Alumni News– June 20, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgBillGuard expands internationally, now available in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
  • Simple speeds up money transfers: 1 business day for xfers from Simple and 3 business days for xfers into Simple.
  • Credit Sesame attracts 1 million + users to enroll in its free ID theft protection service.
  • American Banker talks about Check in its feature on the role of mobile bill pay in helping banks retain customers.
  • Fiserv announces that its CUnify account processing platform will be deployed by United Credit Union.
  • The National Bank (TNB) in Palestine signs deal with Temenos to replace current platform with T24.
  • Check announces billpay partnership with Direct Energy.
  • Gremln raises $100,000 as participant in SixThirty Accelerator Program.
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.

Alumni News– June 18, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgThreatMetrix integrates with Ping Identity’s PingFederate ID bridge to provide contextual employee authentication.
  • Kony brings in $50 Million in Financing Led by SoftBank Capital.
  • Eight Finovate alums earn spots on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list: Motif Investing, TransferWise, Personal Capital, Wealthfront, Lending Club, Coinbase, Bill.com, and Betterment.
  • Umpqua Bank announces plans to transition to a scalable core solution from FIS.
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.

Kony Brings in $50 Million in Financing Led by SoftBank Capital

Kony.jpg

With expansion into the mobile channel no longer an option but a necessity, it’s no wonder that enterprise mobility company, Kony Solutions, received additional backing today.

The Florida-based company pulled in $50 million from SoftBank Capital, who led the round, followed by Delta-V and Hamilton Lane, along with existing investors:

    • Insight Venture Partners
    • Telstra Ventures
    • Georgian Partners

This newest installment brings Kony’s total funding to $98.4 million.

Kony helps a variety of verticals deliver mobile apps by helping with everything from design, to deployment, to management of the app. It specializes in creating unified multi-channel solutions that run across multiple platforms. It plans to use the funding to expand its global reach and expand services for existing clients.

Kony demonstrated at FinovateSpring 2011 where it debuted mobile banking technology. You can check out the demo video here.

Behind the Scenes with Endeavour and Insuritas

Behind the Scenes with Endeavour and Insuritas

In our next FinovateSpring Behind the Scenes we’re featuring Endeavour, which showcased a mobile account opening solution, MobileAO, and Insuritas, which brought a bank-hosted insurance marketplace, SmartCART, to the stage.

Here’s a reference of the previous installments:


What they do
Endeavour specializes in helping companies go mobile. Their solutions span a wide array of verticals– from healthcare, to retail, to insurance, to entertainment, and beyond. At FinovateSpring 2014, they debuted their mobile account opening solution, MobileAO for medium to large banks that have complex credit decision rules.
To help banks achieve their goal of becoming more mobile, Endeavour is working with Zoot to connect to banks’ core systems and with Jumio to integrate their form-filling technology, FastFill
MobileAO can either be integrated within the bank’s existing mobile app using Endeavour’s API or banks can launch it as a standalone, whitelabled app.
Stats
    • Founded in 2008
    • 300+ employees
    • Locations in 4 countries
The experience
The MobileAO solution gives customers the ability to apply for new accounts when and where they want to, directly from their mobile device. 
Endeavour’s integration with Jumio’s FastFill eliminates the need for data entry. When users snap a picture of their drivers license on their mobile device it uses optical character recognition (OCR) to pull relevant data and automatically fill in the fields on the application. This saves time, reduces errors and mitigates form abandonment.
EndeavourFastFill
Once the customer agrees to the terms and e-signs the form, MobileAO can instantly approve (or reject) customers for the account selected. 
If approved, the system immediately issues them a credit card number, which they can use to purchase items online or load into their Google Wallet.
EndeavourFinishedapp
The web portal puts the bank in control of the look and feel of the app by allowing them to make edits on the fly, without a specialized IT department. It also enables them to tweak credit offers and products without deploying a new app in the app store.
The screenshot below shows the administrative experience, which enables the institution to tailor the app’s look and feel and choose a theme. It also lets them customize the fields that will be included in the application and decide what the acceptance screen includes.
EndeavourSS3
While the user interface of MobileAO is aesthetically pleasing, the back end is robust enough to handle complex credit decisioning while meeting regulatory requirements. This is key since it enables instant credit approval. 

InsuritasLogo


What they do
Insuritas’ SmartCART technology creates a transparent and frictionless environment where consumers can shop for, compare, and buy insurance, directly from their banks’ website.

Banks can offer customers an insurance marketplace hosted in a place they already trust– the bank’s website. When customers purchase insurance through the bank’s site, the bank receives insurance commissions, which serves as a unique way to generate fee income.

Stats

    • Launched SmartCART April 2014
    • Raised $10 million Series A funding
    • Has more than 70 financial institution partners
    • 76% of product sales revenue renews year-over-year

The experience
Insuritas aims to bring the Amazon.com checkout experience to insurance purchasing. Users can visit the insurance portal within the bank’s website to compare and purchase different types of insurance products, such as:

    • Auto
    • Home
    • Life
    • Business
    • Property
The screenshot below displays the different products that the Bancorp South offers in its Insurance Aisle:
InsuritasSS1

Users can add multiple insurance products to their shopping cart (located at the bottom right) before checking out, and are also given the option to continue shopping (bottom left). In the instance below, the customer has selected four different types of insurance products. Note that this experience is still hosted inside the online banking environment. 
InsuritasSS2
After purchasing the insurance products, the user can manage their accounts and view documents from a single location within their online banking platform.
InsuritasSS3
Using Insuritas’ SmartCART, banks can increase their clients’ trust, create brand and website stickiness, and even create a source of non-cyclical, annuitized income generated from policy renewal fees.


We’ll have more Behind the Scenes later this week.

Alumni News– June 13, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgAstroPay launches Ripple LatAm, a licensed money service business to use Ripple Labs’ payment network.
  • Ron Shevlin looks at Credit Agricole’s bank-run mobile app store.
  • FirstView selects Cachet Financial Solutions to develop a prepaid mobile app to offer to FirstView cardholders.
  • Financial Review: James Packer, Lachlan Murdoch eye stake in peer-to-peer lender SocietyOne.
  • Jumio brings NetSwipe to the mobile web for companies without a native app.
  • PayPal rolls out PassPort to give merchants a resource for stats, tips and general information on selling internationally.
  • Zopa wins Most Trusted Loan Provider and Most Trusted Specialist at 2014 MoneyWise Customer Service Awards.
  • Thinking Bigger features the team from EyeVerify.
  • Green Dot announces new GM of GoBank, Joshua Goines.
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.

Alumni News– June 12, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgAmerican Banker: Monitise launches Monitise Create, its mobile app design arm, in North America.
  • Zopa has now funded over 100k loans for UK borrowers. Its 52k active lenders have made 27.9 million loans since 2005.
  • ID Analytics to enhance products by incorporating Mattersight’s speech and behavioral analytics technology.
  • First Financial Bank to use Q2’s digital banking platform to connect local businesses to bank clients.
  • peerTransfer now supports currencies from over 95 countries at more than 475 institutions across the US, Europe, Canada, and Australia.
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.

Alumni News– June 11, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgAmerican Banker looks at how BizEquity helps banks lend to small businesses.
  • Coinbase and Expedia.com partner to accept bitcoin for hotel payments.
  • Bank Innovation features TipRanks as 1 of 4 Israeli fintech companies tackling security and data issues.
  • The Currency Cloud Passes $5 Billion in International Payments Enabled in Two Years.
  • Market IQ wins spot in Barclays Escalator, a new, 15-week accelerator programme.
  • Monitise announces North American debut of Monitise Create, a mobile suite of innovation, design, and development services.
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.

Behind the Scenes with BodeTree, Roostify, and SmartAsset

Behind the Scenes with BodeTree, Roostify, and SmartAsset

This week, we’re featuring BodeTree, Roostify, and SmartAsset whose solutions range from a small business management platform, to a home mortgage application solution, and a mobile financial education product.

Previously in our Behind the Scenes feature, we’ve looked at:


What they do
BodeTree focuses on helping owners of revenue-generating small businesses, who are required to play many roles in their company, to better manage their operations.

BodeTree gives its users a complete view of where their business stands, what their competitors are doing, and offers tools to help them determine where they want their business to be in the future. 
To help users reach their business goals, it works with funding sources to provide financing to serve as working capital. Because BodeTree has visibility into the small business’ operational data, it can work with the funding source to help underwrite and furnish the loan in as few as seven days.  
Stats
    • Minimizes loan acquisition time from 120 days to 7 days
    • Raised $4.5 million
    • 13 funding partners
    • 50,000 small business users
The experience
BodeTree gives small business owners an all-in-one business management tool by serving up accounting, sales, and CRM tools on a single, intuitive interface. It helps them understand their budget and business data by showing the information graphically, and provides tools for planning. 
Additionally, BodeTree gives users a an automated view of their business’ valuation and even shows how they are doing in comparison to their business’ peers.
Simply said, the platform shows them: 
    • Where their business has been
    • Where it is currently
    • Helps them determine where they want to go 
BodeTreeLaunchpad
Within 30 minutes, the small business can apply for funding, which they can receive in as few as seven days, as opposed to the traditional 120 days it takes to get a loan.
If the user is pursuing a loan, BodeTree gives its funding partners visibility to the individual business’ performance metrics to help them underwrite the loan.
BodeTreeDesktop
In addition to helping its users understand the daily operations of their business and providing funding options, BodeTree also enables business owners to view:
    • Valuation of their small business
    • A quick view of their business’ health
    • A peer comparison to other small businesses
    • Financial statements with easy-to-understand graphs
The platform’s report-building tool gives them an easy way to customize and build professional looking reports, like the one below, to serve as a tangible item they can share about their business.
BodeTreeREports
Overall, BodeTree serves as a home base for small businesses to see how their business is doing, determine where they want to go, and access quick funding to help them get there.

RoostifyLogo

Roostify


What they do
By bringing transparency to the home buying process, Roostify seeks to demystify the home loan and closing experience by making it easier and faster for both the borrower and the lender. Its platform facilitates communication between lenders and borrowers, enabling them to share and track information necessary for the mortgage and closing process.
This visibility, combined with the platform’s ability to gather key documents, helps speed the entire home-buying process.
Stats
    • Can process a full mortgage application in 10 minutes
    • Can process a full loan package (mortgage application plus documentation) in 20 minutes
The experience
For the homebuyer, Roostify works a bit like TurboTax for a mortgage application. It customizes fields on the application based on the user’s answers to previous questions.
Once the loan application is submitted, the borrower’s dashboard walks the prospective homebuyer through the remaining process. Three notable items include:
1) The explanation on the right panel of the screen, which provides transparency into why certain items are needed and how they will be used in the process
2) The calendar view, which shows both the borrower and the lender due dates of action items
3) The documents page, which helps borrowers and lenders submit and manage the necessary documents for the mortgage process

All documents are held on the Roostify platform in a secure repository, which eliminates the need for the lender to download the documents. Additionally, its esignature capabilities eliminate the need for printing and faxing documents.

roostifyUploaddocs
To assist with the underwriting process, borrowers can connect their external accounts directly within the Roositfy platform. The borrower can give lenders access to bank accounts, retirement accounts, and savings accounts without ever leaving Roostify.
roostifyForm
Roostify also benefits the lender by giving them complete visibility into the process. The screen below shows a feed of completed tasks (on the right) and outstanding tasks (in the center) for both the borrower and lender. 
roostifyLenderWorkflow

Even after the home loan application process is complete, the system details the home closing workflow, notifying the two parties what items need to be completed by what time frame. 

Lenders can white label Roostify to create a branded solution that gives their borrowers an end-to-end service that consumers have come to expect.

What they do
SmartAsset’s website serves as a resource for personalized and automated advice about personal finances. At FinovateSpring 2014, SmartAsset launched its native mobile app on iOS and Android.
Its platform combines user information with its automated financial modeling technology to answer questions across a range of subjects. Its goal is to help people make better financial decisions. 
To serve as a guide, SmartAsset’s referral service matches users with targeted financial products to help them maximize their net wealth.
Stats
    • Has grown at 40% per month for the last 15 months
    • Expects roughly half a million people to visit Smartasset.com this month
    • Has 130 different data partnerships, including Moody’s
The experience
SmartAsset’s greatest penetration is with users between the ages of 25 to 40 who are planning to make one or more big financial decision this year, such as get married, have a baby, or buy a house.
The screenshot below illustrates the user experience of determining whether to rent or buy a home. Note the targeted ad from Quicken Loans at the bottom, offering a 30-year FHA mortgage.
SmartAssetMobileBuyVRent
If the user wants to purchase a home, they can use SmartAsset’s in-app tools to determine how much house they can afford. The sliders make it easy to change the estimation of the down payment and mortgage. When adjusted, all other calculations are immediately updated to reflect the change.
SmartAssetMobileAffordability
It also helps in planning for retirement. The screenshot below illustrates the recommended amount of retirement savings the user needs to put away per month in order to retire at their desired age of 67.
SmartAssetmobilRetirement3
Aside from real estate and retirement calculations, and SmartAsset also uses its algorithms to assist with:
 
    • life insurance questions
    • credit cards
    • bank accounts
    • student loans

Stay tuned later this week for our final Behind the Scenes look at fintech from FinovateSpring 2014.

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Wealthfront Reaches More Than $1 Billion Assets Under Management

Wealthfront Reaches More Than $1 Billion Assets Under Management
wealthfrontLogoSmall

Automated investment service, Wealthfront, announced this week that it now has $1 billion in assets under management. This is fast-paced growth, considering it had $100 million under management in early 2013, $500 million by December of 2013, and $800 million in March of this year.

This growth confirms the trend we’ve been seeing in the explosion of automated wealth management fintech services, the oft-called robo-advisors.

U.S.-based companies such as Betterment, LearnVest, Personal Capital, SigFig and European companies Nutmeg, Money on Toast, and rplan are all vying for consumers’ portfolios, trying to compete with superior algorithms.

wealthfronthomepage

Palo Alto-based Wealthfront differentiates itself by offering a Single-Stock Diversification service. This service enables users with a large portion of their net worth tied up in a single stock to transfer their holdings to Wealthfront, which will slowly sell off the stocks commission free, and with a tax-aware approach. While the service is currently available only for Twitter employees, ex-employees, and its investors, Wealthfront plans to open it up for more companies in the future.

Wealthfront demonstrated at FinovateStartup 2009, when it went by the name KaChing.

Alumni News– June 5, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgNetbanker looks at the effect Apple’s TouchID will have on fintech companies, including Mint and CardFlight.
  • ValidSoft featured in Speech and Voice Recognition White Paper and recognized as a global leaders in voice biometrics.
  • Bolstr co-founders Larry Baker and Charlie Tribbett named to Techweek 100.
  • Arroweye Solutions partners with Caledonian Global Financial Services to provide digital on-demand debit card production.
  • Former Visa executive Elizabeth Buse joins Monitise as co-CEO.
  • New $4 Million Investment for fastacash to help drive growth, product development.
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 Alumni News– June 4, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgCommercial collection agency DAL is the first partner to go live with Cortera Open Receivables.
  • The Bancorp Bank implements Cachet Financial’s CheckRisk Pro, a tool for mitigating risk in remote deposit capture programs for financial institutions and credit unions.
  • CardFlight to use Apple’s Touch ID to give merchants an easy way to sign into mobile POS app.
  • Financial services provider, SHAZAM Network, collaborates with D3 Banking to provide omnichannel SaaS 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.

CardFlight to Use Apple’s Touch ID to Give Merchants an Easy Way to Sign Into Mobile POS App

CardFlight to Use Apple’s Touch ID to Give Merchants an Easy Way to Sign Into Mobile POS App

cardflightlogolowres.jpg

At Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference yesterday, the tech giant made an announcement that will have a large potential impact on financial services companies. It will enable third party developers to use its Touch ID fingerprint recognition scanner.

At the conference, Apple SVP Craig Federighi showed the iPhone login screen of Finovate alum, Mint.com, to illustrate a potential use case of Touch ID’s open API.

CardFlight, a mobile POS solutions company, will be another one of the first to take advantage of Touch ID once Apple releases iOS 8 this fall. New York-based CardFlight plans to incorporate the biometric authentication technology into its SwipeSimple product. 

CardFlightSwipeSimple
With SwipeSimple, merchant service providers can give their small business customers a mobile payments solution that combines a payment dongle that can be plugged into iOS and Android devices. This, combined with a payment gateway and backend merchant analytics software, serves up a robust, end-to-end payments solution. Touch ID will offer merchants an alternative method of signing in to their mobile payment app using their typical username and password.

Check out the demo video of CardFlight’s debut at FinovateSpring 2013 here.

Interested in learning more about CardFlight’s back end system? Come see them at FinDEVr this Fall.