Dive Brief:
- Fidelity National Information Services, also known as FIS, said in a Tuesday press release that it will continue to back fintech startups through an accelerator program, selecting nine businesses that it expects to disrupt the financial services industry.
- The Jacksonville, Florida-based company picked nine fledgling businesses to participate in the ninth annual program, including the New York-based merchant data analysis firm Spade; Encinitas, California-based real estate financing software business Blooma; and Austin, Texas-based bank compliance software company RiskScout, among others.
- “This year’s cohort is focused on reshaping the financial sector, and we are eager to provide a highly supportive environment to aid their development and success,” FIS’s president of banking solutions, John Durrant, said in the release.
Dive Insight:
The payments arena is changing rapidly, with emerging worldwide trends, such as open banking, real-time payments and digital wallets, transforming the way people pay for goods and services. Artificial intelligence is now also expected to play a role in shaping those trends.
Established companies like FIS, which operates in many areas of payments, are seeking to stay on top of the new dynamics by partnering with, and in some cases acquiring, the startups bringing these new technologies and payments schemes to the marketplace.
“This year’s cohort includes nine innovative fintech companies seeking to disrupt and enhance various facets of the financial services industry,” the company said in its release.
FIS, led by CEO Stephanie Ferris, is particularly interested in banking and capital markets plays, given those are its two big divisions following the completion of the sale of a majority stake in the Worldpay merchant services business to GTCR earlier this year. Nonetheless, it continues to work with Cincinnati-based Worldpay.
On the merchant services front, Spade isn’t the only payments-focused startup entering FIS’s accelerator program. This year’s cohort also includes Kipp, a business that aims to help merchants and bank card issuers authorize more customer purchases.
Another participant, San Marino, California-based Finli is focused on providing small businesses with services for management of invoicing and payments. In the banking arena, participant Parcha says it’s using AI to enable banks and fintechs to speed up know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering compliance reviews.
