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NEW YORK — S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI) announced today that the Company has unveiled a new innovation space on the S&P Global Platform called Kensho Labs. In collaboration with Kensho Technologies LLC (“Kensho”), acquired by SPGI in April, select internal users and S&P Global Market Intelligence clients can now access a digital innovation lab for prototyping new product solutions.

Several initial offerings from Kensho Labs leverage S&P Global’s data combined with Kensho’s cutting-edge machine learning capabilities to create new insights for financial decision makers:

Credit Loss Model for Banks: The S&P Global Market Intelligence Risk Services team partnered with Kensho Labs to model credit risk-related scenarios using alternative data culled from internet search results. This model provides users with forward looking risk measures of credit losses at both the entity and the macro-level.
Commercial Real Estate Model: The S&P Global Market Intelligence Real Estate team partnered with Kensho Labs to model the risk exposure of real estate companies, both at the macro level and the individual property level. The model leverages data from Market Intelligence as well as a variety of alternative data to enable users to better understand the risk exposure of real estate companies.

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Flywire, a Boston-based fintech company that helps universities, hospitals and businesses accept foreign-currency payments, has raised $100 million in new funding. Temasek, a Singapore investment company with a $235 billion portfolio, led the Series D round. Bain Capital Ventures and Fidelity’s F-Prime Capital also contributed.

The 300-person company expects to reach annualized revenue of $100 million later this year, and it closed the new investment round at a significantly higher valuation than its 2015 level of about $100 million. The new valuation falls short of $1 billion, but Flywire declined to disclose further details.

Founded in 2009 by Spanish entrepreneur Iker Marcaide, Flywire (formerly called peerTransfer) started by solving a problem that international college students often faced. Let’s say a Chinese student attending Boston University needed to pay her $50,000 annual tuition. She’d have to pay in dollars and likely use a bank transfer wire, incurring exorbitant foreign-exchange-rate fees of 3% to 5%. And the transaction might not settle for up to 10 days.

Flywire built software that connects banks to universities. Now the Chinese student can pay her tuition in yuan and can use payment methods she’s familiar with, like Alipay or WeChat. Likewise, a U.S. student at a foreign school can use a Visa card or PayPal to pay tuition in dollars. “Flywire becomes the pay button,” CEO Mike Massaro says.

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DANBURY, Conn. — Ticker Tocker, a new integrated trading productivity platform to support both institutional and novice traders to quickly find, test, learn, share, and/or execute trades, announced today that it has signed an exclusive partnership with Tradier Brokerage, Inc. This partnership will allow all subscribers that link their Tradier accounts with Ticker Tocker to receive an unlimited amount of commission free equity trades for the duration of their active membership with the new Ticker Tocker platform.

Through this collaboration, Tradier clients will have no limitations on the number of equity shares that can be traded per trade and/or on the number of trades that can be placed per day, week, and/or month. The partnership benefits both new and existing clients of Tradier as long as they are active subscribers of Ticker Tocker with their accounts linked for trading through the platform.

Typically, the average commission per equity trade order through Tradier is $3.49. This new partnership with Ticker Tocker will allow Tradier clients to actively make equity trades without worrying about these out of pocket commission costs.

“You often hear of eye-catching deals to attract new customers, but at Tradier we believe that all customers, new and old, should be rewarded – and that is what our partnership with Ticker Tocker is all about,” said Dan Raju, Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO, Tradier Brokerage, Inc.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Unison Home Ownership Investors, the leading provider of home ownership investments, today announced its Series B raise of $40 million led by F-Prime Capital, joined by Citi Ventures and Royal Bank of Canada. As part of the funding round, David Jegen, partner at F-Prime Capital, will join Unison’s board of directors.

The investment underscores the growing consumer demand for alternative home financing solutions, as well as Unison’s success in modernizing residential real estate for consumers and institutional investors. Unison has two programs: HomeBuyer increases housing affordability and purchasing power for prospective home buyers by doubling to quadrupling their down payment, and HomeOwner allows existing home owners to easily unlock a portion of their home equity without borrowing. Both programs enable consumers to use the money provided by Unison for up to 30 years without interest or monthly payments.

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CHICAGO — Snapsheet, the industry-leading provider of virtual claims technology for the personal and commercial insurance marketplace, has been ranked #3 on the Crain’s Chicago Fast 50 List after five consecutive years of notable growth.

Snapsheet’s 4,000 percent revenue growth since 2013 places it as the third fastest growing company in Chicago. In addition, the tech company has expanded its workforce nearly 100 percent every year since 2013 and plans to add around 150 employees in 2018 alone. To accommodate this growth, Snapsheet relocated its headquarters to a 52,000-square-foot space at 1 N. Dearborn this past January.

“Our team has worked incredibly hard to build Snapsheet into the innovative company that it is today,” said founder and CEO, Brad Weisberg. “Being among the fastest growing companies in Chicago is a testament to our entire team’s devotion to creating a seamless claims process for carriers, insureds and claimants, and repairers.”

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BOSTON — Flywire and UnionPay International are providing Chinese students and patients with discounted foreign exchange rates on cross-border tuition and healthcare payments now through the end of 2018. The offer is available to international students and patients originating from China and attending any school or receiving care at any healthcare institution around the world that offers Flywire as a preferred method for international payments. Payers using a UnionPay credit card will get the same foreign exchange pricing as a bank transfer – the lowest cost card payment option available.

China is the number one source of international students studying around the world. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), over 800,000 Chinese students pursued education abroad in 2016. China is also a major source of international patients around the world. More than 500,000 Chinese patients traveled abroad for healthcare in 2016 according to Ctrip.com, a 5X increase from 2015. On average, each of these patients spent over 50,000 Chinese Yuan or approximately US $7,800.

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LONDON and BOSTON — Flywire chief people officer Kelly Hartman, will be part of a panel discussion on managing and inspiring the new workforce at the Future of Work Summit taking place this week at Workplace by Facebook in London. The event is part of London Tech Week, a festival of tech and innovation that will bring together 55,000 attendees at hundreds of different events across the city.

The Future of Work Summit, which happens on Thursday, 14 June, focuses on how companies can leverage technology and talent to accelerate collaboration, communication and success in the new workplace. The event will feature practical examples of how technology has transformed tech giants’ working environments for the next generation. It will also feature interactive, C-level debates about how the new workforce generation is driving a change of culture in organizations, emerging leadership requirements, and automation’s impact on the role of human resources.

Flywire serves businesses, educational institutions, and hospitals around the world and has established its platform as the preferred solution for global payments and receivables processing. Hartman owns responsibility for Flywire’s worldwide efforts in organisational development, culture change, talent acquisition, talent management, executive learning and development, compensation, and succession planning. She supports Flywire’s business across the globe, from Europe and beyond including North America as well as the Asia-Pacific region.

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BOSTON, May 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — EY has selected Mike Massaro, CEO of global payment and receivables solutions provider Flywire, as a finalist for the Entrepreneur of The Year 2018 Award in the New England program. The finalists were announced on May 23^rd. The awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who are excelling in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Massaro was selected as a finalist by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a special gala event on June 28, 2018 at the Westin Boston Waterfront.

Flywire processes billions in payments around the world – connecting all the entities involved to make complex global transactions faster, more secure, less expensive, and more transparent for all. The company’s platform optimizes the payment experience for customers in a variety of verticals and provides a single point for management and payer engagement – from billing and payment through reconciliation.

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Judges selected Snapsheet from finalist list based on innovative approach to simplifying the claims process

Snapsheet, the industry-leading provider of virtual claims technology for the personal and commercial insurance marketplace, has accepted the honor of being selected the Best Insurtech Solution at the 2018 Benzinga Fintech Awards.

Snapsheet won the award over 11 other finalists based on its ability to remove obstacles within the claims process. Snapsheet’s unique combination of insurance and technical expertise allows insureds to upload vehicle information and photos of damage via smartphone and receive an estimate in as few as three hours. From there, Snapsheet’s payment solution, Snapsheet Transactions, allows customers and repairers to receive payments virtually within hours instead of waiting weeks for a check in the mail.

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Global payments and receivables business booms worldwide as company continues to expand in commercial, education and healthcare segments

LONDON and BOSTON, May 22, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Flywire, a provider of global payment and receivables solutions, today announced a major expansion of its UK and European operations and team. The company has moved into new space on Folgate Street in London’s Spitalfields District, between Liverpool Street’s Financial District and London’s Fintech start-up hub at Shoreditch. The new office is quadruple the size of its previous location in Canary Wharf, and provides substantial room for future growth.

Flywire processes billions in payments around the world – connecting all the entities involved to make complex global transactions faster, more secure, less expensive, and more transparent for all.  The company’s platform optimizes the payment experience for customers in a variety of verticals and provides a single point for management and payer engagement – from billing and payment through reconciliation.

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