Tag: Fintech

Agent or fully licensed model: Understanding the best model for your business

For any start-up, delays to operation are potentially existential problems. And for Fintechs, regulatory approval whilst vital for the protection of the consumer can amount to commercial viability abruptly coming to an end for smaller players.

The agent model provides a much quicker route to market. It also alleviates the requirement to have a team in place to manage the complex and costly application process. Although there are many benefits of the agent model approach, it’s not without its drawbacks. As an agent of an EMI licence holder, you have to adhere to the rules and regulations imposed by the NBFI and the umbrella banking authority, as they would be held accountable for any breaches in compliance caused by your activity.

It is the adherence to others’ rules that could create a constant friction between the needs of your business and the constraints of the licence holder. For example, there may be limitations on providing certain types of services or operating in particular markets due to perceived risk factors by the bank imposed on the NBFI, even if these services are legal. But what if that is a market or service that your business growth is based on? You need to have a very clear business model and strategy to negotiate these pitfalls, and this doesn’t take into account responding to unplanned growth opportunities. You are also required to get your customers to sign a contract with a NBFI, which is jarring from a customer experience as this contract is not directly with the business they have chosen for the specific product or service they have paid for.

In comparison, the fully licensed approach means you are the master of your own destiny. You have the freedom to roll out your business based on your plan or even opportunities, rather than being held accountable to the rules imposed by the NBFI. Yet for most start-ups, this is just not achievable in the early stages of business growth. The transition to fully licensed often comes when it’s no longer commercially attractive to pay the fees to the NBFI or perhaps you need the strategic flexibility to operate outside of the restrictions placed on your business.

What about safeguarding customers’ funds?

If you are granted an agency licence from a regulated financial institution, it is possible for that firm to safeguard your customers’ funds themselves under what is sometimes called a ‘reliance model’.

Practically, this means they are holding your client funds at their own credit institution on your behalf. If you are not an agent of a financial institution and you are running on your own licence, you cannot use the ‘reliance model’ to safeguard your client funds. This means that if you are using an EMI for account and payment services, you must also have an account at a bank/credit institution to ensure these funds are safeguarded.

Supporting your business from day one

At Integrated Finance, we understand the benefits and challenges of each model from first-hand experience and support both approaches, whatever stage your business is at.

When the time comes for your business to make the transition to a full EMI licence, it doesn’t need to cause the same complexity and resource pressures as if you go it alone. Key to this is having the right partner to help you navigate the ever-changing financial rules and governance in whichever market you operate in.

We not only support the cross-over to a fully licensed model and aid with technical integration, but we are able to offer commercial and regulatory direction on what the impact of such models might have on your business model, operational demands and technical nuances, including safeguarding and the related practices and regulations of protecting your customers’ money.

Talk to one of our experts to find out more.

Amar Kotak, Head of Partnerships, Integrated Finance

Developing a long term bridge between fiat and crypto means involving and getting the support of your banking partners. Furthermore, getting this right at the start of your business journey will help you avoid suspension of services or deboarding, optimise your revenue streams, and minimise your operational costs. But, how do you align your own processes with the traditional, fiat-based payment systems’ gatekeepers? Read on.

The shift: overcoming the fear of the unknown

Previously, incumbent banks were hesitant to work with the crypto ecosystem, however, we’re now witnessing a shifting attitude and outlook with more banks looking to support the growth and development of crypto companies.

Banks’ initial hesitation about crypto was chiefly driven by a lack of transparency and fear of the unknown – crypto is the first real innovation in payments in 30 years. In addition, incumbent banks are highly regulated corporations, and responding quickly to change isn’t in their wheelhouse. But as crypto continues to develop, bankers’ profit motives finally overcome their initial fear of new, scary technology. Yet, one thing that won’t change is the high-level standard of due process banks will expect from companies they look to support in the crypto space. Banks have developed these standards through decades of experience, best practices and near misses.

Crypto to fiat is where things can get a little hairy

Crypto is great, but we must think about how it needs to work with fiat – a point that is currently often overlooked.

Although crypto adoption is accelerating, banks still want to ensure that crypto businesses follow specific workflows and processes. Furthermore, if you are building a crypto-focused start-up, your banking relationships are vital in ensuring future success. In fact, multiple factors will determine the strength and longevity of these relationships, including transaction workflows and how funds flow through the monetary system.

How can Integrated Finance help crypto start-ups overcome key blockers?  
Our embedded banking technology acts as a piece of middleware that helps simplify the interaction between crypto and fiat by predefining core banking workflows. Our core workflows will satisfy the requirements of banking partners and help you optimise your revenue streams and minimise operational costs.

Here’s how we do that.

Master account architecture

We offer a pre-built architecture that can support complicated house account structures and optimise operational efficiency. We can create separate Master Accounts for Operational Liquidity, Fee Collection, Client Money and many more. This smooths the reconciliation process of funds, but it also simplifies the preparation of financial accounts and assists you in following regulatory requirements where applicable.

Unique customer accounts & balance reconciliation

Our platform makes it possible to create unique virtual accounts for each end customer. These virtual accounts can come with dedicated account details (account numbers, IBANs, etc.) while allowing customers’ deposits to be automatically allocated to their corresponding ledger.

Subsequently, you no longer have to rely on customers entering a unique reference and creating a deposit ticket to add funds to your platform. As a result, you reduce the time support teams have to deal with supporting customers who either forget to enter the reference or have mistyped it. Additionally, the sooner the funds are available for customers, the sooner they can interact with your application and the sooner you can recognise revenues.

Connections to local payment networks

Connecting with us and subsequently with our partners means you will be able to receive customer funds via local payment networks. In the UK, this is Faster Payments, and in Europe, this can be SEPA and or SEPA Instant.
Having access to these networks allows for almost instantaneous receipts and sending of funds for both you and your customers, significantly improving user experience by eliminating stickiness and delays in using your platform.

Compliance adherence and support tools

The Integrated Finance platform has been built with client money and safeguarding regulatory requirements in mind. So, depending on your licensing status (regulated vs unregulated), we can offer pre-configured workflows to satisfy both banking partners and regulators. We also provide a package of support tools to track changes in safeguarding liabilities and a sweeping tool to minimise the operational costs associated with safeguarding.

Food for thought

• Building the correct workflows and processes at the start of your business journey will help you maintain confidence in your banking relationships;
  
  
• Selecting an embedded finance provider who can act as your advisor, and offer you valuable insight, will save you both time and money;
  
  
• Tackling areas of concern such as safeguarding and separation of client vs operational funds can simplify the interaction between your crypto business and banks.

Talk to an Integrated Finance expert about your crypto Fintech needs today.

Integrated Finance is delighted to welcome Board Advisor, the head of Banks and Fintechs at Crown Agents Bank, Alistair Woodhams to the organisation.

“Here at Integrated Finance, we are seeing a huge demand across our fintech and embedded finance client base for robust access to frontier market payment infrastructure.” Integrated Finance Co-Founder, Daniel Cronin said. “We are delighted to announce Alistair’s appointment as Advisor to the board. It reinforces our commitment to helping new fintechs access market infrastructure quickly and easily, and brings a wealth of talent and experience in a market that our clients are very excited about.”

Alistair Woodhams leads the Bank and FinTechs commercial division at Crown Agents Bank. He has deep roots in fintech, having helped Crown Agents Bank become the leading platform for fintechs and banks looking to access payment infrastructure in frontier markets. 

Prior to Crown, Alistair helped Santander-backed Ebury, one of the largest players in B2B Lending and Cross Border Finance to expand across Southern Europe. During his time there, Alistair established and led Ebury’s expansion into Mediterranean markets such as Greece and neighbouring territories, building commercial and regulatory relationships to drive revenue in untapped regions. Alistair also led sales teams at OpenPayd helping transition their offering from an SME-focused solution to the current BaaS operator it is today. Alistair joins Integrated Finance as a Board Advisor, assisting with commercial and strategic growth initiatives for the business as well as territory expert for its UK and European client base looking to move to frontier markets.

Alistair Woodhams, Head of Banks and Fintechs at Crown Agents Bank, is the new advisor for Integrated Finance

“Having worked in Banks and FinTechs, I’ve seen first-hand along with the Integrated Finance team just how much engineering and economic resource it takes to not only establish but maintain connections with service providers,” said Alistair Woodhams. “IF solves a huge problem for companies that want to grow fast and reduce their engineering overheads so that they can focus on growing their business. This is the future of financial technology and it’s a pleasure to join a business that is already making a huge difference in the industry.”

To talk to an Inegrated Finance expert about your fintech needs, contact us to speak to an advisor.

If you are building, or have built a transactional banking fintech service, you should know about the different types of account your customers may be using. Here is a brief overview.

Learn more about different account types by downloading the latest white paper: How to Build a Transactional Banking Fintech Service

Local accounts

Local accounts are connected to a local payments schemes, such as Faster Payments in the UK, or ACH (Automated Clearing House) in the US. Local accounts enable low cost domestic transactions, rather than expensive international payments. Big marketplaces often require an in-country account to settle to, in order to avoid costly fees. Local accounts are usually not connected to SWIFT, in which case sending internationally is not possible.

International accounts

International accounts enable the customer to receive and send payments via SWIFT, and are sometimes connected to local schemes. Different bank details are required for sending money to an account based on the sending scheme, which you will need to make sure your customers are aware of, to avoid lost/rejected payments.

Virtualisation of accounts

You can create bank accounts for each customer horizontally, or you can create them vertically, building a hierarchical structure. With hierarchical structures you usually create:

• House accounts
• Sub-accounts linked to the house account

Virtual accounts in a hierarchical account structure mean that the sub-account number is used for a reference only and all customer balances are held in the house account. The virtualisation process is important when moving funds between accounts for your own liquidity purposes. With the house account model, no money movement is required if one of your customers pays another internally for example. When all accounts are created horizontally, either your system or your operations team will need to physically move cash. If you are interested in learning more, download a free white paper about virtual accounts here.

Issuing multiple accounts for customers

Your customers might need more than one account in their name. You’ll need to make sure your system (and your bank or NBFI) can, and are willing to, support this.

If you are planning to build a transactional banking fintech service, you will need to learn more about managing different types of account. Download our latest white paper, free of charge, to find out more. Alternatively you can contact us to speak to an advisor.

When capturing and storing dynamic (frequently changing) data, it is vital that the information is correct and kept up date to ensure smooth, efficient and successful banking transaction processes for your customers.  Here are some points to consider for managing and validating beneficiary information for your fintech service.

Learn more about managing and verifying beneficiary information by downloading the latest white paper: How to Build a Transactional Banking Fintech Service

Storing beneficiary information

When your customers make a payment via your platform, they’ll need to provide the beneficiary information, or the bank details of whoever they want to pay. You will have to store this information on your system and transmit it to whatever bank or fintech is making the payment on your behalf.

Verifying new beneficiaries with 2FA

When your customers add new beneficiaries to your system you’ll need to verify their identity by enforcing 2FA (two-factor authentication), a measure taken to reduce the likelihood of fraud.  This is usually done by sending a code via email or SMS to the customer on record, which they must into your platform.

Automating payments to avoid manual payments processing

Sending payments needs to be as automated as possible, to avoid manual work consuming the time of your operations team. To ensure payments don’t fail when submitting them to your bank, you have to capture the correct bank details from your customer.

Make this data capture dynamic depending on what currency/country and what payment scheme the customer wants to use to send the payment. For example, if you want to collect a sort code and account number for a GBP Faster Payment, but the same customer wants to send Euros to Germany you’ll need to collect an IBAN (international bank account number) and possibly also a BIC (Bank Identifier Code).

Verifying the information

You also need to check whether the information the customer entered is correct. There are basic ways to do this (checking length of account number for example) and more in-depth processes such as validating IBAN length per country or using an account number to generate the sort code and address.

You can sometimes rely on your providers to vet beneficiary information (and allow you to dynamically capture the data your side), but like most things financial, sometimes you can’t. You might want to subscribe to services that allow for beneficiary validation, such as IBAN.com or SWIFTref. Generally a fintech has the following options to validate:

1. Capture Max Info- insures success 99% of the time but is laborious and will reduce conversions from users to paying customers.
2. Capture Min Info – this insures success 99% of the time when a customer is serving a single market. High conversion rate but if the customers want to operate internationally – it will result in an awful user experience where customers who have submitted beneficiary data will have to update it time and again.
3. Dynamix info capture – this is optimal but requires a huge amount of data and logic application.
4. Inference – in many countries a fintech can infer alternate beneficiary details from the ones supplied. For example in the UK – if a customer offers a sort code and account number, you can infer what the IBAN might be based on those details. This is the ultimate experience but is not broad enough to capture all aspects of payment validation.

Learn more about managing and validating beneficiary information, and many other processes involved in building a transactional banking fintech service, by downloading our latest white paper, free of charge. Alternatively you can contact us to speak to an advisor.

There is a lot to learn about Foreign Exchange (FX) transactions.  Here we will give a brief overview outlining different types of FX transaction, the lifecycle of an FX transaction and the cut-off times of FX transactions.

Find out more about FX transactions. Download the latest white paper: How to Build a Transactional Banking Fintech Service

Different types of FX transactions

There are different types of FX transactions. For the sake of simplicity we will talk about just two here: Spot and Forward.

• Spot FX Transactions – This involvesimmediately exchanging one currency for another. However, because the FX market has its own language, Spot can mean exchange today, or tomorrow for the day after tomorrow, depending on what currency you need to swap for another.
• Forward FX Transactions – Forward FX is for future delivery of a currency, from three days, to five years in the future.
• FX Currency Swap – Combining both Spot FX Transactions with Forward FX Transactions in opposite buying directions is called a Currency Swap. For deliverable FX fintechs, FX swaps are used to change the settlement dates of forward contracts for customers who choose to settle early or late.

FX transaction lifecycle

Foreign exchange transactions need statuses much like payments, to reflect whether they’ve been captured from the customer. Questions you need to ask include:

• Has the required date elapsed?
• Have they been sent to your liquidity providers?
• Have they been accepted as a transaction by your liquidity providers?
• Are they completed, and is the sell currency now settled into the buy currency?

You’ll also need a status for cancelled transactions or trades that need to be reversed if the customer doesn’t pay for it. You can get around this by requiring the customer to only be able to convert balances of currency they already have in their account with you. However, this does bring more complexity. What if the customer doesn’t have enough funds to do a conversion and payment, for example? What do you prioritise?

FX Cut-off Times

A cut-off time is the deadline that you need to have the currency you wish to sell in the appropriate account. Each currency will have different cut off-times for your bank or liquidity partner to deliver the currency into your bank account. Major currencies, such as the US Dollar, British Pound, Euro, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar will be available for delivery on the same day, but with varying cut-off times. The time varies depending on geographical location.

You should consider that same day conversions for some currency exchanges can be very difficult to achieve, because the extreme distance means banking hours never overlap. This knowledge and information must be captured in your system to ensure you don’t commit to any timescale you can’t deliver on.

Additional areas to get to know and become familiar with include FX Transaction Standardisation, Streaming FX Rates, and STP-FX Conversion, as mentioned – there is a huge amount to learn. Download our latest white paper, “How to Build a Transactional Banking Fintech Service” free of charge to learn more.  Alternatively you can contact us to speak to an advisor.

The truth is, that fintech payments can be a minefield of different data requirements depending on how you want to send money. Here are some points, which you may not have realised could help to make payments more straightforward, saving you and your customers valuable time.

Knowing the data requirements for different payment systems could save valuable time. Learn more by downloading the latest white paper: How to Build a Transactional Banking Fintech Service

Local payment systems

Local payment systems such as Faster Payments, SEPA or ACH have unique bespoke data requirements to submit payments.  Most banking-as-a-service (BaaS) providers simplify this via their Application Programming Interface (API) but there is no standardisation between providers. This means if you are using more than one you’ll need a service provider management module within your application to standardise the message flow across providers.

Cross border payment systems

Cross border payments are sent via SWIFT, a global protocol which is at least standardised.  However, you must consider (and build) the ability to submit intermediary bank details alongside end beneficiary details. Intermediary bank details refer to a specific correspondent bank who processes a payment on behalf of the sending bank. This is an additional step compared to local payments.

Try not to rely heavily on referencing as often there are multiple institutions involved to pass your payment to its final destination, resulting in loss of those references.

Standardisation across multiple banks or BaaS providers

If you are using multiple banks or BaaS providers you also need to think about standardising payment transactions across providers.

For example, Bank A may require you to submit instructions in the following order: amount, currency. But Bank B requires the beneficiary details, the amount, and then the currency. 

It may not sound that complicated, but it will immediately create unnecessary and unwanted complexity for your customers.

What are the characters you must or cannot use?

This may sound like an unimportant point but is, in fact, essential to know. You must pay attention to any character limits, restrictions, or requirements, and reflect those in your own software.  If you don’t, you will be inundated with error messages every time you submit a payment to a provider. This is not only frustrating, but more importantly, a complete waste of time.

The lesson here is to familiarise yourself with the different data requirements for different payment types and to make sure you keep updated as developments occur. To learn more about data requirements in fintech services, download our latest white paper, “How to Build a Transactional Banking Fintech Service” free of charge. Alternatively you can contact us to speak to an advisor.

There are many things you need to consider before you start building a transactional banking fintech service. For example, do you know how to keep integrations up to date? Have you thought about how to safeguard your clients’ money as well as your own? Did you know there were FX cut-off times? 

Daniel Cronin, of Integrated Finance has addressed these topics, and many more, in an informative white paper, which is available to download now, free of charge. 

Download the latest white paper from Integrated Finance to learn how to build a transactional banking fintech service

This comprehensive white paper covers many different terms and processes that you need to know in order to successfully build your service. Here are just a few examples of some of the points raised in the white paper,

Understand the importance of safeguarding in your fintech service

Safeguarding refers to the practice of protecting your customers’ money and it is something you definitely need to know about. As the white paper explains, it broadly focuses on two areas – Capital Adequacy and Segregation. Capital Adequacy is about making sure that if the worst case scenario ever occurs, you have enough capital to wind the company down and protect your clients from losing their money in the process. Segregation means that you split out your clients’ money from yours, so if the unthinkable happens, everybody (clients and suppliers) knows who is owed what.

The whole point of safeguarding is to protect client money, and it is different from the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme) scheme that banks offer because there is no upper limit. An important point highlighted in the paper is that only a bank can provide you with a designated safeguarding client account.

Keep integrations up to date

One section of the white paper explains the importance of keeping on top of integrations in your system. Humans are great at building software, but we tend to have a problem with maintaining it over time. Specifically for financial services, banks and NBFIs regularly add new features or alter the connection methods, by adding a new Application Programming Interface (API), for example. Each tweak made to a connection method has the ability to disrupt or break your product, so it is vital to stay on top of each integration, and make sure it remains up to date.

It is very common to underestimate the cost of doing this. The cost and complexity rises non-linearly and will consume more of your development resources than you think.

Become familiar with FX Cut-off Times

As explained in the white paper, a cut-off time is the deadline that you need to have the currency you wish to sell in the appropriate account. Each currency has a different cut off-time for your bank or liquidity partner to deliver the currency into your bank account. Major currencies, such as the US Dollar, British Pound, Euro, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar will be available for delivery on the same day, with varying cut-off times, relative to geographical location. Generally, the further west on the International Date Line – the more time you have to complete the settlement.  

Same day conversions for some currency exchanges can be very difficult to achieve, however, due to extreme distance between the countries, which prevents banking hours from overlapping.  Your system needs to know this information, before you promise your customer a currency that cannot meet the same-day timescale.

Talk to the Integrated Finance experts

As knowledgeable financial service providers we can help you with your fintech service development, transactional banking products and APIs (application programming interfaces).

Download our latest white paper, free of charge, to find out what you need to know about building a transactional banking fintech service. Contact us now to speak with an experienced advisor.

Integrated Finance raises £2 million to transform tech development for all: from startup fintech companies to big banks

The Fintech infrastructure platform will use the investment to invest in product development and customer growth.

• Integrated Finance has announced £2m in Seed funding in round led by Octopus Ventures
• Integrated Finance platform allows fintechs and financial institutions to speed up innovation, by simplifying connections to other banks, financial institutions and suppliers to a single API
• The funding will be used to further develop its platform, support the growth of new and existing customers

Fintech infrastructure platform Integrated Finance today announces that it has raised £2 million in Seed funding. The round was led by Octopus Ventures, one of Europe’s most active early-stage VCs, with participation from 500 Start-Ups, SuperSeed Ventures, and prominent Angels Chris Adelsbach, Srin Madipalli, and John Erdimansinga.

The investment will be used to significantly increase the company’s product and engineering teams to further develop its platform, alongside building its commercial team to support the growth of new and existing customers.

The Integrated Finance platform gives fintech companies and financial institutions of all sizes access to the same financial infrastructure used by the world’s largest companies. The infrastructure APIs that Integrate Finance provides help developers at fintech startups and big banks alike build embedded financial services at greatly reduced speeds, enabling them to drive far more value from their existing technology, and their customer base.

Alistair Cotton, CEO & co-founder of Integrated Finance comments: “As software rapidly changes how financial services are delivered, businesses are now confronted with an ever-expanding digital financial supply chain they can use to adapt to changing customer requirements. The Integrated Finance platform allows fintechs to speed up innovation, by simplifying connections to all of their banks and suppliers to a single API.”

Integrated Finance’s infrastructure platform can help scale-ups build a new solution in a month, rather than a year, while the drastic reduction in build time means established organisations can test and prove existing models in new jurisdictions or geographies within months. In addition, Integrated Finance’s platform can help fintechs recognise and analyse opportunities for growth. By building a better tech infrastructure, companies can collect smarter data, and discover the customers they’re not winning or retaining.

Cotton adds: “Integrated Finance has grown rapidly since our last funding round 12 months ago. Our customer base has increased five-fold, and our platform allows our customers to create and launch new products three times faster, keeping them ahead of their competitors.

Zihao Xu, Principal at Octopus Ventures, comments: “Companies work best when they focus on what makes them special, and those that leverage Integrated Finance will have a huge advantage when it comes to focusing on their core innovations. We’re hugely excited to back Integrated Finance on this journey. They’ve already proven they can help customers dramatically bring forward new product launches and we can’t wait to see them bring this to the wider ecosystem and help accelerate the world towards a future of rich and delightful financial experiences for everyone.”

Integrated Finance recently announced a partnership with Currency Cloud, which enables companies to fast-track their integration.

Richard Stockley, Director of Partnerships at Currencycloud said: “Partnering with Integrated Finance has strengthened our ecosystem and expanded the offering for our customers. We are excited to be part of Integrated Finance’s platform providing customers easy integration to financial infrastructure and accelerating time to value. We at Currencycloud are thrilled to be part of this milestone for Integrated Finance and look forward to a bright future together.“

Integrated Finance was founded by four friends to solve a problem they felt would only get more difficult over time. Having built and scaled a UK fintech, they had experienced first-hand the pain of integrating and stitching together APIs from different banks, fintechs, and regtechs to create a compelling customer offering. By pre-building integrations and maintaining them over time, Integrated Finance was created to minimise the time spent by fintechs on connecting to their partners.

For more information on Integrated Finance, please visit https://integrated.finance/