Fintechs eye automation with nearly $1B in funding

[caption id="attachment_217254" align="alignright" width="320"] Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash[/caption] Fintech s MX and Blend secured $300 million funding rounds Wednesday just as both companies top off plans for digital innovations in the coming months. G lobal payments fintech Rapyd als o joined the pack with its own $300 million package , which it will use to expand its engineering teams. MX focuses on data-driven automation As the Lehi, Utah-based MX grows its cash influx, the company is look ing to enhance its data analytics software s , giving consumers optimized insights tailored to their spending and saving habits, according to co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Brandon Dewitt . So far, the company supplies over 2,000 financial institutions with customers like US Bank, Alaska Federal Credit Union and ENT Credit Union. While d ata-driven insights are becoming indispensable for banks to understand their clients, data structuring within the financial system is not without its issues , Dewitt told Bank Innovation . “If you think about this new world that we’re coming into with artificial intelligence and machine learning, there’s all these fundamental problems at the core,” Dewitt said, and referred to data’s lack of meaning to the computer and intelligence technologies behind the coding as an example . This is where AI comes into play in MX’s systems, which track a c u stomer’s habits over time and analyz e correlative trends. When the AI recognizes a pattern in transactions, it will ask the client if it should automate that transaction and integrate it in the future. AI technologies that can observe the speed at which consumers type in their S ocial S ecurity numbers are in development as well , Dewitt said. Whereas most individuals know the last four digits by heart, they don’t typically memorize the first five so a customer may type in the first half of their SSN slower than the ir second half. If all numbers are typed equally fast on an application, the AI system might identify it as a possible bot. Biller Genie, a Miami, Flo.- based fintech that automates accounts payable and accounts receivables system s , is also utilizing AI in its software development . For instance, the company plans to upgrade its invoice structure by automatically calculating and applying fees to invoice s , according to company President Garima Shah . “One of the most demanded features by our subscribers is statement processing, where their customers can pay for all of their invoices at once,” Shah explained. Blend shakes out documents in lending processes The San Francisco-based Blend i s funneling its recent funding into technologies that digitize mortgage and consumer lending documents in what the company calls “data over docs,” Erik Wrobel, Blend’s h ead of pr oduct told BI . The goal is to even tually have all its consumer applications be 100% data-based rather than utilize paper or PDF-based outlets. “That’s what we’re focusing on: H ow can we get the right data , populated into applications using third-party sources,” Wrobel said, adding the company utilizes a variety of third-party services to supply accurate data. “If you apply for something, you may have to fill out a number of different fields, not all of which are relevant to you. We filter out the noise and guide you on the right path.” Additionally, the fintech is investing in machine learning systems, such as the optical character recognition software currently gaining traction . Citi and TD Bank have similarly adopted OCR technologies and are utiliz ing them alongside bots to digitize documents that require signatures. Blend also plans to expand on its decisioning automation capacity to further automate the pre-qualification process for customers, a nod at the personalization experience Blend works to offer its customers. “You’re not just looking at individual products, but you’re looking across at any touch point that your customer has,” Wrobel added. “How can I be aware of what other products they might want to customize?” Blend’s software boasts 285 financial institutions with banks like Wells Fargo , U.S. Bank and BMO Harris Bank utilizing their systems. The fintech also recently added Fifth Third Bank at the end of December to its stack to help mitigate paper-based mortgage applications. Rapyd to upgrade software Meanwhile, global payments fintech Rapyd also wrapped up a $300 million round, which the London-based company will use to fuel its API-integrated payment s structure , adding up to nearly $500 million in total funding. The new funding will be used to double Rapyd’s engineering and product teams, according to a company release, while also growing its self-service software offering s to keep up with a demand for online payments. Since its inception in 2016, Rapyd has quickly gained traction in the bankin g arena, adding Visa to the payment structure of its platform last February , a catalog which also includes Green Dot and Grabpay . Additionally, in its last round of funding, which supplied the company with an additional $100 million, the fintech announced it would be building out its cloud-based platform to help businesses expand further into cross-border markets.

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Fintechs eye automation with nearly $1B in funding

Weekly Wrap: Fintechs score big investments, chatbot developments ramp up

NCR partners with Kasisto to deliver AI conversational data

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