Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Coinbase Announces Strategic Investment from Westpac’s Reinventure

Around the web

  • Let’s Talk Payments takes a look at interactive debt repayment tool, ReadyForZero.
  • Money Under 30 features personal finance apps from Personal Capital, Mint, Toshl, Mint Bills, Draft, Level Money, Bill Guard, and Credit Karma.
  • TSYS extends multi-year payment agreement with Mexico’s Banco INVEX S.A.
  • Holvi gives a sneak peek of its business debit card.
  • Cachet Financial Solutions enhances Select Mobile Deposit with geo-fencing unlimited user groups with defined business rules, and date, signature and endorsement detection.
  • Kristo Käärmann of TransferWise is quoted in The Guardian column on the relationship between U.K. fintech startups and banks.
  • Tradeshift teams up with C2FO, expanding access to the world’s largest working capital market.
  • Actiance to Deliver Content from 70-Plus Communication Channels to Office 365.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

 

Mint Bills Brings Mobile BillPay to One Million Customers of Questar Gas

Mint Bills Brings Mobile BillPay to One Million Customers of Questar Gas

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Who knew one of the beneficiaries of the energy boom in the Mountain West would be Mint Bills?

Intuit’s Mint Bills today announced a partnership with natural gas utility Questar Gas that will provide online and mobile billpay services to almost one million customers in Idaho, Montana, and Utah.

Brad Markus, general manager for customer service at Questar Gas, said that while providing a wide variety of payment options was a priority for his customers, pedigree was also important. “Mint Bills was the perfect partner for us. We not only liked the mobile bill pay product, but also that it’s a part of Intuit, a trusted brand,” he said.

MintBills_artUtility companies have been an area of focus for Mint Bills for years. In addition to its new partnership with Questar Gas, Mint Bills is working with two other players in the natural gas world, UGI Utilities and New Jersey Natural Gas, providing multichannel billpay for more than two million households combined.

Steve Schultz, general manager of biller services for Mint Bills, said, “Given the increasing adoption of mobile devices, we’re seeing more natural gas utilities starting to offer electronic payment options for their customers.” Schultz added that the cost-effectiveness of Mint Bills was also a big factor for utilities companies like Questar, which are looking for mobile payment technology “for little to no cost.”

Mint Bills makes it easy for consumers to manage and pay their bills. The app monitors all connected accounts—savings, checking, credit—and provides configurable alerts to let users know when bills are nearing due dates. Users can sign up online, or download the iOS or Android versions to use the mobile app.

Mint Bills was launched by Intuit late last year, following the company’s acquisition of Check (formerly Pageonce) in May 2014.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Britain’s Second Largest Mobile Wallet, Yoyo, Pulls $10 Million in Funding
  • Mint Bills Brings Mobile Billpay to One Million Customers of Quester Gas
  • Global Debt Registry Teams Up with TransUnion to Better Serve Debt Industry

Around the web

  • Bento for Business founder and CEO weighs in on the future of tech accelerators. See Bento for Business at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose next month.
  • Global Market Solutions joins the Misys InFusion Partner program.
  • TechCrunch column on fintech regulation features Lending Club, Motif Investing, Betterment, OnDeck, Wealthfront, Prosper, and WealthForge. Join WealthForge in San Jose for FinovateSpring 2015.
  • OnDeck partners with Angie’s List to offer financing to its service providers.
  • Paybefore selects InComm as a 2015 Paybefore Awards Europe winner in the Change Agent of the Year category.
  • Banking Exchange: Kabbage hopes to harvest more bank partnerships.
  • Check Point Software and FireEye partner to share threat intelligence to protect customers from modern advanced attacks.
  • Bank Innovation’s look at Voice Assisted Banking features Interactions.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Finovate Alums Take Gold, Silver and Bronze at PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015

Finovate Alums Take Gold, Silver and Bronze at PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015

Sixteen Finovate and FinDEVr alums have been recognized by the PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015. Three alums, MasterCard , Clover Network and OnDeck took home top honors in their categories, winning gold in “Best New Technology,” “Best POS Innovation,” and “Best Small Business Innovation,” respectively. The rest of the alum field earned silver and bronze in 13 additional categories, including LoopPay, which earned Silver for Best New Technology and a Bronze for “Most Innovative.”

InnovationProject2015_homepage

More than 600 companies competed for the awards, with more than 10,000 votes tallied. Finalists were selected by an expert panel, and the top five companies in each category were submitted to the “PYMNTS community” for voting. In addition to the Innovation Awards, the event recognized Phil Tomlinson of TSYS (also a Finovate alum) and Michael Joseph of Safaricom, inducting both into the PYMNTS Hall of Fame. Two women, Carey Kolaja, VP of Global Consumer Products for PayPal and Perse Faily, CEO of Tillster, were also recognized at the event. Apple took home the Innovation Award’s Catalyst Award for what MPD CEO Karen Webster called during the award ceremony, “creating a roadmap for the industry” with its ApplePay innovation.

The full list of winning alums is below. For more information about the Innovation Awards 2015, including the full list of all finalists, visit their page here.

Gold

Silver

Bronze

Alumni News– January 9, 2015

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgKiplinger’s list of five great free financial apps features BillGuard, Mint Bills, Level Money, SavedPlus, and Wallaby Financial.
  • Center for Financial Inclusion highlights Dwolla, Klarna, Kreditech, Receivables Exchange, and Wealthfront in its review of Australia Wealth Investor’s top 50 fintech innovators for 2014.
  • First Electric Cooperative deploying TextPower SmartAlerts.
  • WePay makes Bobs Guide’s “Fintech Startups to Watch in 2015” list.
  • Misys awarded SWIFT Certified Application labels for trade and supply chain management.
  • CrowdCurity launches newly designed website.
  • Time magazine lists Nymi as 1 of 5 most important things happening at CES 2015.
  • Forbes: Xero Wants All Small Businesses To Do Accounting In The Cloud.
  • Tradier releases Morningstar-sourced fundamentals APIs to beta.
  • Cachet Financial launches Co-Branded Option for Select Mobile Money Solution.
  • PYMNTS interviews CAN Capital CMO James Mendelsohn about access to alternative funding.
  • Taulia launches “Take Control” campaign to help companies better understand early payment solution.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.