FinTech News Issue #28 August 13th, 2015

The Canadian biometrics company Nymi, working with TD Bank Group and MasterCard, says it’s completed the first wearable credit card transaction authenticated by the user’s heartbeat.

Financial solutions provider Envestnet has acquired a financial software company Yodlee, a financial data aggregator platform for around US$590 million.

The organizer of the largest global events for payments and financial services innovation, Money20/20, has announced the return of its Money20/20 Hackathon.

Elsen, Inc., the Boston-based financial analytics platform company, has announced that Jack Klinck has joined Elsen’s Board of Advisors.

Fundamentally altering the financial services industry and traditional banking methods, financial service technology (FinTech) companies are disrupting several existing sub-sectors of traditional lending markets.

Insurance represents a huge opportunity that has yet to see real innovation. The U.S. insurance industry is the largest in the world in terms of revenue, with net premiums surpassing $1.2 trillion.

Fintech labs, accelerators and hackathons are spreading around the world, from New York to London to Asia to Latin America. In New York, where it all started in 2010 with  the FinTech Innovation Lab launched by Accenture and the Partnership Fund for New York City, the latest startup graduates have been announced from the 12-week mentoring program.

Berlin-based fintech firm WeltSparen has been working on a simple-but-brilliant way to boost people’s cash savings — one that investors seem to like. The company, known as SavingGlobal in the UK, just raised €20 million in a Series B round

Nine crypto startups have made it through to the finals of this year's BBVA Open Talent competition. The Spanish multinational banking group's global fintech startup competition is split into three regional finals.

The technology underpinning the cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and others, is “one of the first truly disruptive ideas from the fintech sector,” Deutsche Bank Research has said in an online post titled Blockchain – attack is probably the best form of defence.

RocketSpace announced today the launch of a business pitch contest focused on financial technology for the wearables market. Comerica Bank is the presenting sponsor, providing the full prize amount of $50,000 for the winning pitch.

The army of financial technology startups is attacking traditional banking services, and major banks are striking back. Recently my colleagues at CB Insights analyzed venture funding to startups harnessing emerging technology in big data, mobile e-commerce and social networks.