What’s the future of banking? If Koho has anything to do with it, it’s simple, modern, mobile, and free. Koho Financial Inc. is a Vancouver-based startup that provides traditional banking services, but has no branches, doesn’t hold deposits and doesn’t handle transactions. Technically, it’s not even a bank. That hasn’t stopped Koho from delivering services that people associate with a bank, such as holding money securely, paying bills, transferring money, providing access to cash and buying goods and services with a credit card. By using an innovative business model, amazing technology and a network of powerful partners, Koho can deliver financial services similar to a bank but doesn’t require a bank license. As opposed to becoming an actual financial institution and all the regulatory burdens that come with that, Koho’s core competency is technology. They focus on providing a really simple way to access, understand and move money. Some of the innovations they offer are real-time updates, saving automation, spending categorization and insights as well as free Koho-to-Koho transfers. Another differentiator is their focus on no or low fees. They try to avoid fees or, if they have unavoidable costs, they strive to offer the lowest cost option; as an example they provide access to 8,500 Fee-free ATMs. You might be wondering, if they are not a bank, are they safe? How can they deliver bank-like services without being regulated? They partner with financial institutions that actually provide the service. Innovative Financial Model Koho works with Peoples Trust Company, a federally regulated trust company and the leading issuer of prepaid cards in Canada. Basically, Peoples Trust issues the card and holds the money, while Koho provides the technology that you interface with. They also work with Utah-based Galileo Processing to handle transactions, and Visa, who issues a prepaid credit card that functions as Koho customers’ primary bankcard. They also work with Trulioo. As their model is branchless and focuses on mobile, having customers submit physical ID kind of defeats the purpose; they need an onboarding process that is simple, quick and can be done mobile. They also need to ensure that they are compliant with AML/KYC (Anti-Money Laundering/Know Your Customer) Laws. Even though they aren’t a bank, they still need customers to go through thorough identity screenings to ensure they are who they say they are. For non-face-to-face identity checks, FINTRAC (Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada) requires two independent corroborating sources of data, if the credit file is less than three years old. By using Trulioo, they accomplish both goals; they can provide a quick, seamless mobile onboarding process and, at the same time, meet regulatory requirements. As CEO Daniel Eberhard says, “Because we are the first point of contact for our customers, it is mission critical that we get it right. Trulioo allows us to meet our compliance with ease, while providing a seamless customer onboarding experience.” To learn more about Koho and how it uses Trulioo to speed onboarding, lower costs and stay compliant,Download the Koho Case Study. Effectively Managing PII is Crucial to Ensure Compliance with Privacy Laws and Maintaining Customer Trust. One acronym that is popular today is TMI, too much information. It comes into play when the narrator includes information that is too personal, too revealing for comfort. What happens though, when the personal information is not under the control of the owner, but is out there, in public, and the information is personally identifiable? This PII (Personally Identifiable Information) can lead to identity theft, fraud and other damaging acts. For your business, to comply with privacy laws and ensure customer trust, managing PII is crucial. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines personally identifiable information as: “information which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as their name, social security number, biometric records, etc. alone, or when combined with other personal or identifying information which is linked or linkable to a specific individual, such as date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc.” To do business though, often you need this information. For example, Know Your Customer laws require financial companies to accurately identify people for account opening purposes and ongoing record keeping. By carefully analyzing data handling procedures, establishing ongoing policies and building a data-safe culture, your company can safely handle PII and keep in good standing with both regulators and consumers. Minimize Data Risk What is the minimum amount of PII that you need to collect? Every extra piece of data beyond that increases your risk and, often, is just another hurdle for your customers to provide. Many times data collection requirements haven’t been examined in years and are simply there as a legacy. Re-examine your present data requirements and make sure that matches your data requests. What is the minimum amount of time that you need to store the PII? For every type of PII, consider your legal requirements to retain that data and practical requirements to ensure your business runs smoothly. In many cases, you need to only use the data once, so hold it for a limited time (to ensure accuracy or retry a procedure) but temporary data doesn’t need to go into long-term storage. Establish data purge rules for all the PII you collect and that there’s a system in place to follow those rules. Maximize Data Safety What barriers are preventing you from implementing the highest data safety and security standards? On the digital side, you need to keep pace with the technology: secure passwords to restrict access to valid users; encryption to keep sensitive data in a protected format; limiting data transfer to absolutely essential uses and only over secure networks with firewall protection; use up-to-date software with the latest security patches and virus/malware detection. Physical security is just as important as digital security and includes: secured building access, locks on data file cabinets and storerooms, and a paper destruction policy to get rid of old documents securely. All the barriers in the world won’t matter though, if your employees don’t understand or actively implement a culture of data safety. A data-safe culture starts with a clear and well-thought out data privacy policy. That policy should guide all employee activity, from their initial hire to the day they are no longer employed: Thorough screening before they become employees, weeds out criminals and other security risks. Each employee needs training on the specific policies and should have clear guidance on how to handle sensitive data. Set up data use policies restricting employee access to only the data they need to do their jobs. Even with restrictions in place, ongoing monitoring is necessary to deter unwarranted access. PII Best Practices Here at Trulioo, our business revolves around PII and[tweet_dis excerpt=”It is mission-critical to follow best practices for managing PII data #dataprivacy #KYC via @Trulioo”] it is mission-critical that we follow these and other best practices for PII handling.[/tweet_dis] Our customers and data partners, and the customers they serve, trust that we do everything possible to ensure privacy and security. One significant distinction that we offer is that we do not retain the data. By default, Trulioo does not store customer data; vendors within GlobalGateway are prohibited from using or retaining customer data for any purpose other than providing identity verification services. The increasing power of organizations to aggregate, collect and store personal information requires an increase in the power of the individual over their PII. Either companies start taking this responsibility extremely seriously, or there will be a legal backlash, such as Europe’s Right to be Forgotten Law. Each company needs to ensure they presently have the policies and tools in place to comply with the law and consumer demand. Just as important, companies need to develop systems and values that respect personal information as we proceed into the connected future of big data. Living in a beautiful multi-cultural country, Canada welcomes diverse people who have emigrated here from places around the corners of the world. Many foreigners travel all the way here in hopes of making a better living to send money back home to their loved ones. In 2015, a total amount of $23.4 billion was sent from Canada to other countries according to Pew Research Center. Unfortunately, a huge part of this hard-earned money is lost during the journey due to fees and transaction costs and moving from agency to agency — from 5% up to as much as 20% of the total sum. Enter nTrust — A Vancouver fintech that helps people access, move, and use their money, instantly. Using cloud money, users can link up their bank accounts and start sending money to friends, banks and even exchange currency easily. When it comes to security, nTrust is no joke. Their service meets the gold standard for FINTRAC, secured with SSL encryption and rated level one in data security by PCI Security Standards Council. In addition to all that, nTrust uses professional fraud prevention services that shuts down theft before it even starts. Earlier this year, nTrust was also featured on a PYMNTS article on fraud prevention for P2P payments. Fraud Management Specialist Darcy Berringer shares in more detail about how they tackle the challenges the sector faces. We had a chance to chat with Rod Hsu, the president of the company, to learn more about how nTrust helps their customers, his thoughts on RegTech for the remittance industry, and well — how to be a good person in general. Trulioo: What is the biggest challenge people face sending money overseas and how does nTrust help? Rod: The biggest challenge people face when sending money abroad is overall cost. People want their funds to get to their destination, without being dinged by fees along the way. Those charges can include anything from the foreign exchange spread, to added costs incurred for the actual remittance services. At nTrust, we stitch together different services and networks to keep the overall expense low for our customers. We focus on the technology of moving money, rather than creating additional overhead costs that are passed down to the user. By focusing on technical integrations, we can keep our own costs down, and provide a better (and cheaper) service for our members. Trulioo: One of the many hurdles fintechs have to jump through are regulations and compliance. What are your thoughts on RegTech and how it would help companies in remittance specifically? Rod: Fintech means financial technology, and often times it’s more “tech” than “fin.” Fintechs are always looking for efficient, streamlined ways to leverage technology and serve their customers. That drives every aspect of Fintech, from operations, to marketing, to regulatory and everything in between. That’s why “It makes sense for #fintechs to turn to #RegTechs to navigate the challenging waters of #compliance and regulation — @rod_hsu” it makes sense for fintechs to turn to RegTechs to navigate the challenging waters of compliance and regulation. Every location enforces slightly different rules, and even those guidelines are constantly changing. The regulatory space requires niche, knowledgeable experts; RegTech companies operate in that niche, and play an important role in the life cycle of any fintech. Most importantly, leveraging RegTechs allows fintechs to focus on their core business. KYC (know your customer), AML (anti money laundering), and CTF (counter terrorist financing), along with Fraud and Risk Preventions, are all key to understanding customers and behaviors. However, they take time and resources. RegTechs provide the technology to help facilitate all of these processes, whether that means automation, or other ways to satisfy compliance. Trulioo: Last question! Can you tell us about the story behind Beatrice the Truck and what your favorite random act of kindness of hers is? Rod: Before she came to nTrust, Beatrice the Truck was a working truck – she was first owned by the Canada Post. We bought her and gave her a complete revamp, from body modifications to a customized paint job and nTrust decals. Beatrice was a key part of every Be Good event. My favorite has to be our initiative with Vancouver radio station 102.7 The Peak. We gifted $1000 to listener Lara and her students at Clayton Heights Secondary; they asked for donations to create holiday gift bags for their local senior center. Some of the seniors don’t have family to visit them over the holidays, and the students wanted to bring them some happiness. Our team was invited out to help assemble the gift bags and meet the Grade 8 class behind the whole initiative. That was a great Be Good moment. Check out the full story on the nTrust blog here. To get the latest updates from nTrust, follow them on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn! If there’s a fintech company you’d like to see featured in our Fintechs in Vancouver blog series, please submit your request to [email protected]. Other Fintechs in Vancouver we featured Koho: Secure, Simple, Mobile and a Free Financial Life. Tired of paying a fee for every little thing you do with your credit card and debit card? Sick of big financial institutions charging you hidden fees that just don’t make sense? Meet Koho, a Fintech in Vancouver who offers a prepaid card solution — without all the exorbitant charges. NetCents: Your Bitcoin Wallet, for Everything. NetCents is a spunky financial services company offering a suite of products leveraging traditional capital markets infrastructure and blockchain technology. NetCents helps their users pay, their way. With the NetCents app, you can move, purchase, transfer, withdraw funds and even buy or sell Bitcoins — all in one place. FrontFundr: Investing for Everyone If crowdfunding and venture capital ever had a child, it would probably be something like this startup. FrontFundr is an investment platform that taps into a much larger investor community consisting of seasoned investors and the wider public versus your traditional startup investors, like angels, venture capital firms and wealthy individuals. Posts navigation Previous 1 … 152 153 154 … 159 Next
What’s the future of banking? If Koho has anything to do with it, it’s simple, modern, mobile, and free. Koho Financial Inc. is a Vancouver-based startup that provides traditional banking services, but has no branches, doesn’t hold deposits and doesn’t handle transactions. Technically, it’s not even a bank. That hasn’t stopped Koho from delivering services that people associate with a bank, such as holding money securely, paying bills, transferring money, providing access to cash and buying goods and services with a credit card. By using an innovative business model, amazing technology and a network of powerful partners, Koho can deliver financial services similar to a bank but doesn’t require a bank license. As opposed to becoming an actual financial institution and all the regulatory burdens that come with that, Koho’s core competency is technology. They focus on providing a really simple way to access, understand and move money. Some of the innovations they offer are real-time updates, saving automation, spending categorization and insights as well as free Koho-to-Koho transfers. Another differentiator is their focus on no or low fees. They try to avoid fees or, if they have unavoidable costs, they strive to offer the lowest cost option; as an example they provide access to 8,500 Fee-free ATMs. You might be wondering, if they are not a bank, are they safe? How can they deliver bank-like services without being regulated? They partner with financial institutions that actually provide the service. Innovative Financial Model Koho works with Peoples Trust Company, a federally regulated trust company and the leading issuer of prepaid cards in Canada. Basically, Peoples Trust issues the card and holds the money, while Koho provides the technology that you interface with. They also work with Utah-based Galileo Processing to handle transactions, and Visa, who issues a prepaid credit card that functions as Koho customers’ primary bankcard. They also work with Trulioo. As their model is branchless and focuses on mobile, having customers submit physical ID kind of defeats the purpose; they need an onboarding process that is simple, quick and can be done mobile. They also need to ensure that they are compliant with AML/KYC (Anti-Money Laundering/Know Your Customer) Laws. Even though they aren’t a bank, they still need customers to go through thorough identity screenings to ensure they are who they say they are. For non-face-to-face identity checks, FINTRAC (Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada) requires two independent corroborating sources of data, if the credit file is less than three years old. By using Trulioo, they accomplish both goals; they can provide a quick, seamless mobile onboarding process and, at the same time, meet regulatory requirements. As CEO Daniel Eberhard says, “Because we are the first point of contact for our customers, it is mission critical that we get it right. Trulioo allows us to meet our compliance with ease, while providing a seamless customer onboarding experience.” To learn more about Koho and how it uses Trulioo to speed onboarding, lower costs and stay compliant,Download the Koho Case Study.
Effectively Managing PII is Crucial to Ensure Compliance with Privacy Laws and Maintaining Customer Trust. One acronym that is popular today is TMI, too much information. It comes into play when the narrator includes information that is too personal, too revealing for comfort. What happens though, when the personal information is not under the control of the owner, but is out there, in public, and the information is personally identifiable? This PII (Personally Identifiable Information) can lead to identity theft, fraud and other damaging acts. For your business, to comply with privacy laws and ensure customer trust, managing PII is crucial. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines personally identifiable information as: “information which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as their name, social security number, biometric records, etc. alone, or when combined with other personal or identifying information which is linked or linkable to a specific individual, such as date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc.” To do business though, often you need this information. For example, Know Your Customer laws require financial companies to accurately identify people for account opening purposes and ongoing record keeping. By carefully analyzing data handling procedures, establishing ongoing policies and building a data-safe culture, your company can safely handle PII and keep in good standing with both regulators and consumers. Minimize Data Risk What is the minimum amount of PII that you need to collect? Every extra piece of data beyond that increases your risk and, often, is just another hurdle for your customers to provide. Many times data collection requirements haven’t been examined in years and are simply there as a legacy. Re-examine your present data requirements and make sure that matches your data requests. What is the minimum amount of time that you need to store the PII? For every type of PII, consider your legal requirements to retain that data and practical requirements to ensure your business runs smoothly. In many cases, you need to only use the data once, so hold it for a limited time (to ensure accuracy or retry a procedure) but temporary data doesn’t need to go into long-term storage. Establish data purge rules for all the PII you collect and that there’s a system in place to follow those rules. Maximize Data Safety What barriers are preventing you from implementing the highest data safety and security standards? On the digital side, you need to keep pace with the technology: secure passwords to restrict access to valid users; encryption to keep sensitive data in a protected format; limiting data transfer to absolutely essential uses and only over secure networks with firewall protection; use up-to-date software with the latest security patches and virus/malware detection. Physical security is just as important as digital security and includes: secured building access, locks on data file cabinets and storerooms, and a paper destruction policy to get rid of old documents securely. All the barriers in the world won’t matter though, if your employees don’t understand or actively implement a culture of data safety. A data-safe culture starts with a clear and well-thought out data privacy policy. That policy should guide all employee activity, from their initial hire to the day they are no longer employed: Thorough screening before they become employees, weeds out criminals and other security risks. Each employee needs training on the specific policies and should have clear guidance on how to handle sensitive data. Set up data use policies restricting employee access to only the data they need to do their jobs. Even with restrictions in place, ongoing monitoring is necessary to deter unwarranted access. PII Best Practices Here at Trulioo, our business revolves around PII and[tweet_dis excerpt=”It is mission-critical to follow best practices for managing PII data #dataprivacy #KYC via @Trulioo”] it is mission-critical that we follow these and other best practices for PII handling.[/tweet_dis] Our customers and data partners, and the customers they serve, trust that we do everything possible to ensure privacy and security. One significant distinction that we offer is that we do not retain the data. By default, Trulioo does not store customer data; vendors within GlobalGateway are prohibited from using or retaining customer data for any purpose other than providing identity verification services. The increasing power of organizations to aggregate, collect and store personal information requires an increase in the power of the individual over their PII. Either companies start taking this responsibility extremely seriously, or there will be a legal backlash, such as Europe’s Right to be Forgotten Law. Each company needs to ensure they presently have the policies and tools in place to comply with the law and consumer demand. Just as important, companies need to develop systems and values that respect personal information as we proceed into the connected future of big data.
Living in a beautiful multi-cultural country, Canada welcomes diverse people who have emigrated here from places around the corners of the world. Many foreigners travel all the way here in hopes of making a better living to send money back home to their loved ones. In 2015, a total amount of $23.4 billion was sent from Canada to other countries according to Pew Research Center. Unfortunately, a huge part of this hard-earned money is lost during the journey due to fees and transaction costs and moving from agency to agency — from 5% up to as much as 20% of the total sum. Enter nTrust — A Vancouver fintech that helps people access, move, and use their money, instantly. Using cloud money, users can link up their bank accounts and start sending money to friends, banks and even exchange currency easily. When it comes to security, nTrust is no joke. Their service meets the gold standard for FINTRAC, secured with SSL encryption and rated level one in data security by PCI Security Standards Council. In addition to all that, nTrust uses professional fraud prevention services that shuts down theft before it even starts. Earlier this year, nTrust was also featured on a PYMNTS article on fraud prevention for P2P payments. Fraud Management Specialist Darcy Berringer shares in more detail about how they tackle the challenges the sector faces. We had a chance to chat with Rod Hsu, the president of the company, to learn more about how nTrust helps their customers, his thoughts on RegTech for the remittance industry, and well — how to be a good person in general. Trulioo: What is the biggest challenge people face sending money overseas and how does nTrust help? Rod: The biggest challenge people face when sending money abroad is overall cost. People want their funds to get to their destination, without being dinged by fees along the way. Those charges can include anything from the foreign exchange spread, to added costs incurred for the actual remittance services. At nTrust, we stitch together different services and networks to keep the overall expense low for our customers. We focus on the technology of moving money, rather than creating additional overhead costs that are passed down to the user. By focusing on technical integrations, we can keep our own costs down, and provide a better (and cheaper) service for our members. Trulioo: One of the many hurdles fintechs have to jump through are regulations and compliance. What are your thoughts on RegTech and how it would help companies in remittance specifically? Rod: Fintech means financial technology, and often times it’s more “tech” than “fin.” Fintechs are always looking for efficient, streamlined ways to leverage technology and serve their customers. That drives every aspect of Fintech, from operations, to marketing, to regulatory and everything in between. That’s why “It makes sense for #fintechs to turn to #RegTechs to navigate the challenging waters of #compliance and regulation — @rod_hsu” it makes sense for fintechs to turn to RegTechs to navigate the challenging waters of compliance and regulation. Every location enforces slightly different rules, and even those guidelines are constantly changing. The regulatory space requires niche, knowledgeable experts; RegTech companies operate in that niche, and play an important role in the life cycle of any fintech. Most importantly, leveraging RegTechs allows fintechs to focus on their core business. KYC (know your customer), AML (anti money laundering), and CTF (counter terrorist financing), along with Fraud and Risk Preventions, are all key to understanding customers and behaviors. However, they take time and resources. RegTechs provide the technology to help facilitate all of these processes, whether that means automation, or other ways to satisfy compliance. Trulioo: Last question! Can you tell us about the story behind Beatrice the Truck and what your favorite random act of kindness of hers is? Rod: Before she came to nTrust, Beatrice the Truck was a working truck – she was first owned by the Canada Post. We bought her and gave her a complete revamp, from body modifications to a customized paint job and nTrust decals. Beatrice was a key part of every Be Good event. My favorite has to be our initiative with Vancouver radio station 102.7 The Peak. We gifted $1000 to listener Lara and her students at Clayton Heights Secondary; they asked for donations to create holiday gift bags for their local senior center. Some of the seniors don’t have family to visit them over the holidays, and the students wanted to bring them some happiness. Our team was invited out to help assemble the gift bags and meet the Grade 8 class behind the whole initiative. That was a great Be Good moment. Check out the full story on the nTrust blog here. To get the latest updates from nTrust, follow them on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn! If there’s a fintech company you’d like to see featured in our Fintechs in Vancouver blog series, please submit your request to [email protected]. Other Fintechs in Vancouver we featured Koho: Secure, Simple, Mobile and a Free Financial Life. Tired of paying a fee for every little thing you do with your credit card and debit card? Sick of big financial institutions charging you hidden fees that just don’t make sense? Meet Koho, a Fintech in Vancouver who offers a prepaid card solution — without all the exorbitant charges. NetCents: Your Bitcoin Wallet, for Everything. NetCents is a spunky financial services company offering a suite of products leveraging traditional capital markets infrastructure and blockchain technology. NetCents helps their users pay, their way. With the NetCents app, you can move, purchase, transfer, withdraw funds and even buy or sell Bitcoins — all in one place. FrontFundr: Investing for Everyone If crowdfunding and venture capital ever had a child, it would probably be something like this startup. FrontFundr is an investment platform that taps into a much larger investor community consisting of seasoned investors and the wider public versus your traditional startup investors, like angels, venture capital firms and wealthy individuals.