E-commerce giant Amazon and global payments provider Fiserv have teamed up to offer reward points for Amazon web and mobile app shoppers last month. 

The program allows Amazon customers to link debit and credit cards from 200 financial institutions to their Amazon accounts to collect and redeem points on Amazon, according to Fiserv. More financial institutions are set to join the program by yearend. 

“Eligible debit and credit cardholders can now redeem their uChoose Rewards points for purchases on Amazon.com and the Amazon mobile app,” Rajeev Yerukalapudi, vice president of product management at Fiserv, told Bank Automation News. “A broad array of redemption options is offered, including cashback, travel, merchandise, and gift cards.” 

Customers earn one point for each dollar spent on Amazon’s e-commerce store, Yerukalapudi said. 

According to a 2022 Fiserv research report, “71% of consumers who have multiple payment cards select the card they will use for a purchase based on the opportunity to accumulate rewards.”  

“Brands recognize the value of loyalty programs in deepening customer relationships, and demand for these programs is growing,” Yerukalapudi said.  

Academy Bank selects Treasury Prime for BaaS 

Academy Bank and Treasury Prime are joining forces to provide embedded finance services to the bank’s clients on July 31.  

The duo will provide BaaS to clients to help them scale their business operations, attract new fintech partnerships and increase deposits at Academy Bank, David Robinson, director of fintech partnerships at Academy Bank, told Bank Automation News. 

“We’re very much looking for deposit opportunities, and this will just open up doors for us that wouldn’t previously have been opened,” Robinson said.   

The $2.4 billion, Kansas City, Missouri-based Academy Bank selected Treasury Prime for its expertise and large client base, Robinson said. 

“There’s an ability to continue to operate our traditional business without impact and also tap into the expertise and capabilities of Treasury Prime to win on both fronts,” Robinson said. 

Academy Bank will join an existing ecosystem of Treasury Prime’s clients, like $557 million Piermont Bank, Jeff Nowicki, vice president of banking at Treasury Prime, told BAN. Kansas City is a “banking and BaaS innovation hub” and working with Academy Bank is exciting for Treasury Prime, he added. 

“We’re absolutely seeing increased demand [for BaaS],” Nowicki said. “The real opportunities that we are seeing are from companies that have already established businesses and user bases and they’re trying to [add] a checking account or debit card program or a savings product to an already invested and engaged user base.” 

Ant Financial sells 10% stake of Paytm to CEO 

China-headquartered Ant Financial has agreed to sell a 10.3% stake of Paytm, an Indian payments company, to Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, for $628 million, according to Paytms August security exchange filings. 

Ant Financial has been an investor in the company since 2015, according to the company’s release. When the deal is finalized, Ant will own 13.5% of Paytm while Sharma will own 19.42%, according to company’s security exchange filings. 

Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, having invested nearly $300 million in the company in 2018.  

WaterStone chooses nCino to upgrade tech stack 

Wisconsin-based WaterStone Bank selected digital cloud banking provider nCino to upgrade its technology stack and migrate the bank’s lending activities to the nCino cloud banking platform, according to an Aug. 3 release from nCino.

To streamline operations, improve customer experience and provide better data analytics, WaterStone is leveraging nCino’s end-to-end solution to create a single lending platform, according to the release 

“NCino offered a streamlined [loan origination solution] that could integrate with our core, cold storage, and doc prep systems,” Ryan Gordon, chief credit officer at WaterStone, told BAN. 

Moving to the cloud will help the $2.2 billion WaterStone Bank to create efficiencies with centralized loan files, integrate them into existing systems and share loan data across departments, Gordon said. 

Bank of Asia taps WorkFusion for AI-driven client onboarding experience 

Bank of Asia has selected WorkFusion, an AI-driven software service company, to provide a user-friendly, know-your-customer [KYC] onboarding process for clients. 

The British Virgin Islands-based bank aims to reduce labor-intensive activities such as negative news screening, repetitive touchpoints and onboarding time, Deon Vanterpool, vice president and director of Bank of Asia, told BAN. 

“Bank of Asia has always focused on leveraging technology to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of compliance in today’s ever-evolving market,” Vanterpool said. “At a point in time, the conversation was fintech. Now we have advanced to enhancing our compliance architecture with a component of AI.” 

New York-based WorkFusion Chief Executive Adam Famularo told BAN that the company’s technology will help Bank of Asia remain compliant and increase operational efficiency. The “digital worker” of WorkFusion can be 10 times more efficient than a person, Famularo said. 

“The great thing about our technology is that if you’re able to change these processes and adopt the technology, the opportunity for your business is tremendous,” Famularo said.

Visit Bank Automation News’ Transactions Database which lists the technology selected or acquired by companies in the financial services industry, with a specific focus on technology that enhances automation.