should also conduct Failure Mode Analysis (FMA) to investigate the technical design of an application, and to identify any failure points in the system.
3. Test – DTCC recommends a robust testing framework that leverages automation to confirm applications are consistently tested against resilience principles. Firms should leverage Chaos Engineering to experiment on a system’s ability to withstand turbulent conditions, including hardware failure or an unexpected surge in volume.
4. Operate – Firms should consider enhancing their operational processes, which might include adopting dynamic alerting and monitoring practices that empower their engineers to rapidly respond to environmental failures by shifting workloads to an alternate data centre. Additionally, firms should reimagine traditional, monolithic resilience exercises and adopt a model that enables a more continuous state of readiness for disaster events.

As described in the paper, firms should also design their applications to both detect and recover from possible failures, using automation where possible. Applications should be designed to operate independently of each other, to help isolate and contain any potential failures.

“When it comes to any firm’s resilience journey, it’s important to remember that you don’t have to go it alone,” said Neelesh Prabhu, Managing Director of Architecture & Enterprise Services in Information Technology at DTCC. “Industry collaboration is a key enabler of continued progress in this area. In support of this, we remain committed to sharing our experiences and best practices to help firms collectively safeguard the entire financial services industry.”

Mastercard has partnered with Mercado Libre to strengthen the security and transparency of its recently launched crypto program in Brazil. Mastercard's CipherTrace technology will allow Mercado Libre to monitor, identify and understand risks, and help the retailer manage its regulatory and compliance obligations.

As part of its mission to democratize financial services in Latin America, last December Mercado Libre announced that millions of Mercado Libre and Mercado Pago customers in Brazil would be able to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies.

CipherTrace’s advanced digital intelligence and analytics technology helps determine the risk of individual crypto transactions and assign a risk rating to any virtual asset service provider involved, based on well-established risk indicators.  It also offers crypto tracing solutions to facilitate investigations.

“The potential for cryptocurrencies to change our everyday experiences is massive,” said Ajay Bhalla, president, Cyber & Intelligence at Mastercard. “But every interaction and experience must be protected. Through advanced crypto intelligence, Mastercard’s CipherTrace technology is strengthening the security and transparency of the crypto ecosystem and bringing trust to these new payment flows.”

“Brazil is one of the hottest crypto markets in Latin America, with high levels of cryptocurrency adoption. By partnering with Mercado Libre, we’re building on our longstanding relationship of working together to solve the needs of our shared customers, helping consumers to pay simply and securely using crypto”, says Estanislau Bassols, Mastercard Brazil Division President.

“Aligned with our purpose of democratizing commerce and financial services, we want to break more barriers, providing a simple and safe experience with crypto assets. The partnership with Mastercard allows us to support financial education, and user engagement and drive a more transparent industry”, highlights Paula Arregui, Senior Vice President and COO for Mercado Pago.

Recognizing consumer appetite for fast and flexible access to digital assets, Mastercard has expanded its capability to provide security solutions across multiple rails. Acquired by Mastercard in 2021, CipherTrace is a leading cryptocurrency intelligence and blockchain analytics company that provides solutions for some of the world’s largest banks, exchanges, financial institutions, and governments.

The partnership with Mercado Libre adds to Mastercard’s momentum, which draws on its growing partnerships to build safe, simple, and secure cryptocurrency transactions. It will also help with the development of new platforms to test and support Central Bank Digital Currency programs around the broader use of blockchain technology, NFTs, and offer the potential to support select fiat-backed stablecoins directly on its network.

LiquidX, the leading global fintech platform for digitization, monetization, and risk mitigation for working capital, trade finance, and insurance assets today announced a strategic investment from Citi, one of the largest trade finance banks in the world. The funding round was led by Broadridge, LiquidX’s largest strategic investor.

The investments underscore LiquidX’s position as the industry’s leading innovator in supply chain digitization and automation, which will deliver transformative efficiencies and value to all commercial users of the platform. LiquidX technology solutions, led by its pioneering InBlock technology platform, revolutionize the way that trade assets are managed across their entire life cycle.

“We are committed to delivering innovative solutions that enable our clients to transact without friction. In today’s digital world, that means bringing supply chain networks into a connected, digital environment. LiquidX will help our clients to improve working capital efficiency and provide them with seamless access to a range of other services offered by Citi to institutional clients,” said Sandeep Arora, Head of Digital and Chief Investment Officer for Citi’s Institutional Clients Group.

“As lead investor in LiquidX, the team at Broadridge and I are delighted to welcome Citi as a strategic partner which will enable LiquidX to reach its limitless potential and deliver much-needed fintech solutions for trade optimization,” said Chris Perry, President of Broadridge. “Citi and Broadridge's commitment along with our combined size, scale, and global presence further enables LiquidX to continue driving efficiencies to front, middle and back offices for trade operations.”

“We are delighted to welcome Citi as an investor,” said Jim Toffey, CEO of LiquidX. “Our partnership with Citi, coupled with our expanded strategic relationship with Broadridge, positions us as a true fintech partner for all participants in the trade and working capital landscape, including banks, asset managers, corporates, and insurance providers.”

Shield, the world’s leading workplace intelligence platform for compliance teams, today announced a new version of its award-winning, end-to-end communication compliance platform, including an industry-defining eDiscovery tool that offers firms a fast response to regulatory inquiries while increasing team efficiency and enabling collaborative case management. Shield 3.1’s market-leading platform was developed, refined and actualized through countless rounds of in-depth conversations with compliance users, resulting in a modern, dynamic platform that is solely built so today’s compliance professional can quickly search and drill down the right results while gaining access to smart analytics and insights across the full eDiscovery flow.

Since the pandemic, there has been a proliferation of electronic communication apps like WhatsApp, Zoom and more, causing massive data, risk, and compliance challenges for the regulated enterprise, including regulator investigations and financial firms facing potentially billions in fines. Electronic discovery (eDiscovery) is a procedure by which financial institutions preserve, collect, review, and exchange information in electronic formats so they can respond to audits and investigations. Failure to do so in today’s regulatory climate can result in significant fines and restitution, liability concerns, loss of market access, company reputation harm and more. With Shield, firms not only ensure they have access to the data needed by regulators, but its eDiscovery solution also reduces the firm’s response time to meet regulators’ requests by providing efficient collection, review and extraction of relevant data.

“One of the things we discovered in our user research was the fact that compliance teams are struggling with eDiscovery, so that drove us to create the world’s best compliance eDiscovery platform,” said Nicole Aviv, Head of Product at Shield. “Shield’s revolutionary eDiscovery solution incorporates AI and NLP capabilities into search to bring laser-focused results and drastically reduce compliance investigation time. Unlike our competitors, Shield’s fast search, smart insights and analytics focuses on the user and improves operational efficiency.”

With a deep understanding of its customers' needs and expectations following comprehensive user research, Shield 3.1 provides a new, better compliance platform that users will love and is a significant upgrade from existing legacy vendors that are inefficient and outdated. Through close collaboration with its customers, enhancements to Shield 3.1 include a fresh User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX), a drastically improved way of reviewing and handling alerts, updated case management functionalities, new, out-of-the-box reports and a completely transparent and explainable alert drill down.

“I honestly believe that compliance teams will love this new version of Shield because it was built in partnership with them. We’ve kept talking to our customers and industry leaders and prioritized their needs so they can have a platform that is optimized for the current regulatory landscape,” said Shiran Weitzman, CEO and Co-Founder at Shield. “Too often, financial enterprises settle for archaic non-friendly software and end up hating the look, feel and functionality of their day-to-day tool, but this latest version of Shield is a direct result of the constant feedback and insights we’ve learned from our valued clientele.”

Embedded finance is one of the hottest trends in fintech, but despite the buzz about this transaction revolution across the industry, 49% of consumers have never heard of the term ‘embedded payments’ and a further 23% have, but they do not understand what it means. That’s according to new research** commissioned by leading specialised payments platform, Paysafe, in which 11,000 consumers across Europe, North America and Latin America were surveyed for the company’s latest Lost in Transaction research series.

The findings also show a strong correlation between the benefits embedded payments offer and consumers’ desire for convenience at the checkout. Of those that said their payment habits have permanently changed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a quarter (24%) of consumers are using digital wallets more frequently now than a year ago when paying for online purchases and 17% are using mobile wallets more often. A third (33%) of respondents globally report having paid for something via a digital wallet in the last month. The majority of businesses understand the need to adopt frictionless methods at the checkout and recognise the simplicity and convenience wallets provide too – as of October 2021, 61% now accept digital wallets at the checkout and 26% plan to introduce them before the end of 2022.

The research also shows a clear willingness from consumers who have heard of embedded payments to get to grips with the concept further, with 75% of respondents saying they would be happy to use embedded payments going forward, with the top three transaction types being paying online (35%), paying in-store (27%) and paying for a meal (27%). While over a third (36%) of those respondents can see themselves using embedded payments to pay for check-out free stores such as Amazon Go in the next two years. However, this is conditional upon embedded payments becoming more widely available and more well-known, signalling the need for merchants to highlight the benefits and capabilities of embedded payments.

Megan Oxman, Senior Vice President of New Product Development for Paysafe's Digital Wallets, comments, “Consumers know when they’ve had a substandard experience. They know when there’s friction. With embedded finance, the payment aspect becomes so seamless that the consumer doesn’t need to expend any of the usual efforts of locating their wallet or purse, entering card details or organising a transfer. Nor do they encounter any of the potential problems, such as dropped or declined transactions or long wait times as authentication processes take place. To a certain extent, the mark of a truly successful embedded payments transaction is for it to be so seamless that it’s entirely unnoteworthy. That said, broadening consumers’ knowledge around embedded payments and their benefits is no bad thing – particularly when it comes to addressing any lingering misconceptions.”

In terms of awareness, security and trust emerged as two areas that merchants need to address. 44% of consumers said that security is the most important factor when choosing how to pay for online purchases however, only 27% imagine that embedded payments are more secure than traditional payments, while 3 in 5 (59%) of those who have heard of embedded payments worry they could be charged the wrong amount when using them.

Digital wallets, which do not require card details for the payment to go through, address the concerns of consumers who don’t feel comfortable entering financial data online (58%) and those who feel more comfortable using a payment method that doesn’t require them to share financial details with online merchants (70%). When it comes to trust, of those who have heard of embedded payments 46% stated that they would prefer using embedded payments offered by a trusted merchant vs. a traditional bank or an online bank – which rises to 53%for the 25–34-year-old age group.

Oxman added: “From the findings, it’s clear that it’s important to highlight not only the speed, ease, and convenience benefits of embedded payments, but also showing that security and consumer control are bolstered rather than compromised. Those businesses who place a premium on educating customers about the benefits have a significant opportunity to gain a first-mover advantage in today’s increasingly competitive market.”

Paysafe is today releasing a more detailed behind-the-scenes look at the world of embedded finance in a new paper, Embedded Finance: what’s behind fintech’s hottest trend?

Sage commissioned the study, which was launched at a House of Commons event today, of 5,000 SMBs across the country to understand the level of digitalisation and how it is boosting UK economic growth. SMBs are an integral part of the UK’s economy, representing 61% of UK jobs and 52% of UK turnover.

The research shows SMBs are using technology to cut costs (62%) and better compete for hard-pressed customers (68%). Ninety-two per cent of SMBs now depend on technology for business survival but concerns around costs, skills and knowledge are holding them back from going further and faster.  

With the right policy framework, Sage’s new report reveals the huge potential for SMBs to create a high-growth digital economy, which could unlock an extra £232 billion for the economy annually.

Sage is calling on big tech companies and the government to adopt a pro-tech, pro-enterprise approach and deliver improved financial incentives to encourage greater investment in productivity-enhancing technologies, and more data sharing so SMBs can innovate and adequate futureproofing of digital infrastructure.

Steve Hare, CEO, of Sage, commented: “Over the past two years, businesses have demonstrated incredible resilience against a backdrop of huge uncertainty. We know there’s been a significant shift in the adoption of technology, with 91% of SMBs telling us it was vital in the creation of their business.

“Digitalisation amongst SMBs represents a significant opportunity for the UK in terms of economic contribution, job creation and the upskilling of the workforce, which cannot be overlooked. But we need to help businesses take full advantage of the strength of technology; to do this, the government must prioritise the incentives needed to encourage further investment.”

Research findings:

The top barriers to investment are cost and understanding:

• The most significant barrier is cost, with 41% concerned about adopting new tech due to cash flow pressure and 24% unsure of the return on investment
• Second is awareness, with 34% stating they are unaware of which solution is right for them
• Almost a third (30%) say that training staff on new processes and breaking habits are also a barrier

SMBs must prioritise investment in digital tools to successfully mitigate against macroeconomic challenges

• The threat of a recession continued inflation and increased costs are [significantly] impacting SMBs
• Over 9 in 10 businesses (92%) state that technology is important to their survival and growth, and 88% say that it is key to business resilience

Data is an important area of untapped potential 

• Technology that generates data (websites, social media, accountancy, and HR software) have been widely adopted by small and medium-sized business – and continue to see high levels of investment
• However, only 24% of SMBs have adopted tech to collect and use data, such as data analytics software
• Five sectors with the lowest adoption of data analytics technology are beauty and wellbeing, retail, creative industries, hospitality, and education

The pandemic prompted a fundamental perception shift across SMBs regarding digital technology

• 92% say that digital tools have been vital to their survival through the pandemic 
• Of businesses founded in the past two years, 91% credited their creation to new and innovative technologies
• 8 in 10 SMBs say that technology is important to achieving their business goals. This is reflective of every sector and region in the UK
• Over 75% of businesses stated that online reputation information, such as online reviews and ratings (‘Blue Tick Tech’) is important to them

Effective action by government and policymakers could unlock an additional £232 billion in gross value add via digitalisation to the economy

• Sage and Strand Partners worked with Oxford Analytica to undertake an economic modelling study to determine the value of tech to the UK economy; this took into account the extent to which tech enables increased sales and services to customers, reduced costs and operating expenses and internal efficiencies 
• These all represent key inputs into Gross Value Added (GVA), a leading measure of the size of the economy which is used to determine GDP.

Calls to Government

Based on the Digital Britain findings, Sage has three asks of the government and other big technology companies to help deliver a robust and dynamic digital landscape:

1. Financial Incentives: access to tax incentives and reforming Help to Grow: Digital to scale digital adoption and boost productivity. This includes:
   1. Expanding the range of technologies Help to Grow: Digital covers to include a wider range of solutions
   2. Allowing SMBs to deduct 200% of their expenditure on newly adopted productivity-enhancing technology from their tax bill
   3. Stopping the progression of the Online Sales Tax in any form
2. Data: encourage more public sector data sharing to provide useful insights for SMEs. This includes:
   1. Developing a clear plan for opening government and public sector data sets that will enable real-time insights to empower SMBs
   2. Establishing a consistent set of industry standards to enable a more trusted, efficient, and innovative data-sharing culture across the business, third parties and government

Creating an AI framework that will enable all businesses to use data more freely for research purposes

       3. Infrastructure: acting upon and endorsing Mobile UK’s call to fund Digital Champions for local authorities to help coordinate and prioritise digital connectivity.

Kushki, the payment technology company that connects LatAm through payments, today announced a $100 million extension of its Series B fundraising at a valuation north of a billion dollars. The latest round includes participation from new and existing investors including Kaszek Ventures, Clocktower Ventures, SoftBank Latin America Fund and DILA Capital among others, and brings the total amount raised in the combined Series B to $186 million.

Kushki has established itself as a key payment player in the region with the latest investment following a year where Kushki reported 200% growth in 2021. "Reaching this milestone in times of historical economic uncertainty speaks to the quality and resilience of our entire team and the enormous Latin American talent that exists in the region”, says Aron Schwarzkopf, CEO and co-founder of Kushki.

Kushki's world-class payment platform helps businesses across the region to reduce the cost and complexity of payments online while improving acceptance rates and reducing fraud. Today, the company employs 750 people, operates in 5 countries, and leverages local teams to deliver customized solutions for clients in each country.

The new funds will be used to accelerate Kushki's development of a modern payment infrastructure for Latin America that facilitates payment transactions of any type in any country. This infrastructure will play a key role in accelerating digital transformation and economic growth in the region by enabling businesses to grow faster online and driving consumer adoption of digital payments.

“We are excited to continue backing the entire Kushki team. Over the past few years, they have shown an outstanding ability to execute and attract the best customers and talent in the region. We believe Kushki is just getting started in its mission to connect LatAm with efficient digital payments," says Hernan Kazah, Managing Partner at Kaszek, Kushki investor since early 2020.

LoopingOne, the most flexible KYC and Payments platform for Marketplaces and Platforms has closed its first seed round from Ebury, one of the world's largest fintech companies offering financial solutions to simplify international trade.

The investment aims to further develop the LoopingOne product and start the Electronic Money Institution (EMI) application process at the Dutch Central Bank (DNB). An integration with Ebury will also give LoopingOne the capability to offer multi-currency services to its marketplace customers from the get-go.

Furthermore, the two companies established a partnership to build on each other's resources and know-how to shape products and accelerate commercial activities.

“Ebury has offices in 20 countries around the world offering cash management and foreign currency solutions to companies trading internationally. It’s the ideal partner for LoopingOne that shares the same global ambitions”, says Freek Dix, co-founder of LoopingOne. “Traditionally Ebury has had a strong foothold with SMEs importing and exporting around the world. The LoopingOne team and product can help expand the Ebury business further into the e-commerce sector.”

"Our strategy has been to focus more on e-commerce businesses around the globe. The B2B flows now, and even more so in the future, will be through online marketplaces. Therefore having LoopingOne as our partner is a key strategic move for us. This is a triple-digit growth market!” says Fernando Pierri, Chief Commercial Officer at Ebury.

LoopingOne was founded last year by Bob Voermans, Mark van der Sluis and Freek Dix all of whom are industry veterans, having collected years of experience at fintech and e-commerce companies such as Ingenico, PayU and G2A. 

Prior to LoopingOne they built a team of payments specialists that help merchants around the world improve their payment strategies. In doing so they came face to face with the challenges that marketplaces encounter in regards to regulation, KYC and merchant lock-in.

Co-founder, Bob Voermans, said: “LoopingOne helps Marketplaces be independent of payment partners in their day to day operation by allowing them to choose various KYC and payment partners that suit their individual needs at any given time.”

The team at LoopingOne and Ebury will attend the Money20/20 conference in Amsterdam on 7 – 9 June 2022 where they will meet partners, clients and future investors.