In our third FinovateSpring Behind the Scenes feature, we’re taking a look at three companies that demonstrated for the first time on the Finovate stage. We sat down with Tactile Finance, Visible Equity, and Vorstack to capture more information about their solutions.
If you missed our first and second Behind the Scenes features, you can check them out here:
What they do
Tactile Finance’s Tacfi makes the mortgage process easy to understand and more transparent for borrowers. It helps the borrower navigate mortgage options and connect with lenders.
Stats
- Launched in April 2014 at FinovateSpring
- Tacfi’s target user is any home buyer, whose average age is 35 to 40 years old
The experience
To sign up for Tacfi, users only need to provide their name, email address, and create a password.
They start by entering details of the home they’re interested in, such as the home price, property taxes, and other monthly expenses such as condo fees.
The calculator shows users what their mortgage payments will look like over time.
From here, users can save the information about their loan, have the option to determine the amount of the home loan for which they are eligible, or can proceed to get a real quote from a lender, based on the information they entered into the mortgage calculator.
Visible Equity
What they do
Visible Equity helps financial institutions determine their compliance with fair lending laws, which apply to all parts of the lending process including pre-application, underwriting, loan pricing, post closing activities, and modifications.
With the click of a button, its software can detect unfair and biased lending practices, which can often times lead to fines, degraded ratings, lawsuits, and negative impact on the brand. Visible Equity gives institutions a way to mathematically prove that their lending practices are in compliance.
Stats
- Serves 300+ clients
- Analyzes over $120B in loans daily
The experience
Occasionally, financial institutions have lending policies in place that result in unintentional bias against certain groups such as age, race, gender, geographical location, etc.
The screenshot below shows a loan pricing discrimination analysis that has been generated to determine discrimination against race. The table shows loan count by race and breaks down the interest rate to show the difference between the actual rate and the expected interest rate.
Lenders can view all outstanding loans and are able to sort by loan attributes.
Visible Equity’s responsive design web platform can be optimized for viewing on a tablet or mobile device, so lenders have a portable way to view and share metrics, data, and charts.
What they do
Vorstack is a cyber defense platform that helps online security professionals more efficiently target fraud. Its system helps them deal with the massive volume of emails they receive by automating reports based on the fraud in question.
Additionally, the open-source nature of Vorstack’s platform enables sharing of details under certain parameters with a trusted circle of other security professionals. Using this collective intelligence, Vorstack helps target fraud more quickly and efficiently.
Stats
- Raised $5.2 million in Series A funding
- 15 employees
- Launched for financial services at FinovateSpring 2014
The experience
Security breaches, such as the recent ones reported by popular retailers, not only impact end consumers, they also take a toll on security professionals. Shortly after such breaches, security reps at banks can be inundated with emails asking if the institution should be concerned, and what areas are impacted.
The Vorstack platform functions as the graphic depicts below. Information is gathered, organized, analyzed, then is returned to the user, outlining potential areas of fraud concerns.
The screenshot below shows the dashboard where the security professional can view a break down of the number of fraudulent events they should be concerned with. It combines data from multiple organizations in order to give visibility of potential fraudulent activity before it happens.
The Events section of the platform enables the security professional to take a closer look at both global and local events on an individual basis.
We’ll continue featuring more companies behind the scenes in the coming weeks so stay tuned.
Thomson Reuters 
