Finovate Alumni News– April 23, 2013

Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpg

  • Executive Magazine profiles TransferWise and talks Middle East expansion.
  • Reference Data Review takes a look at Fenergo’s efforts to make compliance easier and more efficient.
  • ACI Worldwide announces Universal Payments Platform.
  • TransferWise wins Estonia’s “Best E-Service” contest.
  • Joe Brancucci, CEO of GTE Financial joins Mortgage Harmony Advisory Board.
  • Keith Kelly, Mortgage Harmony CEO, awarded a Tech All-Star Award by Mortgage Banking Magazine. Check out Mortgage Harmony’s live demo at FinovateSpring.
  • Ping Identity named 2013 Top Workplace by The Denver Post for second consecutive year.
  • SecureKey named Top Growth Company in 2013 Branham300 list of Top 10 Growth Companies.
  • Global Security Services Company selects Kofax to automate accounts payable operations in Latin America. Check out Kofax at FinovateSpring.
  • ProfitStars wins 2013 Payments System Awards from NACHA – the Electronic Payments Association.
  • ACI Worldwide’s Architech Mobile Banking provides PFM, integrated bill payment and account-to-account transfers to iOS, Android smartphones.
  • Azimo wins SWIFT Innotribe challenge; advances to finals at Sibos 2013 in Dubai.
  • peerTransfer now serving more than 300 colleges and universities, has partnered with 48 new educational institutions during the first quarter of 2013.
  • Zooz closes $2 million Series A round led by XSeed Capital. See Zooz in action at FinovateSpring in May.
  • GeoComply and Locaid team up to bring geolocation services to mobile and Internet gaming industry. See Locaid demo at FinovateSpring in May.
  • Innov8social interviews Julia Streuli, head of communications for Bright Funds. Join Bright Funds in San Francisco for FinovateSpring.
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.

Arvest Bank Chooses IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

IntelliResponse_logo.jpg

Ensuring a smooth transition for recently acquired branches is part of the thinking behind Arvest Bank’s decision to deploy IntelliResponse Virtual Agent technology on its corporate website. The bank plans to expand the service to the full website soon afterward.

Arvest Bank will be taking over 29 Bank of America branches in four states: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. Deposits from these new branches total $750 million.

A few metrics on Arvest:

  • The largest bank in Arkansas, ranked by deposits
  • More than $13 billion in assets
  • More than 260 locations in 90 municipalities
  • Owned by the Walton family, founders of WalMart

IntelliResponse has more than 360 live implementations, serving customers and responding to more than 100 million inquiries each year. 

The company’s Enterprise Virtual Agent technology enables everything from corporate webpages to mobile applications to function with a “virtual concierge.” Because customers can ask questions in a normal, conversational voice, the company’s EVA technology has the potential to significantly enhance the online experience.

IntelliResponse is among the companies that will be demoing their technology at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May. To learn more about the event, and to save your spot, visit our FinovateSpring page here.

Finovate Alumni News– April 19, 2013

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgArvest Bank to deploy IntelliResponse Virtual Agent technology. See them demo at FinovateSpring in May.
  • GMC Software Technology founder Rene Muller wins Lifetime Achievement award.
  • PrivatBank to provide service to customers wearing Google Glass.
  • American Banker interviews Pageonce COO Steve Schultz on the company’s goal to be the “go-to financial app on the phone”.
  • Mountain America CU launches MoneyDesktop’s My Money Manager PFM.
  • Blackhawk Network prices of its IPO of 10,000,000 shares of Class A common stock at $23 per share.
  • American Banker reports: Planwise Courts Bank Partners.
  • Black Enterprise features Bolstr as Tech Startup of the Week.
  • American Banker reports BillGuard has flagged $50M in suspect charges.
  • The Globe and Mail considers how eToro can benefit investors.
  • TechCrunch reports: SMB Inventory Management Startup TradeGecko Partners With Xero Accounting.
  • Rebirth Financial unveils white-label crowdfunding platform.
  • Trustly has now processed 10 billion SEK in payments since it began in 2008, has fully rolled out Direktbetalning in Sweden 
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.

The World Inside a Wallaby Wallet

Wallaby_logo.jpg

Knowing the kind of credit cards your customers carry is helpful knowledge for any merchant. And that kind of data is perhaps all the more worthwhile for a company like Wallaby Financial, creators of The Wallaby Card and app.

The app stores the information from all of a user’s cards. Then it automatically selects the optimal card to be used for any given purpose. Cardholders set their preferences  and the technology does the rest.

So what’s inside the wallets of Wallaby cardholders? The inquiring minds at Wallaby Financial have just found out:

  • 20% have six or more cards
  • 30% have three or more cards from the “Big Four” (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover)
  • 49% have two or more cards that offer rewards
  • 77% have a points reward card (as opposed to miles or cash back)

The average number of cards in a Wallaby user’s wallet? 4.2. And only 2% of all Wallaby card holders have cards with no rewards at all.

wallaby_who_rules_wallet.jpg

Infographic courtesy of Wallaby Financial

What’s interesting to note is how these numbers compare with the broader, card-carrying public. According to statistics posted by CreditCards.com (as of 2010):

  • The average credit cardholder has 3.5 cards
  • 60% of consumers have a rewards credit card
  • 78% of consumers own a credit card

Also noteworthy was the strong showing from American Express among Wallaby users compared to AMEX penetration among the cardholding population at large (73% to 27%). Compare also Discover card’s 24% penetration of the Wallaby wallet to the card’s 30% penetration rate overall.

Wallaby Financial is among the companies that will be demoing their technology at FinovateSpring in May. To learn more about our upcoming event, visit our FinovateSpring page here.

Finovate Alumni News– April 18, 2013

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgSilicon Republic takes a look at TipRanks. Join TipRanks in San Francisco for FinovateSpring in May.
  • QuantConnect adds crowd sentiment data courtesy of Estimize.com.
  • DeviceFidelity’s patent portfolio grows with new NFC-based mobile wallet technology.
  • The Valley Girl Show interviews Pageonce founder and CEO Guy Goldstein.
  • Palo Alto Software launches LivePlan Scoreboard. Check out the demo at FinovateSpring.
  • Newfination features Bethy Hardeman, Credit Karma Communications Director, who explains its different services.
  • Concur App Center to offer cloud-based single sign-on from Ping Identity.
  • Quantopian integrates data sets from Canadian financial search engine startup, Quandl. See Quantopian’s technology at work at FinovateSpring in May.
  • Nomis Solutions partners with Recombo, integrates Discretion Manager with Agreement Express.
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.

eyeOpen Acquired by Aegon (Transamerica)

Thumbnail image for eyeOpenLogo.jpg

Slap a “SOLD” sign on one of the pioneers of the online mortgage advisor business.

eyeOpen, which launched its solution in February as part of FinovateEurope, announced that it has been acquired by Aegon. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Aegon is a global, multinational insurance, pensions, and asset management corporation. Headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, the company does business in the United States and Canada as Transamerica.

eyeOpen’s mission to build the “next level of personal finance optimization” so far includes their online mortgage advisor which puts algorithms to work helping consumers manage their personal finances.

The company is also a B2B business that sells data-extensive algorithms and software to banks and insurance companies to improve their own personal financial service offerings to their customers and clients.

eyeOpen_art.jpg

eyeOpen was founded on Christmas Eve in 2009. The company, with offices in Amsterdam and San Francisco, has raised €10 million in funding, and has served more than 1 million customers in 2012 through its eyeOpen.nl financial portal.

The company is led by CEO Diederick van Thiel, and counts Aegon Investments among its key financial backers.

To see eyeOpen in action, visit our video demo page for FinovateEurope 2013 here.

FinovateSpring 2013 Sneak Peek: Part 2

Thumbnail image for FinovateSpring13Logo.jpg

If you missed Part 1 of our FinovateSpring 2013 Sneak Peek, click here to read about some of the innovative companies that will be presenting at our upcoming May event in San Francisco.

To learn more about the show, visit our FinovateSpring 2013 page here.  Or if you’re just looking to pick up your tickets to the event, click here.

Part 2 of our Sneak Peek will feature another 12 companies that will be among those demoing on the Finovate stage in San Francisco next month. We’ll have even more companies to show you next week.
______________________________________________
AlliedPaymentLogo.jpg

Allied Payment Network: Allied Payment Network’s “Pay-It-Your-Way” strategy is driving mobile bill pay adoption by leveraging technology that consumers are embracing wholeheartedly – clicking, snapping a picture, or speaking.
Features:
  • Strategic differentiator for FIs
  • Live and available through multiple reselllers
  • Easily integrate into any mobile app
Why it’s great: Allied’s PicturePay has set the new standard for simplicity in mobile bill pay, using voice or a smartphone’s camera.
Encap: Provides a banking-grade, software-based authentication solution that offers uncompromising speed, security, and simplicity to boost
the adoption of financial services and applications.

ENCAPLogo_Orange.jpg

Features:
  • 2- and 3-factor authentication that helps drive customer adoption
  • Seamless integration into apps
  • Lower cost of ownership
Why it’s great: Most 2- and 3-factor authentication solutions will make your customers hate your product. Integrating Encap will make them love it.
GoBank (by Green Dot Corporation): The first bank account designed from scratch to be opened and used on a mobile device, with deposits insured by the FDIC.

GoBank_Logo_small.jpg

Features:
  • Real-time alerts
  • Fast: Join in minutes
  • Fair: No overdraft fees or minimum balance
Why it’s great: GoBank was created with the user experience top of mind to develop an innovative product with no hidden fees, complete transparency, reliability and peace of mind.

GremlnLogo.jpg

Gremln: Regulatory guidelines make social media compliance difficult for financial services. Gremln provides filtration, approval, and archiving. Teams can work together for secure social media.

Features:
  • Use social media AND keep your job
  • Verify posts are compliance before they are live
  • Multi-tiered approval process
Why it’s great: Your organization’s marketing and compliance forces can work in harmony to create secure, successful social media … all because of Gremln.
Jemstep: Jemstep Portfolio Manager is an online investment advisor that helps people lock in more money for retirement by telling them exactly what to buy and sell.
Features:
  • All they need to knowThumbnail image for JemstepLogo2.jpg
  • Exactly what to do
  • High-caliber guidance, not high fees
Why it’s great: Jemstep Portfolio Manager is the first and only resource of its kind, and it takes the complexity out of investing.

LICUOS_small_logo.jpg

Licuos: A global B2B payment platform that generates the most efficient A/R and A/P netting, payment and funding proposals for businesses.
Features:
  • Improves the financial efficiency of businesses
  • Reduces businesses’s funding needs and credit risk exposure with their clients
Why it’s great: LICUOS allows businesses to reduce their dependence on banks so that they can significantly improve their working capital management.

Leaf_Logo.jpg

Leaf: Leaf empowers small business owners to run and grow their businesses by providing a mobile payment platform built for local commerce.
Features: 
  • Accept payments via the processor of your choice
  • Analyze business performance from any device
  • Easily engage customers
Why it’s great: LeafPresenter is the first tablet designed specifically for local retail, benefitting small business owners in ways not previously possible.
Lodo Software: D3 Banking uses a powerful, predictive analytics engine and adaptive UI to provide a full range of financial services tailored to customer’s needs anytime, anywhere.
Features:

D3_banking_logo.jpg

  • Consistent customer experience via any digital channel
  • Customized, automated, targeted marketing
  • Flexible integration options
Why it’s great: D3 Banking delivers data-driven, digital banking, empowering financial institutions and their customers.
Micronotes: Delivers on the cross-sell imperative for digital banks.

LogoMicronotes.jpg

Features:
  • Most productive digital cross-sell tool
  • Maximizes $/square inch of digital real estate
  • Gives interactive a whole new meaning
Why it’s great: Micronotes’s Cross-Sell helps financial institutions radically improve the productivity of cross-selling online to increase revenue.
Persint: Provides consumer analytics, leveraging account aggregation and peer data to answer every household’s financial questions of “where do we stand?” and “what next?”
PersintLogo.jpg
Features:
  • 120 demographic peers from 5-click survey
  • Scoring of net worth, cash flow and risk
  • Opportunity identification & solution mapping
Why it’s great: Persint’s integration of peer data allows PFM to deliver objective conclusions on performance and credible advice on next steps.
Prestadero: The first, fully operational, peer to peer lending platform for the Mexican market.
PRESTADERO_logo.jpg
Feature:
  • Prestadero is upending traditional savings and loan operations in Mexico, offering loan rates and fixed income returns never before seen in our market.
Why it’s great: Mexico has some of the largest financial spreads in the world. Why? Nobody knows. Prestadero is here to change that.

Thumbnail image for TSYSLogo.jpg

TSYS: By putting people at the center of every decision we make, TSYS is able to support financial institutions, businesses, and governments in more than 80 countries.
Features:
  • Remotely control how, when, by whom, and where money is used.
  • Real-time remote monitoring transactions
  • Increased risk mitigation
Why it’s great: TSYS is bringing its industry expertise to the exciting and fast-paced area of payments and mobile to show a completely different experience from the end-user perspective.
______________________________________________
For more information on being a part of FinovateSpring 2013, see our FAQ. To register, visit out FinovateSpring page here.

BancVue to Deploy MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform

Thumbnail image for BancVueLogo.jpg

Reporting requirements are about to get a lot less onerous for bank client service managers working with BancVue.

BancVue’s decision to upgrade its business analytics offerings with MicroStrategy’s Business Intelligence platform reflects a desire to enable bank professionals to spend more time on improving customer service and less time with paperwork. The planned deployment  of both MicroStrategy’s Business Intelligence and Wisdom Professional solutions will allow FIs to better collect and analyze client data.

BancVue is the company behind Kasasa, a platform that helps financial institutions increase customer loyalty and retention, and allows for marketing on a larger scale and scope. The checking and savings accounts available via Kasasa, for example, provide customers with competitive rates, cash back and personal finance management (PFM) tools that let consumers take more control over their financial lives.

At the same time, they serve as opportunities for community banks and credit unions to market offers and rewards to their clients more efficiently.

Microstrategy-logo.jpg

MicroStrategy has been in the business of business intelligence since 1989. Headquartered appropriately enough in the intelligence community suburbs of Northern Virginia, the company began providing mobile business intelligence solutions in 2010, and cloud-based, SaaS solutions a year later. Wisdom Professional was brought to market in the summer of 2012.

BancVue demoed its technology as part of the FinovateSpring show in 2011. See them in action here.

MicroStrategy will be joining us in San Francisco for FinovateSpring in May. To learn more about this upcoming event, and to find out how to order your tickets, visit our FinovateSpring page here.

Allied Payment Network Brings PicturePay to City Bank Texas

AlliedPaymentLogo.jpgThe agreement between Allied Payment Network and City Bank Texas will put the company’s mobile bill payment service at the disposal of the bank’s customers throughout the Lone Star State.

How does PicturePay work? The app takes advantage of the fact that the average smartphone in 2013 has a high-enough quality resolution to accurately photography the average credit card or utility bill.

Add in the amount to be paid, the date, and the app does the rest. PicturePay pulls the relevant data from the image of the bill, makes sure the biller is the correct one, and then issues the payment through its own network.

CityBankTexasPicPay.jpg

A few facts about City Bank of Texas:

  • The bank has $2 billion in assets
  • The bank is headquartered in Lubbock, and has 22 branches throughout the state.
  • Founded in 1941, the bank has more than 500 employees

Interestingly, the technology behind PicturePay, specifically the optical character recognition (OCR) engine, was developed by another Finovate alum, Mitek. Read more about Mitek’s technology here.

Allied Payment Network is one of the companies that will be presenting its technology at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May. To learn more about the event, including how to buy tickets and save your spot, visit our FinovateSpring information page here.

Finovate Alumni News– April 16, 2013

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpg

  • Upstart Business Journal features SeedInvest. See them demo at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May.
  • Experian announces acquisition of Decisioning Solutions.
  • Volunteer Federal Savings Bank and Peoples Bank of the South choose Jack Henry Banking for  enterprise-wide automation.
  • GFT Blog interviews Matthias Kroner, chairman of the Fidor management board for Fidor Bank.
  • Authentify placed in Visionaries quadrant of the Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for User Authentication.” 
  • Boku partners with Bigpoint SARL and Co to allow users to make virtual payments.
  • Kony Solutions partners with Blue Shield of CA to develop and deploy apps on the KonyOne Platform.
  • miiCard adds YubiKey Authentication to online identity proofing solution.
  • SF Gate lists Mint and Expensify as 2 of 4 services to keep tax records organized.
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.

Bid ’em In! Blippy Bunch Announce Live Auction iPhone App

tophatterLogo.jpg

Are they hipper than the Home Shopping Network? More engaging than eBay?

Tophatter, the live auction website, has just launched its new iPhone app. The app will provide users with their own avatar and enable them to communicate with each other and the auctioneer.

Tophatter is the latest project and major pivot from the team that brought us transaction-sharing Blippy (Finovate alum, Spring 2010). But whatever Blippy may have missed in its ability to keep users coming back for more, the makers of Tophatter believe they have found in their new “QVC for the social Web” network.

A few early metrics:

  • More than $1 million dollars in monthly gross transaction volume
  • 35% of first time buyers bought three items in their first month
  • 500,000 bids placed in March, with a sell rate of 80%

tophatterroom.jpg

The live auction approach of Tophatter reflects CEO Ashvin Kumar and COO Andrew Blachman’s continued investment in “social spending”. In working to promote retention, the team has tried to capture the live experience of the auction with interactivity, while at the same time enriching the virtual experience with a design described by TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha as “loose and cartoony.” In a good way.

Finovate Alumni News– April 15, 2013

Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpg

  • INTJ Capital compares and contrasts Quantopian and QuantConnect. Join Quantopian in San Francisco for FinovateSpring.
  • MicroStrategy launches mobile app Usher, e-wallet for digital I.Ds, keys. See them demo at FinovateSpring in May.
  • Paybefore takes a look at the TSYS‘s acquisition of NetSpend and ponders “prepaid’s end game.”
  • Monitise Group Strategy Director Richard Johnson talks about trends in mobile money.
  • BancVue chooses MicroStrategy platform for business analytics.
  • CPA Practice Advisor takes a look at the new, updated iPad app from Kashoo.
  • This is Money blog looks at Zopa’s growth.
  • Yodlee awarded 50th patent for financial gadgets.
  • SoMoLend travels nationwide to teach small businesses & investors about crowdfunding.
  • Austin Business Journal considers BancVue’s inverted sales pitch.
  • Newfination hosts SoMoLend CEO, Candace Klein, who explains how the platform’s  crowdfunding capability.
  • Intelligent HQ interviews The Currency Cloud’s CEO, Michael Laven.
  • Pando Daily profiles crowdfunding pioneers like SeedInvest and SoMoLend. Join SeedInvest in May for FinovateSpring.
  • The Next Web interviews TipRanks‘s CEO and co-founder Uri Gruenbaun.
  • Chevron teams up with WattzOn to launch The Capacity Project for sustainable growth.
  • Refundo launches free iPhone app. Check out Refundo’s live demo at FinovateSpring.
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.