Today in FinTech: PayGround Partners With eCW

In today’s FinTech news, change is in the digital air as several firms look to the future with new funding, fresh talent and time-saving tools.

In time-saving news, healthcare payments platform PayGround is collaborating with eClinicalWorks, which automates patient payments and billing. Meanwhile, the FinTech startup Engage Fi has become the first firm to receive an undisclosed portion of Falfurrias Capital Partners’ $850 million fund.

Over at the payments tech firm Global Payments, bean counters are weighing the sale of its subsidiary Netspend’s consumer business, while LendingClub has welcomed a new chief technology officer as the company moves towards becoming a mobile-first, cloud-based digital bank.

PayGround Coordinates with eCW for Automatic Healthcare Payments

When it comes time to pay the doctor after a visit, there are a million details involved in the process — insurance coverage, deductibles, copays and even procedures not covered by insurance. It’s basically a payments nightmare for all involved, which is why many healthcare providers are looking to digital solutions to help ease the pain.

As such, healthcare payments platform PayGround has integrated with the eClinicalWorks (eCW) platform to offer automated healthcare payments processing.

Staff benefit from the reduction in paper processes and the ease of automated updates, while patients benefit from online payments via PayGround’s website or mobile app. Additionally, if caregivers pay a patient’s bill, healthcare records are separated to protect the patient’s data.

Global Payments Looks to Sell Netspend

Netspend was a FinTech before anyone heard of the term. Founded in 1999, it changed the payments game by offering people a reloadable prepaid debit card, regardless of whether the user had a bank account. With roughly 68 million underbanked consumers in the U.S., Netspend filled a much-needed gap.

Traded on the Nasdaq, Netspend was scooped up by Total Systems Services in 2013, which was then acquired in 2019 by Global Payments.

Now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Global Payments, Netspend is hanging on the for-sale rack, and not for the first time. Global Payments looked to unload Netspend in 2020, but when its $2 billion price tag didn’t pan out, it decided to hang on to the FinTech.

For now, Global Payments is hoping to offload Netspend’s consumer business, but keep its business-to-business (B2B) assets.

LendingClub Names Balaji Thiagarajan as CTO

Digital marketplace bank LendingClub has welcomed Balaji Thiagarajan as its new chief technology officer, with Thiagarajan bringing expertise from various high-level roles with Google, Microsoft, Uber, Oracle and Yahoo.

Thiagarajan comes to the FinTech marketplace bank as it eyes digital transformation to “create the digital marketplace bank of the future,” CEO Scott Sanborn said.

LendingClub is tracking to become a mobile-first, cloud-based digital bank that aligns with consumers’ needs and expectations, and Sanborn said Thiagarajan has 25 years of expertise to help make it happen.

Tampa Startup Engage Fi Taps Into $850M Fund

Engage Fi develops and provides financial services for banks and credit unions, and set up shop eight years ago in Tampa, the biggest tech hub in Florida. Tampa, incidentally, was ranked number one on Forbes August 2021 list of emerging tech cities in the U.S.

The FinTech has steadily grown, mostly through word-of-mouth, and made Inc.’s list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. It accomplished everything without a nickel of outside funding — until now.

Private equity firm Falfurrias Capital Partners, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, is backing Engage Fi with a slice of its $850 million funding pie. The size invested in Engage Fi is undisclosed, but the investment added three directors to its five-person board.