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Georgia-Based FinTech Companies Recognized at TAG Summit Technology Awards

By Don Campbell, RightCourse

At the 2020 Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Summit, one of the largest technology conferences in the Southeast, TAG announced two award groups that recognized Georgia-based technology companies for their innovation, financial impact, and their efforts at spreading awareness of the state’s technology initiatives throughout the U.S. and globally. What’s key here is that about one-third of the award winners are members of the dynamic and growing FinTech community.

Encouraging FinTech Signs Amid the COVID-19 Crisis

By Chip Harden, Ondot Systems

As the United States copes with shrinking GDP numbers and rapidly ballooning unemployment amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, there are decidedly few sectors not suffering considerably from the demand and supply shock this current environment has precipitated.

How Banks and FinTechs are Stepping Up Amid COVID-19

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

The timing couldn’t be better for TAG FinTech’s Friday panel discussion featuring executives from Alogent, Atlantic Capital Bank, Greenlight and Truist. Too often the business narrative has banks and fintech companies pitted against each other in a pitched battle for supremacy and survival. Thankfully this perception had already begun to recede- there are far more reasons for collaboration than competition among these players- but there’s nothing like a common enemy to help solidify alliances.

Minding the (Value) Gap: Big Tech Inches Closer to Consumers with Google’s Smart Debit Card

By Chip Harden, Ondot Systems

A global pandemic has proved insufficient to quell Big Tech’s continued foray into financial services. The end of March brought an announcement from Microsoft that they would partner with Plaid to launch a fintech app, integrating with its Excel spreadsheet software to provide personal finance support. Last week, TechCrunch revealed Google’s intention to unveil a “smart” debit card, apparently to serve as the payment vehicle behind Google’s checking account initiative announced in November.

Need Another Bracket? Atlanta Inno’s Tech Madness is Underway

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

One of the keys to innovation is the savvy to ride a powerful marketing wave, and the folks at Atlanta Inno have found a great vehicle. Voting is already underway for its annual Tech Madness bracket challenge, pitting 32 Atlanta startups against one another in a friendly competition decided by reader vote.

Six of this year’s 32 companies are included on TAG FinTech’s ecosystem map (and I see at least two more we should probably add), a testament to the prominence and growth of FinTech in Atlanta’s thriving tech scene.

The process is decidedly unscientific, which can …

Georgia-Based FinTech Companies Recognized at TAG Summit Technology Awards

By Don Campbell, RightCourse

At the 2020 Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Summit, one of the largest technology conferences in the Southeast, TAG announced two award groups that recognized Georgia-based technology companies for their innovation, financial impact, and their efforts at spreading awareness of the state’s technology initiatives throughout the U.S. and globally. What’s key here is that about one-third of the award winners are members of the dynamic and growing FinTech community.

Always a Busy Season for Atlanta FinTech – Introducing Our Events Calendar!

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

The spring and fall months tend to be the most active for industry conferences, and 2020 is no exception. Players in a FinTech scene as vibrant as Atlanta’s shouldn’t have to get on a plane- or wait out the seasons- to network or engage in thought leadership, though. A quick scan of the local calendar proves that’s indeed the case.

Organizations like the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) have provided plenty of such opportunities for some time, with more events being added constantly as awareness and interest in FinTech continues to expand. There’s so much activity it can be …

Last Chance: “FinTech – Life after the Mega-Mergers” Panel in Atlanta

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

Registration closes today for an excellent lunch panel discussion on the impact of 2019’s three major payments industry mergers on the FinTech ecosystem in Atlanta and beyond. Join us from 11:30am-1:30pm on Friday December at Maggiano’s Buckhead.

Early 2019 brought three major mergers (Fiserv/First Data, FIS/Worldpay, Global Payments/TSYS) that dramatically altered the FinTech landscape. All six of these companies have significant Georgia presence. Now that the deals have closed, our experts will discuss their projected impact across many angles.

We’ve assembled a top-shelf panel that’s uniquely qualified to share insights from a variety of perspectives- talent acquisition/development, venture …

Real Estate Study Highlights Tech’s Prominence in Atlanta’s Ecosystem

Fintech Investments Continue to be Strong

By Sean Banks, TTV Capital

When you look at the investment growth statistics of the fintech markets across the globe, one thing really stands out – funding is plentiful.

According to an Accenture February 2019 report, “Global investment in financial technology (fintech) ventures more than doubled in 2018, to US $55.3 billion, led by a surge in funding in China and strong gains in several other markets as investors placed larger bets in more mature startups. On a global basis, much of the growth was due to a nine-fold increase in the value of deals in China, to US $25.5 billion – nearly as …

Global FinTech Adoption: A Tale of Three Trajectories

By Alan A. Varghese

Adoption of FinTech is gaining momentum worldwide, having grown from 16% in 2015 to 33% in 2017 and 64% in 2019 according to Global FinTech Adoption Index 2019, a recently issued report by advisory firm EY.

EY’s primary research served as the backdrop for a September 26 discussion on global FinTech adoption held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and co-sponsored by the Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce Southeast. The lively, interactive two-hour conversation was led by a stellar panel composed of Glen Sarvady, Principal at 154 Advisors; Rodrigo Dantas, Principal at EY; Wayne Johnson, Partner at …

Taking on Financial Inclusion and Wellness

By Ali Raza, Blue Leviathan

FinTech Atlanta’s fifth “Run it by the Buyers” event focused on a particularly hot topic – Financial Inclusion and Wellness. As befitting such a top-of-mind issue, the session drew an even larger working group than usual to the offices of Atlantic Capital Bank in Buckhead.

Run it by the Buyers events, organized by FinTech Atlanta’s Fund & Innovate workgroup, convene large Georgia-based corporations and early/mid-stage fintech companies around a particular industry theme. The stated intent is to focus on key industry issues, opportunities, and challenges, with the goal of fostering commercial collaboration between large corporations (“Buyers”) and promising young …

Cardholder Experience in the Wake of Apple Card

By Chip Harden, Ondot Systems

Well, Apple has done it again. In true Apple fashion, the Cupertino firm has not necessarily invented anything new so much as redefined the standard in a space that we are all acutely familiar with – credit cards. Through their dedication to minimalism and an entirely mobile end to end process they seem to have completely altered consumer expectations as to what the credit card experience should be. And I think we can all expect an increasing demand for this type of experience as a result.

The ability to apply for a card in-app and be approved in minutes …

Have Your Initial Blockchain Projects Yielded Positive Results?

By Don Campbell, RightCourse

According to Gartner Group, blockchain technology has entered the “Trough of Disillusionment.” Kind of sounds bad doesn’t it? Just as we’re getting our minds around how blockchain can be used for other business applications than cryptocurrency, the technology hits the trough.

Gartner’s Hype Cycle defines the Trough of Disillusionment as the point at which “interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.”

The Trough of Disillusionment is not nearly as bad as it …

Primed for FinTech Success in a Post-Amazon World

By Chuck Meyers, Ondot Systems

TAG’s Fintech Society recently hosted a Lunch & Learn event featuring a panel titled “Financial Services in a Post-Amazon World,” focusing on the impact disruptors like Amazon have had on financial services and changed user expectations over the past 15 years.

The session was held at the Perimeter location of ROAM’s co-working space; the panel was moderated by Terry Ammons, partner at accounting and advisory firm Porter Keadle Moore. He was joined onstage by Robert Skiba, executive vice president at prepaid retail card leader InComm, Matt Reiner, co-founder and CEO of digital financial advisor assistant Wela, and JR Llewellyn, …

Exploring FinTech Collaboration between Atlanta and China

By Henry Yu, ChinaPlus Capital Ltd.

Nearly every FinTech conversation eventually reaches a sidebar on China’s role in the ecosystem, given the prominence of unicorns like Alipay and Tencent. Most of the focus to date has been on the prospect of these players entering the US market, but the FinTech space in China itself is huge- over $31 trillion annually for credit cards and other third party payment processing. US and European companies have not yet tapped into China’s domestic electronic payment market.

“FinTech Power Houses: Where Atlanta and China’s Greater Bay Area Meet,” a forum jointly hosted by the Hong Kong Association of Atlanta …

Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency – Initial thoughts on an exciting new chapter

By Tommy Marshall, Georgia Fintech Academy

Everyone I have spoken with this week is buzzing about Libra. My parents are in Dublin, Ireland on a college-sponsored trip and I received a text from my Mom on Wednesday asking what I thought about Libra! Clearly there’s hope for payments experts like me that our families may yet figure out what we do for a living.

If you are just coming up to speed on the news – like the rest of us, since details remain fairly scarce – here are a few basics.

Point 1: Libra is the name of Facebook’s planned digital currency. Designed …

Global Payments/TSYS Deal Completes FinTech Trifecta

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

They say big events happen in threes. If that’s the case, are we due for a breather?

Global Payments’ $21.5 billion acquisition of TSYS announced last week marked the payments space’s third major consolidation in the in the first half of 2019. In January Fiserv upended the status quo with its similarly sized acquisition of First Data. FIS followed suit in March with an even larger transaction, absorbing Worldpay. All three deals are subject to regulatory approval, and are targeting closure later this calendar year.

Both Global Payments and TSYS are headquartered in Georgia, as is First Data. …

HOPE Global Forum- Now with FinTech Inside!

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

(spoiler: read to the bottom for a discount code)

We’re nearing the end of a busy conference season, but a unique and quite special late May event remains on the docket- especially for those in the Atlanta area. I attended (and spoke at) my first HOPE Global Forum last spring, and it delivered the most remarkable blend of content, star power and inspiration I have ever experienced. The 2019 edition, May 29-31 in downtown Atlanta, is poised to up the ante on all three dimensions.

Operation HOPE’s stated mission is to advance financial dignity and inclusion by equipping …

Top Takeaways from FinTech South

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

If you’re one of the 1,500 professionals who attended FinTech South at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta last week, like me you’re probably still absorbing the wealth of insights delivered across an action-packed 24 hours.

Leafing through my notebook, here are some of my favorite nuggets captured on Tuesday. Bear in mind this list reflects only items I heard personally- with four content tracks I was able to attend only a sliver of the breakout sessions. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments field below.

(By the way, you can also hear my coverage of FinTechSouth, …

Second/Third/Fourth Acts – Chip Mahan To Receive TAG FinTech’s Lifetime Achievement Award

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

It’s notoriously difficult to find a consensus definition for FinTech. Broadly speaking, however, it involves the application of technology to address financial services challenges.

Based on this criterion, few people have demonstrated as much repeated FinTech success as Chip Mahan. It’s therefore fitting that Mahan will receive TAG FinTech’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award. He we be honored during a lunchtime presentation at FinTech South at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Tuesday, April 23.

Mahan is the Chairman and CEO of Live Oak Bank, one of the nation’s leading small business lenders, with a stated mission of providing customers an unprecedented …

Where Has All the Data Gone?

By Don Campbell, RightCourse

In today’s financial services organizations, 90 percent of the data stored is never accessed. That’s a lot of data gone missing that could offer unique insight into how to improve operational performance and generate new revenues.

Many financial services organizations do not possess the foundational technologies needed to analyze data properly. Here is a short list of weaknesses that plague many organizations:

• Core computing infrastructure
• Network and data security
• Management commitment to be data centric
• Qualified data scientists
• Corporate-wide analytical software

Those who follow Gartner’s Hype Cycles (how a technology or application will evolve over time) know that …

A View from the Mentor’s Chair – TAG Fintech’s Innovation Challenge

By Rachel Halper, Porter Keadle Moore

The Technology Association of Georgia’s (TAG’s) 2019 Fintech Innovation Challenge is in full stride. The month-long competition showcases some of Georgia’s newest companies and innovators in the FinTech space, offering the resources and opportunity to grow these startups into larger businesses.

Atlanta-based Porter Keadle Moore (PKM), an accounting and advisory firm, has been involved with the program since its inception, with several team members serving as mentors to companies selected to participate. These mentors work behind the scenes, lending their advice and expertise as well as guiding the companies through the process leading up to the Pitch Night competition …

Want to Vet a Business Idea? Why Not Run It By the Buyers?

By Ali Raza, Blue Leviathan

Run it by the Buyers (RIBTB) events, organized by FinTech Atlanta, convene large Georgia-based corporations and early / mid-stage fintech companies around a particular industry theme. The stated intent is to focus on key industry issues, opportunities, and challenges, with the goal of fostering commercial collaboration between large corporations (Buyers) and promising young fintech companies building innovative new products, solutions, and services (Sellers).

The events are designed to support a key tenet of FinTech Atlanta’s Fund & Innovate Work Group, which is to establish and sustain the ‘Entrepreneurial Virtuous Cycle’ that helps innovators align Product-Market-fit more efficiently and …

Fifty Thousand Reasons to Innovate in Georgia

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

This week marks the kickoff of the Technology Association of Georgia’s fifth annual Fintech South Innovation Challenge. The winner will walk away with a non-dilutive $50,000 cash prize – if there’s a bigger award being offered in any similar US competition, we’re unaware of it. Perhaps more importantly, the winner – as well as other standout participants – will benefit from significant exposure to key players across the spectrum of Georgia’s thriving fintech ecosystem and admission into the prestigious fintech catalyst ‘Accelerate’ program at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC).

The four-week program includes a crash course in …

Georgia’s Emerging Blockchain Beachhead

By Tommy Marshall, Georgia Fintech Academy

The first-ever study of Atlanta’s blockchain ecosystem was released at the Technology Association of Georgia’s annual TAG Summit event in mid-February. The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) and Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business collaborated on the Blockchain Ecosystem Flash Report, authored by myself (on behalf of TAG) and Nishant Dass, Associate Professor of Finance at Scheller and Founder of The Blockchain Roundtable.

Ten years have passed since the launch of Bitcoin, which is the highest profile (and in the eyes of many, the most advanced) use case to date of blockchain technology. The Atlanta area company Bitpay …

Calling All Georgia Innovators- The FinTech South Innovation Challenge Wants You!

By Tommy Marshall, Georgia Fintech Academy

Applications are now open for the 2019 FinTech South Innovation Challenge. Now in its fifth year, this four-week event offers the largest prize among US FinTech startup competitions – $50,000 in cash – and at least as importantly, a pathway to massive exposure across Georgia’s leading FinTech ecosystem and beyond.

The program consists of three weekly sessions providing expert instruction from nationally recognized industry experts on critical startup skill sets such as fundraising, public relations and regulatory compliance. For example, Sean Banks – partner at TTV Capital, a leading Atlanta venture capital firm – will lead the session on …

2018 P20 Conference Showcased Atlanta’s International Payments Leadership

By H. West Richards, American Transaction Processors Coalition (ATPC)

As we close out the 2018 calendar year, I look back on all the successes in the FinTech and payments community here in Atlanta, and beyond, as part of Georgia’s “Transaction Alley.” We are truly seeing collaboration between companies, industry partners, and the public sector that is unprecedented and moving the needle – with more to come in the future!

But reminiscing, I can’t help but think how 2018 was a milestone as Atlanta hosted its first P20 conference in October. The second annual event (the first was in London October 2017), the P20 brought together an international audience …

Shining a Light on Transaction Alley

By Glen Sarvady, 154 Advisors

125 and counting.

That’s how many Georgia FinTech companies we’ve identified competing in a thriving and highly attractive marketplace.   These players range from multi-billion, multi-national public entities (First Data, NCR) to fast-growing firms that have recently gone public (Cardlytics, EVO Payments), industry powerhouses headquartered elsewhere with significant local presence leveraging Georgia’s robust FinTech labor force (Fiserv, FIS) to companies that chose to relocate to capitalize on our dynamic ecosystem (Featurespace, FattMerchant) – and more than a few startups that are already earning national accolades (Vital4, GroundFloor, Softgiving).

It’s in this latter category where some scrappy young players have …