Author: David Penn

FinovateFall 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 6

FinovateFall 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 6
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2014 Sneak Peek
FinovateFallWithDateLogo

You know you’re looking at the biggest FinovateFall ever when you’re six posts deep into our Sneak Peek series and we’re still not done.

Before we introduce you to the next batch demoing in New York later this month, here’s a quick guide to those we’ve already covered. Remember, there’s still plenty of time to get your ticket to FinovateFall 2014 and see all this fintech talent yourself.

This week, our six innovators are MasterCard, Matchi, Misys, Silanis, Sr. Pago, and WingCash. Enjoy!
MasterCardLogo

MasterCard’s Pay with Rewards gives MasterCard cardholders the ability to redeem their rewards for purchases at millions of eligible MasterCard locations worldwide.

Features:
    • Differentiate rewards programs at the Point of Interaction
    • Accepted at millions of locations with no changes to the POS
    • Provides cardholder flexibility and choice
Why it’s great:

MasterCard connects consumers, FIs, merchants, governments, and businesses worldwide, enabling them to use electronic forms of payment, and now … rewards points.
Presenters:

KyleClarkMasterCard

Kyle Clark, VP Product Development, MasterCard Loyalty

Clark focuses on simplifying and enhancing the consumer rewards experience. He is currently the Pay with Rewards product owner.
ChrisGuineyMasterCard

Chris Guiney, VP Product Development, MasterCard Loyalty

Guiney leads a team of professionals dedicated to bringing the power of targeted loyalty services to clients and consumers worldwide. He is the platform owner of the MasterCard Rewards System.
MatchiLogo

Matchi is a global innovation matchmaking platform that enables innovators to showcase market-ready solutions, and for banks to source these innovations from anywhere in the world.

Features:
    • All logged innovations are market-ready at least at prototype phase
    • Offers banks a curated shortlist of solutions aligned to their strategies
    • Sponsor Banks can connect & collaborate
Why it’s great:
It brings innovators and banks together to drive banking forward and increase ROI for both parties.
Presenters:

WarrenBondMatchi

Warren Bond, Co-founder

Bond is Co-founder of Luminous and has – as its CEO – steered this firebrand to deliver a number of innovations that contributed to FNB winning the title of most innovative bank in the world in 2012.
DavidMilliganMatchi

David Milligan, CEO

Milligan has an extensive background in innovation management within banking, as well as strategy consulting. He is passionate about “bringing new ideas to the discipline of the market.”
MisysLogo

Misys brings disruptive digital innovation to 2,000 financial services customers worldwide – making banking “frustration-free” for consumers.

Features:

    • Ultra-target sales campaigns
    • Slick user experience
    • Generate new revenues through digital channels
Why it’s great:

Turbo-charge your new sales by turning digital channels into your most successful sales channel. Be more relevant to your customers.
Presenters:

JozsefNyiriMisys

József Nyiri, Director of Innovation, Digital Channels LABS

My goal is to make us, everyday people less frustrated when we manage money, use financial services, and plan our future.
TamasGrunzweigMisys

Tamás Grünzweig, VP Head of Innovation, Digital Channels LABS

Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
20131206-e-SignLive-logo-screen
Businesses choose eSignLive by Silanis when e-signatures matter. With e-SignLive’s Use Your Own Device capability, banks can now use the customer’s smartphone/tablet to capture hand-scripted e-signature.
Features:

    • Individual and joint remote account opening
    • No need to visit the branch just to sign – eliminates costly in-branch hardware
    • Make e-transactions more secure and personal
Why it’s great:

No app, no special hardware. Make on boarding convenient and secure with any smartphone. A remote, personalized digital experience makes your bank easier to work with.
Presenters:

TommyPetrogiannisSilanis

Tommy Petrogiannis, CEO and Co-founder

Petrogiannis co-founded Silanis in 1992. As CEO, he is responsible for strategy, vision, and keeping the company focused on delivering the best possible customer experience.
TJWitteSilanis

TJ Witte, Senior Technical Consultant

Witte has been implementing enterprise software for 10+ years. As Senior Technical Consultant, he is involved in many banking deployments, and focused on mobile signing.
SrPagoLogo

Sr. Pago is a payment system providing a debit card, card reader and app, and is revolutionizing the cash-based financial ecosystem upon which 70% of Mexicans rely.

Features:

    • First time a MasterCard can be replenished with a card reader
    • Enables payments and spending without a bank account
    • Processes magnetic strip and chip-based cards
Why it’s great:

Sr. Pago is revolutionizing the informal cash-based financial ecosystem in Mexico.
Presenter:

PabloVargasSrPago

Pablo Gonzalez Vargas, Co-founder and CEO

Prior to Sr. Pago, Vargas founded a successful marketing agency, IF Marketing Atelier. He also founded EXA Radio and TV, one of the most important media chains for youth in Latin America.
WingCashLogo

WingCash says Cash is not weight, it’s wings. Cash securely delivered by WingCash to your wallet in the cloud for your convenience anytime, anywhere.

Features:

    • Safely and securely stored in the cloud
    • Conveniently accessible by you anytime, anywhere
    • Cash you hold, you control, and only you spend
Why it’s great:

Because life is better with cash, WingCash securely delivers cash to your cloud-based wallet anytime, anywhere. Hold on to cash, it is our future.
Presenter:

BradleyWilkesWingCash

Bradley Wilkes, Founder & President/CEO

Wilkes is the Founder of WingCash, He also founded ProPay, a subsidiary of Total Systems Services (NYSE: TSS). He’s been awarded
6 payment-related patents. He received both an MBA/TM and BS degrees.
SteveCurtisWingCash

Steve Curtis, VP Director of Sales/Marketing

Curtis is an accomplished leader in the mobile payment industry. He is a solutions-driven sales professional with 14+ years of experience successfully delivered a wide array of financial solutions.
Be sure to check out our next Sneak Peek preview on Tuesday for more from the innovators of FinovateFall 2014

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Jane J. Thompson Joins OnDeck Board of Directors

Jane J. Thompson Joins OnDeck Board of Directors
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: On Deck Capital

Thumbnail image for ondeck_logo_new.jpg

OnDeck announced today that Jane J. Thompson, former head of Wal-Mart Financial Services, will join the board of directors of OnDeck.

JaneJThompson

“I have dedicated my career to driving growth for a variety of companies across the financial services industry, with a particular focus on those underserved by traditional options,” Thompson said.

Noah Breslow, OnDeck CEO, added, “Her expertise and leadership will help guide our growth across our marketing, product innovation, risk management, and customer services efforts.”
Thompson currently serves as the CEO of Jane J. Thompson Financial Services LLC, a management-consultant firm. Before serving as president of Financial Services at Wal-Mart, Thompson led the Sears Credit, Sears Home Services, and Sears Online groups within Sears.
OnDeckHomepage
Thompson is also director at Navient Corporation, a loan management, loan servicing, and asset recovery firm, VeriFone Systems, and The Fresh Market. An advisor to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Thompson was named Innovator of the Year, and one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance by American Banker Magazine.
Jane J. Thompson’s joining of the OnDeck board comes as the company moves closer to an initial public offering.

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Wallaby Financial Launches Android Wear App

Wallaby Financial Launches Android Wear App
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Wallaby Financial

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Wallaby_logo.jpg

How about real-time credit card recommendations right at your fingertips?

Or at least around your wrist – Wallaby Financial announced today that it is introducing Wallaby for Android Wear. Following on the heels of Wallaby’s deployment for Samsung Gear 2, today’s news further establishes Wallaby as a leader in bringing financial services apps to the wearable devices market.

WallabyHomepage
Matthew Goldman, Wallaby Founder and CEO, said that the emphasis on wearables is designed to help give consumers the information and services they want “in the context of their daily lives.” Goldman said, “each successive wearable device launch allows us to further enhance the capabilities we provide instantaneously and conveniently to our customers.”
Wallaby for Android Wear operates on a number of Android devices, including Moto 360 and LG G. The app is free for anyone with a Wallaby account and, when launched, uses geolocation and its own proprietary database of more than 2,000 credit card profiles to help users see and select the best credit card to use in a given transaction. 
Check out the app for yourself here.
AndroidWearHomepage
Wearable technology remains on the cusp of acceptance. Writing in Wednesday’s The New York Times Fashion & Style section, one author suggested referring to wearables not as “wearable tech” but “ugly tech.” At the same time, the Times feature notes the fact that companies like Apple are moving closer and closer to a potential wearable of its own (an “iWatch” for example) suggests that the field could be “on the precipice of change.”
After al, the author says, “if anyone can change the perception of wearables and ugliness, it’s definitely Apple.”
And it is also a definite that Apple won’t be alone. With the Android user base continuing to grow worldwide, opportunities for collaborations between hardware innovators (like Samsung) as well as software innovators (like Wallaby Financial) are likely to remain robust. One of the most interesting things about wearables is how they encourage innovation when it comes to inputs. For example, Wallaby for Android Wear features the ability to use voice commands for certain key functions – a key attribute given the form factor of many, if not most, wearable devices.
Wallaby was founded in 2011, and is headquartered in Pasadena, California. The company was last on the Finovate stage for FinovateSpring last year in San Francisco.

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FinDEVr Preview: Visa Developers

FinDEVr Preview: Visa Developers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinDEVr San Francisco 2014, VISA
FinDEVr_logo

Over two days at UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, FinDEVr will provide developers, architects, engineers, and other builders with a unique opportunity to meet and network with some of the biggest names in fintech software development.

Our FinDEVr Preview has already introduced you to some of these companies, innovators like Yodlee Interactive and TD Ameritrade Institutional. Today, we introduce you to one more: Visa and its Developers program. 

Like many companies known primarily for their vast experience as a financial services provider, Visa is also a major innovator when it comes to technological innovations for financial institutions and their customers.
Remember, early bird pricing for FinDEVr ends next week. Lock in your savings and get your tickets today.

VisaLogo

The Visa Developers program provides a broad array of tools, services, and resources from both Visa and its subsidiary brands to help developers create seamless, multi-channel payment solutions.

Keynote: The Future of Commerce
Learn how Visa is supporting the creation of new, innovative commerce solutions by enabling developers, mobile network operators, device and platform operators to easily connect to Visa’s network through new open payment APIs and SDKs.
Workshops
1) Visa Checkout API-less Web Integration
Implement your own instance of Visa Checkout on a website and get started with the Sandbox, adding requirement elements to a cart page, receiving/decrypting a payload, and updating with a pixel. Learn how simple it is to implement Visa Checkout on a website without making a single API call.
VisaCheckout2
2) Visa Checkout Android SDK Integration
In this session we’ll show you how to add Visa Checkout support to your app using our Android SDK. Learn how easy it is to configure your app for Visa Checkout, as well as get a payload and perform an update via our API.
VisaCheckoutHomepage
3) Visa Checkout Provisioning Integration for Financial Institutions
Learn how to implement the Visa Checkout Provisioning interface on your site to streamline the provisioning of Visa Checkout accounts for your customers. We’re discussing light and heavy integration options. See how simple it is to help your customers create Visa Checkout accounts on your site.
Presenters
Raj Sundaresan, SVP, Digital & Mobile Products
Michael Blanton, Senior Director, Visa Digital Integration
Alan Johnson, Senior Director, Digital Developed Markets
Mark Legere, Senior Integration Architect, Visa Digital
Dipti Bele, Integration Architect, Visa Digital

Join us next week for our FinDEVr Preview featuring MasterCard Developer Zone. To read our earlier previews, check out our introductions to Yodlee Interactive and TD Ameritrade Institutional.

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BioCatch Mobile Emerges from Beta

BioCatch Mobile Emerges from Beta
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch
biocatch_logo

From iCloud to Home Depot, is anybody else looking for some good news when it comes to digital security?

Fortunately, BioCatch – who will be making its FinovateFall 2014 debut later this month – is punching through the “Who Got Hacked?” gloom with news that its mobile security technology is now out of beta.

BioCatch CEO Benny Rosenbaum highlighted two features he thinks will help separate BioCatch Mobile from the rest of the multi-authenticating pack. “What makes our solution so unique is the fact that it’s completely transparent, works behind the scenes, and yet is far more secure than traditional two-factor authentication, ” he said.
BioCatchHomepage1
How so? BioCatch specializes in cognitive biometrics. Cognitive biometrics provides for a greater range of inputs than many multi-factor authentication schemes. For example, BioCatch not only creates a unique signature based on physical factors such as left or right-handedness, but also factors in device interaction patterns, geolocation, and more.
The goal is to help identify many of the more common security breaches experienced by FIs and their customs. These include account takeover and malware threats, as well as identifying the presence of “jailbroken” devices. The trick, said Rosenbaum, is to allow banks to “add new functionality without admitting new fraud or creating new friction.”
BioCatchHomepage2
Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Boston, BioCatch was recognized last December by Aite Group as an “emerging player in biometric authentication.” And Gartner called BioCatch a “Cool Vendor in Security” as recently as April 2013. The company announced that it had raised $10 million in new funding in June, courtesy of investments from Blumberg Capital and OurCrowd, as well as existing investors.

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Advanced Merchant Payments Joins FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific

Advanced Merchant Payments Joins FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Advanced Merchant Payments
amp_logo_LI

The 2014 FinTech Innovation Lab Asia Pacific has announced the latest set of fintech startups to participate in its accelerator program. And FinovateAsia 2013 alum Advanced Merchant Payments is among them.

Advanced Merchant Payments specializes in providing short-term, unsecured financing for small and medium-sized businesses. AMP also provides SMEs with accounts receivable financing and cash-flow management services. Loans can be approved as quickly as five days, and terms typically range from 90, 180, 270, or 360 days. The company lends to a variety of businesses in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, from retailers and wholesalers to contractors and equipment providers.

AMP_homepage
The Innovation Lab was developed by Accenture and launched in June of this year. The program is geared toward “early-state” companies with technologies designed for the Asia Pacific market. The program lasts for 12 weeks and includes mentoring, panel discussions, and workshops led by industry veterans and fintech professionals – as well as networking opportunities for incubator participants.
Sushil Saluja, senior managing director for Financial Services at Accenture suggested that the kind of technologies chosen by the lab selection committee are indicative of the kind of solutions FIs and customers alike are looking for. Saluja pointed specifically to “data security, analysis, and risk assessment” as areas where innovation could “make a real difference in the everyday lives of people” in the region.
Joining Advanced Merchant Payments will be:
    • AtCipher.com
    • Beijing Wecash Wonder Technology
    • FinSuite
    • I Think Security
    • iDGate
    • Jocata Financial Advisory & Technology Services
    • OxBranch.
Among the FIs supporting the FinTech Innovation Lab are Bank of America, Bank of China (Hong Kong), Barclays, China Construction Bank (Asia), Credit Suisse, DBS, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Ping An, and UBS.
Based in Hong Kong and founded in 2009, Advanced Merchant Payments has provided more than $25 million USD in loans to small businesses. The company demoed its technology at FinovateAsia 2013. See a demo of Advanced Merchant Payments at work here.

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Alumni News– September 2, 2014

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Advanced Merchant Payments, BBVA, blooom, IDology, Jumio, Knox, Micronotes, ReadyForZero, SocietyOne, Top Image Systems
  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgMobile payments app from BBVA earns more than 250,000 downloads since launch last December in Spain.
  • Knox Payments picks up $625,000 in venture round funding. See them demo at FinovateFall 2014 in New York this month.
  • Issuer Direct chooses Top Image Systems to drive incoming document automation.
  • P2P lender, SocietyOne, to offer free credit scores to customers.
  • Micronotes‘ Cross-Sell interview marketing platform now automatically reports Net Promoter Score.
  • Advanced Merchant Payments 1 of 8 fintech startups to enter the FinTech Innovation Lab in Asia-Pacific.
  • Jumio and IDology announce partnership to enable verification via government-issued ID in card-not-present situations.
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.

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Knox Payments Picks Up $625,000 in Venture Round Funding

Knox Payments Picks Up $625,000 in Venture Round Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Knox
KnoxPaymentslogo

According to a S-1 filed at the SEC, Knox Payments earned an investment of $625,000 in venture round funding this month.

The venture round takes the company’s total capital raised to $1.6 million.

Knox Payments gives merchants the ability to accept payments via ACH without requiring disclosure of bank routing and account numbers. With instant account and “sufficient funds” verification, the service costs merchants less than twenty cents per transaction. Credit card companies, by comparison, charge as much as 30 cents per transaction, plus a 3% fee.
Knox_homepage
Knox Payments will make its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014 in New York September 23 and 24. To find out more about this year’s event – including how to get your tickets – vist our FinovateFall 2014 page.

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Alumni News– August 29, 2014

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Diebiold, Dwolla, Heckyl Technologies, Lending Club, On Deck Capital, PayPal, Stockpile, SumUp, TextPower
  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgHeckyl to provide real-time news and data analytics courtesy of new partnership with Marketware International.
  • Diebold brings deposit automation and cash recycling services to consumers and FIs in Brazil. See Diebold at FinovateFall in September.
  • Dwolla makes MassPay official, offers a simpler experience with increased stability, improved reporting, and increased transactions per batch.
  • PYMNTS talks with SumUp CEO Daniel Klein, to understand how it views innovation in the mPOS space.
  • PayPal launches tool, PayPal Demo, to help developers show merchants the difference between different PayPal payment options.
  • CNBC’s National Business Report interviews Scott Goldman, CEO of TextPower.
  • American Banker profiles FinovateSpring 2014 Best of Show winner, Stockpile.
  • CNET takes a look at Lending Club in the wake of the company’s IPO filing.
    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.

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    FinovateFall 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 4

    FinovateFall 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 4
    By David Penn Posted on
    Categories: FinovateFall 2014, FinovateFall 2014 Sneak Peek
    FinovateFallWithDateLogo

    Three installments of our FinovateFall 2014 Sneak Peek series are already in the books. But we’ve still got plenty of companies to introduce you to in the weeks leading up to what promises to be our largest FinovateFall event to date. If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, click here to save your spot today.

    Before we get started, here are some links to our previous Sneak Peeks to help get you up-to-date.

    And now, meet FamDoo, iQuantifi, mCASH, PayItSimple, Toopher, and WorkFusion.

    FamDoo_logoff2014

    FamDoo develops life-ready kids one task at a time. The Modern Allowance is a proven loyalty-based system armed with current technology and strategic partnerships.

    Features:
    • The Modern Allowance is an applied learning approach to financial literacy
    • New technology brings families together
    • Family currency rewards kids for a job well done
    Why it’s great:
    FamDoo is an exciting new tool for the family, raising the next generation of fiscal consumers now. Gain access through a strategic partnership with FamDoo.
    Presenters:
    MarkFamDoo

    1) Mark Lacek, Co-Founder and CEO

    Co-developed, enhanced one of the first loyalty programs for the airline industry: Northwest Airline’s WorldPerks, frequent flyer program. Designed and managed additional global loyalty programs.
    2) Mystery Guest

    iQuantifi Logo DePalma d4

    iQuantifi is a virtual financial advisor that provides comprehensive and personalized advice to users based on their goals and resources.

    Features:
    • Helps you free up cash in your budget to fund your goals
    • Shows you multiple ways to accomplish your goals
    Why it’s great: 
    We provide a comprehensive financial plan with investment advice that instantly adapts to your life as it changes.
    Presenters:
    tomwhite_iquantififf2014

    1) Tom White, Founder and CEO

    Tom has been a financial planner and investment advisor for over 17 years and in that time he has built and sold two investment advisory firms.
    Karenwhite_iquantififf2014

    2) Karen White, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer

    Karen has been designing and building products for over 20 years with the majority of her experience spanning the financial and education fields.

    Print

    mCASH is a unique payment infrastructure that connects banks, merchants and consumers in a real-time payment and information sharing network.

    Features:
    • Built on FSA-approved Google Cloud infrastructure
    • Reduces cost for merchants, increases revenue for financial institutions
    • Users can pay in any scenario using any electronic funding source
    Why it’s great:

    Pay anyone, anywhere with the funding source of your choice.
    Presenters:
    danieldoderlein_mcashff2014

    1) Daniel R. Døderlein, Founder and CEO

    Døderlein is a Norweigian serial entrepreneur with background from several IT and telecom startups. He is also a sought-after speaker in the field of payments.
    Andersbakke_mcashff2014

    2) Anders Nicolai Bakke, COO

    Nicolai Bakke is a computer science graduate, turned management consultant before ending up in the startup world, At mCASH, he focuses on strategy, biz-dev, fundraising, people management, and structure.

    PayItSimpleLogo

    PayItSimple‘s patented technology enables instant consumer financing without assuming any credit risk.

    Features:

    • Merchants: increased conversation rates and ticket size; simple and secure to implement and use
    • Consumers: Seamless payments, improved cash flow, no credit application, no fees, and no interest
    Why it’s great:
    For the first time in the Unites States, merchants can offer their customers fully secured interest-free installments in their existing credit cards.
    Presenters:

    AlonFeitPayItSimple

    1) Alon Feit, Co-Founder 

    Feit has 25 years of experience in the credit card industry, both in Israel and Brazil.
    Stacyfassberg_payitsimpleff2014

    2) Stacy Fassberg, Vice President, Marketing

    Fassberg is a marketing professional with over 25 years of experience with global technology start-ups, specializing in marketing strategy, communications, branding and product marketing.

    toopher_logoff2014

    Toopher‘s multi-factor authentication platform uses the location awareness of a mobile device to automate logins/actions based on a user’s normal behaviors.

    Features:

    • Highly usable: patented automation creates an invisible user experience
    • Highly secure: out-of-band auth mitigates endpoint attacks
    • Highly innovative: adds to convenience without sacrificing security
    Why it’s great:

    Toopher is the most usable and most secure multi-factor authentication solution available.
    Presenters:

    Joshdalexander_toopherFF2014

    1) Josh Alexander, CEO and Co-founder

    evangrim_toopherff2014

    2) Evan Grim, Founder and CTO

    <div

    Workfusion_logoff2014

    WorkFusion is a SaaS crowd computing platform that automates the sourcing, aggregation, and structuring of data by pairing machine learning with human intelligence.</div

    Features:

    • Self-repairing automation pairs algorithms with human workers
    • 30 million on -demand workers for performing tasks and training algorithms
    • 50% reduction in cost
      of creating financial content
    Why it’s great:
    The financial industry is filled with high-volume, repetitive data work, and WorkFusion cuts the cost of it by 50% through machine learning automation.
    Presenters:
    Maxyankelevich_workfusionff2014

    1) Max Yankelevich, CEO

    Yankelevich founded WorkFusion to improve the productivity and efficiency of the data-driven enterprise by combining the power of cloud computing, crowdsourcing, and machine learning.
    adamdevine_workfusionff2014

    2) Adam Devine, VP of Product Marketing

    Devine has spent his career connecting the dots between steep business problems and great technology. The financial sector is his favorite problem, and WorkFusion is his favorite technology.

    Join us next Tuesday for another set of six fintech innovators that will be demoing their technologies at FinovateFall in September.

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    Lending Club Files for $500 Million Initial Public Offering

    Lending Club Files for $500 Million Initial Public Offering
    By David Penn Posted on
    Categories: Lending Club

    Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for LendingClubLogo.jpg

    No beating around the bush about this one: we are thrilled to share the news that Lending Club has filed for an initial public offering. The alternative, peer-to-peer lender seeks to raise at least $500 million.

    See Lending Club’s S-1 filing at the SEC for yourself here. Forbes reports that Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs will serve as lead underwriters.

    LendingClub_homepage
    The company has been understandably mum as it enters what is known in the business as its post-filing “quiet period.” But in its filing, Lending Club noted a trio of advantages over traditional lenders:
    • An innovative marketplace model that efficiently connects the supply and demand of capital
    • Online operations that substantially reduce the need for physical infrastructure and improve convenience
    • Automation that increases efficiency, reduces manual processes and improves borrower and investor experience
    Additionally, the S-1 cited a few choice metrics about the company’s first half of 2014, including:
    • Net income: $86.9 million
    • Adjusted EBITDA (excluding some non cash charges): $5.9 million
    • Profit/(Loss): ($16.5 million)
    • Loans originated: $1.8 billion
    In seeking to raise $500 million, Lending Club could become one of the “biggest ever stock market debuts” according to the New York Times DealBook. Lending Club has financed more than $5 billion in loans and paid investors more than $490 million in interest since inception. DealBook notes that the Lending Club prospectus does leave a few questions unanswered such as the price range for Lending Club shares, and the exchange on which the shares will trade.
    For its part, Forbes’ coverage of the announcement includes excerpts from a spring interview with Laplanche in which the CEO explains both how Lending Club works and how he ensures that the “best loans” are not cherry-picked by savvy investors. “There are no best loans,” Laplanche said. “If we do our job well – and I believe we do, there is no loan that is better than others.”
    You can check out our 2012 interview with Laplanche here.
    Lending Club is the fourth Finovate alum to file for an IPO. Q2 went public in March. Cachet Financial Solutions and Yodlee made their IPO filings in early and late July, respectively. As one of the oldest Finovate alums, Lending Club participated in both our inaugural Finovate event in 2007 and again at FinovateStartup 2009. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and was founded in 2007.

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