AI & Finance™ | News for the Week Ending 1/10/25

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has acquired a digital twin technology platform for banks developed by Percipient, a Singapore-based fintech company with deep experience in banking technology transformation. The acquisition enhances Accenture’s existing banking modernization capabilities, helping financial services clients in Asia Pacific accelerate the reinvention of their core systems, foster innovation and drive growth. 

Percipient’s platform serves as a digital twin—or virtual duplicate—of banks’ legacy and modern systems, integrating and unifying the data from each one into a single-real time hub. This can reduce the challenges that many banks face around core modernizations by simplifying the application of data and enabling faster development of new products and services, all without overhauling existing systems or disrupting operations. 

Integrating Percipient’s digital twin solution further complements Accenture’s capabilities to help banks decouple from legacy systems and embrace cloud and AI-led banking services. Banks that shift to a modern, cloud-enabled digital core can attain up to 60% higher revenue growth rates and a 40% increase in profits, according to recent research from Accenture. 

BlueRock Horizon Asset Management, led by founder Marcus Erikson, has launched a new AI-powered investment strategy designed to unlock superior alpha for clients. This innovative strategy integrates artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and big data analytics to enhance market predictions, optimize portfolio management, and identify high-growth opportunities, positioning BlueRock Horizon as a leader in the global investment management industry. 

The new strategy leverages AI and big data to process vast amounts of market data in real time, allowing BlueRock Horizon to uncover trends and predict market movements with precision. By analyzing economic indicators, market sentiment, and historical data, the firm’s AI models can identify lucrative opportunities faster than traditional methods. 

The AI models continuously evolve by learning from new data, ensuring the investment strategies stay adaptive to changing market conditions and providing BlueRock Horizon a competitive edge. 

Today, Brooklyn Artificial Intelligence Research (“Brooklyn”) announced the closing of a strategic funding round led by Atypical Ventures, with participation from S&P Global Ventures, the CEO of the Hantz Group, and asset and wealth management executives. 

Brooklyn’s innovative multi-asset direct indexing platform enables asset managers and independent RIAs to scale personalization and tax management across equities and fixed income within a single custodian account. The platform is delivered either as a white-label technology solution or as a subadvisory service through Brooklyn Investment Group, LLC, a registered investment adviser. 

In September this year, Brooklyn Investment Group and S&P Dow Jones Indices (“S&P DJI”), a division of S&P Global, announced the launch of MyIndex, a customizable version of S&P DJI’s market-leading indices offering, on Brooklyn’s managed accounts platform. 

Catalyst Global Financial Group (Cayman) Ltd. (“Catalyst” or the “firm”), an innovative international financial services and technology firm, announces a significant growth investment from Aquiline, a private investment specialist with $11.3 billion of assets under management that invests across financial services and technology. 

Catalyst is a financial services firm, offering fund administration, corporate services and client accounting services with an innovative approach that is leveraging state-of-the-art technology to disrupt the financial services landscape and elevate the client experience. Catalyst’s solutions employ sophisticated robotic process automation, artificial intelligence and client-facing applications to streamline operations, increase efficiency and deliver robust and dynamic reporting solutions for clients with a variety of onshore and offshore financial structures. By combining this technological mindset with a high-degree of client relationship management, Catalyst has positioned itself as a new breed of service provider – a technologically advanced and jurisdictionally focused partner. 

Catalyst was founded in 2021 by a small team that shared a common vision of what “good” looks like in the modern age. Catalyst was also driven by a shared passion for working in a healthy, people-first culture.  With a combined 50 years of experience working for top-tier financial services institutions, the team shared a commitment to revolutionizing the industry by thinking outside the box and adopting a non-conventional approach to the way things are done. At present, the firm has grown to support a portfolio of more than 700 entities registered in the U.S., the Cayman Islands and Bahamas, with a combined AUA of over $13BN and annual revenues exceeding $14MM. 

CCC Intelligent Solutions Inc. (“CCC”), a leading cloud platform provider powering the P&C insurance economy and a subsidiary of CCC Intelligent Solutions Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CCCS) (“CCCS”), announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire EvolutionIQ, Inc. (“EvolutionIQ”), the leading platform for AI-powered guidance for disability and injury claims management. The acquisition expands CCC’s market reach into strategic adjacencies and strengthens its industry leading AI-powered SaaS platform through the addition of transformative AI capabilities that will work to revolutionize how insurance claims are resolved. 

CCC is an industry AI leader with more than 100 insurers and thousands of collision repairers leveraging its computer vision, natural language processing, and other AI solutions in processing tens of millions of auto claims and repairs. CCC also provides a comprehensive suite of SaaS solutions for managing auto casualty claims, with tens of billions of dollars in injury claims processed each year on the CCC platform. 

EvolutionIQ has pioneered and operationalized the use of AI-powered claims guidance and intelligent summarization, including Next Best Action recommendations, to drive claims excellence within disability and workers’ compensation carriers. Its market-leading platform, which deciphers complexity and delivers actionable insights to claims professionals, uniquely combines industrial-AI with a proven and scalable SaaS business model. Since its founding in 2019, EvolutionIQ has been delivering a significant, measurable impact on claims performance to many of the largest insurers in the U.S., while helping insurers get hundreds of thousands of injured Americans back to work and their productive lives. 

Fazeshift, an AI agent for Accounts Receivable, raised $4M in seed funding led by Gradient, Google’s early-stage AI fund. The round also included investment from Y Combinator, Wayfinder, Pioneer Fund, Ritual Capital, Phoenix Fund, and prominent angels including Terrence Rohan, Kulveer Taggar, and Rich Aberman. 

Enterprises waste over $200 billion annually managing accounts receivable (AR), bogged down by manual tasks like reconciling payments, generating invoices, and chasing overdue accounts. Fazeshift streamlines this process by automating everything from invoice creation to payment reconciliation, freeing teams from hours of manual work. 

Unlike traditional robotic process automation (RPA), which struggles to understand the nuances of AR, Fazeshift’s LLM-powered approach handles complex workflows with ease. Fazeshift’s use of highly specialized LLM prompts tuned to each specific task, allows it to achieve the accuracy and flexibility required for enterprise-grade operations. 

Financial Narrative, the world’s largest organization of financial marketing and communications leaders, today unveiled the first annual “Financial Narrative Recommends,” a carefully curated list of best-in-class tools and partner resources compiled by top leaders in the financial marcomms industry. 

Curated by top experts from the Financial Narrative community, the inaugural list highlights standout tools and partner resources across eight key categories, including webinar and virtual event platforms and AI productivity tools. Developed to help financial marketers and communicators navigate an increasingly complex landscape, the list simplifies decision-making by spotlighting trusted resources vetted by industry leaders. From cutting-edge AI technology to innovative project management software, to CRM systems, the recommendations reflect and meet the evolving challenges and unique needs of the financial services industry. 

Gradient AI, a leading enterprise software provider of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in the insurance industry, today announced that Evolution Risk Partners has successfully adopted Gradient AI’s SAIL™ underwriting solution to drive more accurate and informed decision-making for its customers in the self-funded space. SAIL enables Evolution Risk Partners to refine risk assessment, leading to more precise pricing and improved financial results. 

Evolution Risk Partners, a Managing General Underwriter, partners with employers and brokers to provide customizable and innovative medical stop-loss solutions for self-funded medical programs. 

Driven by advanced machine learning algorithms and a rich dataset encompassing medical, prescription, and lab data, Gradient AI’s SAIL provides deeper insights into risk. This allows Evolution Risk Partners to address the complex challenges of clients, particularly those that are fully insured or undergoing mergers and acquisitions, where data is often limited. 

The Hartford appointed Annette Rippert to the company’s board of directors, effective Feb. 18, 2025. She will serve on the board’s Finance, Investment and Risk Management Committee. 

Rippert retired as CEO of the Strategy and Consulting group at Accenture, where she transformed the $15 billion portfolio of advisory services by accelerating the use of technology, data and artificial intelligence to drive new and differentiated growth. Rippert led numerous strategic acquisitions to expand Accenture’s advisory services while successfully driving reskilling and other human-capital-management strategies critical to the success of Accenture’s growth agenda. Rippert spent her career with Accenture in roles of increasing responsibility, including leading the North America Technology business, the company’s largest market, and serving as the Technology and Innovation Lead for Accenture Federal Services, overseeing growth initiatives in digital, cloud and emerging technologies. 

Rippert earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science and a master’s degree in management, both from Northwestern University. She currently serves on the Northwestern University Board of Trustees, reflecting her ongoing commitment to education and leadership development. 

Insurance Software Automation (ISA) is proud to announce that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted Patent Number: 12175539 to ISA for its pioneering invention, “Systems and Methods for Processing Plans Having Data and Conditions Applicable to a Population.” 

This patent cements ISA’s position as the sole holder of a self-disclosure-based prequalification system for insurance, protecting the core technology behind its flagship product, Best Plan Pro. 

The patent also establishes ISA’s dominance in the life and health insurance industry, protecting a system that revolutionizes prequalification by automating eligibility checks based solely on user-disclosed data. Best Plan Pro’s technology allows agents to instantly evaluate insurance plans by analyzing customer-provided medical data in real-time, without requiring third-party data verifications or cumbersome manual processes. 

Interactive Brokers (Nasdaq: IBKR), an automated global electronic broker, has introduced significant enhancements to its web-based Advisor Portal, bringing advanced trading and portfolio management tools to financial advisors worldwide. These updates streamline client account management and trading by integrating powerful features from the company’s flagship desktop platform into its web-based offering. 

The latest enhancements include tools like Portfolio View, Allocation, Rebalance, and Tax Loss Harvesting, all designed to help advisors optimize client portfolios efficiently. Additionally, US-based advisors can now access the AI Commentary Generator, a cutting-edge generative AI tool that simplifies the creation of custom portfolio performance reports and market commentary. 

US-based financial advisors can easily create custom portfolio performance reports and market commentary using the AI Commentary Generator, a new generative AI-enabled tool available through the Advisor Portal. The AI Commentary Generator is integrated with PortfolioAnalyst reporting and is designed to help – not replace – advisors with client portfolio performance reporting, market updates and ticker-specific news. 

Kasisto, the leading generative conversational AI platform for the financial services industry, announces the appointment of Joshua Schechter as Chief Product & Innovation Officer. Schechter’s expertise in agentic AI and his proven track record of delivering transformative, humanlike solutions position Kasisto to further its leadership in reliable AI innovation and redefine the future of conversational banking. 

As the financial services sector faces increasing complexity, Kasisto remains steadfast in its mission to set the standard for AI reliability, trust, and compliance. Schechter brings over 15 years of experience in generative AI, multi-agent platforms, and conversational AI—capabilities that align perfectly with Kasisto’s mission to deliver unparalleled AI solutions tailored to the exacting needs of Tier 1 and regional banks worldwide. His leadership will enable Kasisto to advance its focus on agentic AI, creating intelligent, proactive, and scalable customer experiences that address the uncompromising demands of modern banking. 

Schechter’s appointment underscores Kasisto’s commitment to delivering AI solutions that eliminate hallucinations, adhere to stringent governance standards, and redefine what is possible in conversational banking. By advancing agentic AI capabilities, Schechter will play a critical role in ensuring Kasisto continues to lead the market with solutions that are both transformative and trustworthy. 

Leap Financial today announced a $3.5 million seed raise led by Fuel Venture Capital, with investment in the Miami-based fintech startup coming from Ascendo Venture Capital. Leap provides a seamless service that allows financial and non-financial institutions to participate in cross-border money flows, eliminating inefficiencies and helping immigrants send money home. Leap specializes in embedded remittances and embedded payments, offering AI-enhanced engagement, efficient cross-border transactions, and integrated end-to-end payment solutions. 

Leap Financial combines its proprietary X-Border Payments Platform with a Native AI super agent (Lola) and its existing embedded financial banking and payment services infrastructure. Leap is the leading contender in embedded digital remittances, transforming how traditional cross-border transfers work to remove cash from the equation and leverage more secure, compliant and cost-effective digital remittances. While traditional money transmitters average 6-10% on the total cost of remittance, Leap provides remittances under 1% of the cost, leaving the difference for partners to decide the price. 

The capital raised will help Leap respond to the growing demand and new customers generated by its strategic partnership with Mastercard and additional business development activity. Leap will also use new resources to acquire talent to boost its AI component, making it easy for any financial or nonfinancial services organization to employ AI agents to provide personalized services. 

Masttro, the leading wealth tech provider to wealth owners and the industries that serve them, today announced the appointment of Jay McNamara as Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Padman Perumal will remain involved in the company as a board advisor, supporting various strategic growth initiatives. 

With over 25 years of experience in financial services, McNamara is a proven leader with a track record of driving strategic growth, operational excellence, and innovation. Before joining Masttro, McNamara was a member the Executive Committee at MSCI Inc., (NYSE: MSCI) where he led business, product, and commercial strategies for its Private Capital Solutions product line. His extensive leadership experience also includes roles as Head of Real Estate, Head of Americas Client Coverage, and Global Head of Asset Owners and Investment Consultant coverage. 

As President of Burgiss between 2020 and 2023, McNamara drove the company’s expansion to over 1,000 clients across 40 countries, culminating in its acquisition by MSCI in 2023. His experience in scaling global businesses and delivering client-focused innovation positions Masttro to build on its success and accelerate its mission to redefine wealth management. 

McAfee, a global online protection leader, today announced at CES the launch of AI-powered McAfee Scam Detector — the most comprehensive protection against text, email, and video scams. Today’s scams are smarter, sneakier, and more convincing than ever — and they’re everywhere. 59% of Americans say they or someone they know has fallen for an online scam in the last 12 months, with scam victims losing an average of $1,471. 

The rise of deepfakes and ease of access to the AI tools to create them further complicates things. A McAfee Labs study of 17 different deepfake creation tools shows that for just $5 and in 10 minutes — the price of a latte and in less time than it takes to drink it — a scammer can create realistic-looking deepfake video or AI voice scams. 

That’s where McAfee Scam Detector comes in, giving control back to consumers and stopping scammers in their tracks with proactive, real-time protection against suspicious texts, fake emails, and deepfake videos that look incredibly real — all cleverly designed by scammers to steal people’s money and personal information. 

NICE Actimize, a NICE (NASDAQ: NICE) business, today announced the release of the jointly-produced “Guide to Investigating Human Trafficking in Financial Crime” designed to help financial institutions (FIs) and money services businesses appropriately investigate customers and accounts suspected of involvement in human trafficking. The guide is available exclusively for members of The Knoble Network, an alliance of financial service professionals, law enforcement, regulators, and NGOs joining forces to lead and innovate more effective ways to fight human crime. 

The guide provides insights on how to properly detect, investigate and respond to unusual activities detected by frontline employees or by systematic identification. This guide includes red flags, case examples, and practical response steps. 

The Knoble has released The Guide in recognition of January’s Human Trafficking Prevention Month, a time to reflect on the resilience of trafficking survivors and recognize the efforts of those who work tirelessly to prevent and eliminate this inhumane and devastating form of abuse and exploitation. 

Outamation, a pioneer in automation and digital transformation that reimagines workflows to deliver impactful business outcomes, today announced the launch of Outamate Mods™, a modular platform designed to revolutionize loan modifications and beyond. Currently tailored for the mortgage industry, Outamate Mods is poised to redefine how businesses approach compliance, efficiency, and client experience. 

Outamate Mods simplifies the traditionally cumbersome loan modification process, from decision-making to document generation, fulfillment, and recording. With practical, compliant AI at its core, the platform delivers unmatched efficiency, significantly reducing modification timelines. Whether clients adopt the complete solution or select individual modules, Outamate Mods mitigates risk and ensures compliance to enhance operational precision. 

Outamate Mods currently addresses mortgage modifications and is applicable to other industries where high-volume, complex, and compliant financial restructuring is necessary. The platform’s modular design and seamless integration capabilities ensure businesses across sectors can optimize their workflows and deliver exceptional outcomes utilizing Outamation’s hosted environments or the client’s on-prem/cloud environment. 

Pagaya Technologies Ltd. (“Pagaya”) (NASDAQ: PGY), a global technology company delivering artificial intelligence infrastructure for the financial ecosystem, announced today the appointment of two new independent directors to the Company’s Board of Directors – Asheet Mehta and Alison Davis. 

Mr. Mehta brings more than 30 years of financial services and banking experience, having most recently served as Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he led the Financial Services Practice in the Americas and co-led it globally. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees at the Asia Society and was previously on the Board of Partnership with Children. He is also an Advisor for MoneySatNav and CreditEnable. Mr. Mehta has tremendous experience in financial services, having served clients which include fintech, credit card companies, universal banks and retail banks, insurance, as well as wealth and asset managers. 

With more than 30 years of experience, Ms. Davis currently serves as Chairman and Managing Partner of Blockchain Coinvestors, the leading blockchain venture fund with over 80 blockchain unicorns. Previously, she served as CFO of Barclays Global Investors (now Blackrock). She currently serves on the Board of Kraken and as a board advisor for Bitwise. She has previously served on the boards of Silicon Valley Bank, Fiserv, First Data Corporation, Pacaso, City National Bank, NatWest and several others. Davis also serves as Chairman of Renaissance, which helps thousands of low income clients start and grow businesses, and on the boards of NACD Northern California and Cambridge in America. 

Paychex, Inc. (Nasdaq: PAYX) (“Paychex”), an industry-leading human capital management (HCM) company delivering a full suite of technology and advisory solutions in human resources, employee benefit solutions, insurance, and payroll today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Paycor HCM, Inc. (Nasdaq: PYCR) (“Paycor”), a leading provider of HCM, payroll and talent software in an all-cash transaction for $22.50 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $4.1 billion. The definitive agreement has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies. 

Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Paycor has approximately 2,900 employees, serves over 49,000 clients, and supports approximately 2.7 million employees across the United States. Paycor’s leading HCM, payroll, and talent platform was designed to serve organizations of all sizes, from ten to thousands of employees. Paycor has expanded its upmarket position since becoming a public company in 2021 by consistently investing in data, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies. 

Procurify, the leading AI-powered platform for procurement, accounts payable (AP), expense, and payment solutions for mid-market organizations, today announced the appointment of Chad Gaydos as its new Chief Executive Officer. Gaydos, a SaaS industry veteran with a proven track record of scaling global organizations and delivering exceptional customer value, succeeds Procurify’s co-founder Aman Mann, who will transition to the role of Chief Strategy Officer. 

With three decades of experience driving SaaS growth, operational excellence, and customer-focused innovation, Chad Gaydos has held pivotal leadership roles across industry-leading organizations. Most recently, he served as President of Total Expert, a market-leading CRM for financial services organizations, where he enhanced business operations and expanded the company’s leadership in customer engagement. At Talkdesk, a global SaaS leader in contact center solutions, Gaydos served as Chief Operating Officer, where he built a high-performing executive team and was instrumental in driving disruptive growth, culminating in a Series D funding round that raised $230 million and elevated the company’s valuation to over $10 billion. At Skillsoft, a global leader in corporate digital learning, he held dual roles as Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Operating Officer, leading go-to-market functions across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, driving significant global revenue growth. Prior to that, Gaydos spent 18 years at SAP, where he served as COO of SAP’s Regulated Industries business, leading strategy, operations, and customer relationships across aerospace and defense, federal, state, and local government, utilities, and healthcare sectors in the United States. 

As CEO, Gaydos will prioritize advancing Procurify’s mission by optimizing operations, deepening customer engagement, and fostering innovation across go-to-market strategies. His leadership comes at a pivotal moment as Procurify continues to redefine the procurement, expense, and payment landscape with AI-powered innovation. 

Ryze Labs, a leading investor in top-tier Web3 projects, today announced the first cohort of its AI Combinator program, welcoming Eliza, GNON, and Bitte as the inaugural participants. Additionally, two new advisors and four partners were onboarded to provide support to portfolio companies building through the program. 

Spearheaded by Ryze Labs, the AI Combinator aims to foster innovation at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto. In addition to funding, each project in the program receives mentorship and access to a robust network to aid developers in building transformative technologies that will define the future of web3. 

Bitte is one of the first projects to execute commands between different blockchains using AI, Bitte has launched an onchain agent market that allows users to build or fork AI agents. Using Chain Abstraction (Universal Accounts) + Natural Language, users can mint, generate images, deploy NFT contracts and make DeFi transactions for any dapp simply and easily by leveraging agents. 

S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI) today announced that it has acquired ProntoNLP, a leading provider of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tooling, allowing users to derive differentiated insights from unstructured and structured data. ProntoNLP’s proprietary models and LLM-based signal tools will bolster S&P Global’s textual data analytics capabilities.  

Founded in 2021, ProntoNLP utilizes proprietary natural language processing (NLP) capabilities coupled with large language models (LLMs) for fast, efficient and deep analysis of unstructured financial data at scale. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the company offers a set of customizable solutions for event detection and sentiment scoring. ProntoNLP will be integrated within the S&P Global Market Intelligence division of S&P Global, and its intellectual property is expected to power broader enterprise-wide applications.   

The transaction closed on December 31, 2024. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.   

Taxfyle, the internet’s accounting workforce, proudly announces the continued development of its innovative artificial intelligence initiatives. Taxfyle’s new AI customer assistant, Luis, is set to launch on Jan. 31. 

Luis can make the tax filing process easier by quickly answering questions about required documents and other topics that could speed up tax filing and potential tax refunds before the Tax Pro gets to work. This feature then reduces Pros’ time gathering what’s required before they file the customer’s taxes. 

Once users have successfully started their jobs, they can chat with Luis. Luis serves as a bridge during the customer journey to make their experience easier and quicker. Users retain the flexibility to opt out of interacting with Luis and speak directly with a customer support representative or Tax Professional. When it comes to preparing and filing tax returns, the work will still be completed by one of the accountants using the Taxfyle platform. 

Visa (NYSE: V) today announced it has completed its acquisition of Featurespace, a developer of real-time artificial intelligence (AI) payments protection technology that prevents and mitigates payments fraud and financial crime risks. This will bolster Visa’s fraud protection capabilities and enhance security for its customers and consumers worldwide. 

Visa will add Featurespace’s capabilities into its range of fraud prevention and risk-scoring offerings. By combining the two companies’ highly complementary products and tools, customers will have access to enhanced fraud protection services to help keep their businesses safe and secure, including real-time detection of sophisticated fraud attacks, without adding friction to the user experience. 

Over the coming months, Featurespace’s product portfolio will be incorporated into Visa’s existing offering, expanding the available range of fraud prevention solutions and use cases. The Featurespace and Visa teams will bring together their knowledge, modelling methodologies and tools to further enhance the joint offering. 

WaveCX, provider of personalized, digital product engagement solutions for financial institutions, has launched a new documentation site, powered by its AI-driven generative search tool Curator, along with a comprehensive 3X platform release, setting new standards for how financial institutions can manage, educate and engage with customers and employees. 

WaveCX’s new documentation site taps the AI-driven power of Curator, positioning FIs to manage complex digital solutions with ease. Going beyond basic search functionality, Curator delivers a robust search solution capable of navigating extensive content libraries while powering an educational experience for FIs’ customers and employees.