Finverse: Building the Plaid of Asia-Pacific | Open Banking

Finverse Aims to Expand Open Banking Across Asia-Pacific

Headquartered in Hong Kong, Finverse is dedicated to facilitating open banking throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The company recently emerged from stealth mode, securing $1.8 million in seed funding. Currently, Finverse operates in four markets – Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam – and has established connections with 30 banks.

Seed Funding and Investors

The seed funding round for Finverse saw participation from several key investors. These included Febe Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, SixThirty, Venturra, and a group of angel investors.

The Rise of Financial Data APIs

Finverse is part of a growing number of fintech companies developing APIs to streamline the sharing of financial data. Notable examples in other regions include Plaid in the United States, and Tink and Truelayer in Europe. Notably, Truelayer employees contributed angel investment to Finverse’s seed round.

Founder’s Background

Prior to founding Finverse in 2020, Stephane Lesaffre, the founder and CEO, served as a senior product manager for financial data integrations at NerdWallet. His experience included working with account aggregation APIs such as Plaid and Yodlee.

Lessons Learned from Plaid and Yodlee

Lesaffre observed that Plaid’s success in the U.S. market stemmed from its reliability and ease of use for developers. While Yodlee offered broader data coverage, Plaid excelled at providing a focused, high-quality dataset that was simple to integrate. He emphasizes that “bad data is really worse than no data,” a key takeaway from his time at NerdWallet.

Finverse’s Core Functionality

Finverse intends to replicate this success in the Asia-Pacific region by developing dependable APIs and data integrations. Essentially, the platform functions as a consent-based data pipeline. Consumers grant Finverse permission to connect to their accounts and share data with other fintech companies or financial institutions.

Data Shared Through Finverse

The data accessible through Finverse encompasses a range of financial information. This includes details regarding accounts, current balances, transaction histories, and bank statements. Financial institutions can leverage this data to assess a consumer’s financial standing, estimate income, conduct credit checks, and evaluate repayment capacity.

Early Adopters and Use Cases

Finverse’s initial clientele primarily consists of fintech startups. These include providers of SME lending solutions and “buy now, pay later” services.

The APIs offered by Finverse support diverse applications, but the majority of current interest centers around consumer and SME lending. Many clients are seeking to move away from manual document uploads towards a digitized credit decision process that can be completed in as little as one minute.

Future Expansion and Data Sources

Currently, Finverse focuses on consumers with traditional bank accounts and established credit histories. However, the company plans to integrate digital wallets, neobanks, and other non-traditional financial institutions in the future. This expansion will support emerging use cases like financial tracking as e-wallet and online banking adoption grows in Asia.

Benefits for Digital Banks

Lesaffre points out that smaller digital banks often find it beneficial to gain a comprehensive view of their customers’ financial activity. Many customers maintain primary accounts at larger, established banks. Allowing consumers to consolidate all their accounts in one place provides a more complete financial picture.

Additional Applications

Finverse’s APIs also facilitate cross-border payment verification, compliance procedures, and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes.

Competitive Landscape

Other open banking startups operating in Southeast Asia include Brankas and Finantier. Finverse differentiates itself by targeting the entire Asia-Pacific region, rather than concentrating on specific markets. The newly acquired funding will be allocated to expanding both the engineering and business development teams.