Santander InnoVentures Invests in Digital Identify Verification

New York-based provider of real-time digital identity verification solutions becomes Santander InnoVentures’ ninth portfolio investment

Press Release

London/Madrid – 22 Jun 2016 – Today at MoneyConf in Madrid, Santander InnoVentures, the fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, announced its strategic investment in Socure – an industry leader focused on real-time digital identity verification solutions.

Socure utilises trusted data from the digital footprint of consumers, including social media, to accurately and efficiently confirm the identity of consumers in real-time. Socure is primarily used within financial institutions for activities such as the opening of new bank accounts or the issuing of credit/debit cards. The technology has further applications across fraud prevention and compliance, ensuring firms meet requirements of directives such as anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. Current Socure customers include firms such as Kabbage and StashInvest, and partners such as Feedzai.

Mariano Belinky, Managing Partner at Santander InnoVentures, said: “Identity verification is a crucial step in any banking process and is an issue challenging many consumer-facing businesses – there’s a huge opportunity for innovation in this space, in line with the evolution of digital identity and the issues around it, and we believe Socure are at the forefront of it.”

Belinky continued: “Socure also has enormous potential for tackling the issue of financial inclusion in emerging markets, where citizens may be excluded from the banking system simply because they lack traditional credit records used for identity verification. In this situation, the Socure ID+ technology goes beyond conventional identity verification methods, opening new possibilities in untapped markets and segments. More broadly, Socure offers us the opportunity to better understand our customers, and better predict their needs.”

Sunil Madhu, Founder and CEO of Socure said: “With this latest funding announcement, we’re extremely excited to continue our work in tackling the issues associated with identity fraud, while continuing to improve access to the financial system for the un-banked and under-banked, whether in established economies or emerging markets. With the track record and the global capability of Grupo Santander behind them, we felt Mariano and the team were a perfect fit as a VC partner that can help us grow globally.”

Meanwhile, the senior executive vice president of Strategy at Grupo Santander, Víctor Matarranz, explained today that the bank is accelerating its digital transformation through partnerships with technology companies that are global pioneers in several financial solutions that contribute to the progress of people and companies, and make their lives easier.

Matarranz, who participated today in the MoneyConf financial technology conference held in Madrid, highlighted the advantages of combining the disruptive mentality of fintech companies with the international reach of banks such as Santander, which has more than 120 million customers in Europe and America, a robust infrastructure, guaranteed deposits and extensive experience in risk and regulation. “We believe the flexibility of fintech companies, and experience and soundness of banks such as Santander form the perfect partnership, good for startups and good for banks like Santander, as it helps us accelerate our digital transformation,” said Matarranz in his keynote at MoneyConf, sponsored by Banco Santander.

This latest investment is Santander InnoVentures’ ninth since its creation in 2014 – other recent investments include digital wealth advisory platform SigFig, and blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic. For more information on previous Santander InnoVentures investments, and the strategic investment philosophy behind the fund, please visit santanderinnoventures.com

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About Santander InnoVentures:
Santander InnoVentures is a FinTech venture capital fund fully-owned by Grupo Santander. The fund is stage-agnostic and invests both capital and resources in companies globally. It focuses on start-ups that can increase the value proposition to Santander Customers across the Group’s 10 major geographies, while creating value for the companies it invests in.

The Fintech 2.0 Paper is a call to action for both banks and fintechs to consider the multi-billion dollar opportunities available through partnership.

Banco Santander is a leading retail and commercial bank, based in Spain, with a meaningful market share in 10 core countries in Europe and the Americas. Santander is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization and among the top banks on a global basis. Founded in 1857, Santander had EUR 1.51 trillion in managed funds, 13,000 branches and 194,000 employees at the close of 2015. In 2015, Santander made attributable profit of EUR 5,966 million, a 3% increase with respect to the previous year.

Media contact:

• Santander InnoVentures: Stephanie Lee, stephanie.lee@santander.co.uk, +447710057648