Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

19 Finovate Alums Selected for 2014 European FinTech 50 Awards

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AcceptEmail, BehavioSec, Credit Agricole, eToro, ETRONIKA, Fidor Bank, Five Degrees, FreeAgent, HelpMyCash, Holvi, Ixaris, Klarna, mBank, Meniga, Nutmeg, The Currency Cloud, TransferWise, Wonga, Zopa

The FinTech 50 awards highlight 50 European-based companies to watch over the coming year. The companies are selected by a panel of 15 fintech professionals. This year, 19 of the selected companies are Finovate alums.

Here are the Finovate alums selected, listed in alphabetical order:

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AcceptEmail, for its electronic billing and payment system that allows customers to make payments straight from their email.

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BehavioSec, for its technology that uses behavioral biometrics to verify users, creating a secure environment without extra friction.

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Credit Agricole Apps, for its online app store where financial apps are co-created between clients and developers.

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eToro, for its social trading and investment network

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ETRONIKA, for its full suite of ebanking channels and BANKTRON management platform.

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Fidor Bank, for its innovative online banking community.

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Five Degrees, for its integrated banking platform that extends from back-end systems to client-facing technology.

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FreeAgent, for its SMB-focused online accounting system.

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Help my Cash, for its recommendation engine that informs consumers of their options when choosing and negotiating financial services.
Holvi, for its smart checking account for group activities.
Ixaris, for its innovative global applications based on open-loop prepaid card schemes.

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Klarna, for its e-commerce payment solutions.

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mBank, for its Bank 3.0 approach to online and mobile banking.

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Meniga, for its white-labeled PFM and next-generation online banking solutions.

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Nutmeg, for its online savings and investing service that helps users manage their money.

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The Currency Cloud, for its Cross Border Payments as a Service product that optimizes exchange rates and payment networks for both parties in a currency exchange.

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TransferWise, for its platform that allows expats, foreign exchange students and businesses to move money globally.

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Wonga, for its service that provides small, short term cash advances to UK consumers online.

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Zopa, for its P2P money lending service that allows borrowers and lenders to deal with each other directly.

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Feedzai Brings its Fraud Prevention Solutions to United States

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Feedzai

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Just two weeks before taking the stage at FinovateEurope in London, fraud prevention company Feedzai announced that it will be taking its solutions across the pond to the United States.

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Feedzai’s technology uses big data and machine learning to understand user behavior and prevent fraud.

While this core service has been around since 2008 in Europe, the Portugal-based company will debut a new solution at FinovateEurope in a couple weeks. The new technology will help banks privately connect with users via social apps such as Facebook and Yelp. To get a better look at what it plans to demo, check out the sneak peek here.

To watch Feedzai demo its new solution live on the FinovateEurope stage, get your ticket here.

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Finovate Alumni News– January 28, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Actiance, Blackhawk Network, Credit Sesame, Gremln, Kabbage, Mortgagebot, Ping Identity, Service2Media
  • DailyFinance looks at Kabbage’s “war” on banking.
  • Blackhawk Network powering Mobile Money by T-Mobile.
  • Credit Sesame launches mobile credit dashboard for easy credit and financial monitoring.
  • Actiance launches Alcatraz, a cloud-based archive that combines a focus on context with the traditional requirements of an email archive.
  • New York Bankers Association endorses Gremln.
  • Service2Media unveils version 4.4 of M2Active mobile app development platform.
  • Ping Identity CEO Andre Durand featured in Xconomy column on University of Colorado at Boulder’s New Venture Challenge program.
  • Be sure to check out the latest installment of our FinovateEurope 2014 Sneak Peek series.
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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Finovate Alumni News– January 27, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Allied Payment Network, Billhighway, DeviceFidelity, Doxo, Expensify, EyeVerify, FIS, Jemstep, Lending Club, SecondMarket, Spreedly, Xero
  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgLending Club named #5 on Forbes’ Most Promising Companies List.
  • The Wall Street Journal mentions SecondMarket’s private shares trading market.
  • Doxo receives 2013 Award for best Software and App from the Seattle Award Program.
  • VentureBeat lists Xero and Expensify as 2 of the best back-office software applications for small businesses.
  • Billhighway Prepaid MasterCard named winner in eighth annual Paybefore Awards.
  • Bank Systems & Technology features Allied Payment Network’s Picture Pay mobile bill pay app.
  • FIS wins Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Enhancement award for FIS Mobile Wallet.
  • Credit Card Vault in the Cloud Spreedly Raises $500k.
  • Find Biometrics takes a brief look at 2013 and 2014 with EyeVerify’s Director of Marketing, Denise Myers.
  • DeviceFidelity announces availability of its IsisReady NFC cases for iPhone.
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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Finovate Alumni News– January 24, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Better ATM Services, CSI globalVCard, CurrencyFair, Kabbage, Lending Club, Personal Capital, Prosper, Trustev
  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgPersonal Capital “zips past the $350 million mark,” reports growth rates of +10% month-over-month.
  • Inc. features Kabbage’s growth & how it has extended $200+ mil in funding to SMBs in just 2.5 years of operations.
  • FINalternatives looks at P2P lending growth and evolution, including Lending Club and Prosper.
  • Ovum research report highlights ACI Worldwide’s leadership in payment switching industry.
  • MarketWatch features Better ATM Services in report on the next generation of ATMs.
  • CSI globalVCard named a finalist in two categories in 2014 Stevie Awards.
  • RTE News takes a look at Irish fintech startups including CurrencyFair and Trustev. Watch Trustev demo its technology at FinovateEurope 2014.
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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Finovate Alumni News– January 23, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Arroweye Solutions, BillGuard, Fidor Bank, HelloWallet, Jingit, PayPal, Wipit
  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgVanguard partners with HelloWallet to help employees save more for retirement.
  • Sprint introduces Sprint Money Express; offers subscribers a card for all their cash to pair with Wipit offering.
  • PaymentsNews shows a graphical view of PayPal’s performance.
  • Arroweye Solutions named winner in eighth annual Paybefore Awards.
  • BillGuard brings email-like UI to mobile banking transaction flow.
  • Jingit talks mobile payments and advertising on CauseTalk Radio.
  • Fidor Bank to launch bitcoin derivatives market.
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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FinovateEurope 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 5

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Arxan Technologies, CRIF, Efigence, FinovateEurope 2014, Idea Bank, payworks, Plutus Software, SaaS Markets

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While we’re busy polishing up the details for FinovateEurope 2014, we wanted to keep our Sneak Peek series going. Below is the fifth installment of our series that gives a glimpse of what the companies will demo on stage February 11 and 12 in London. Don’t miss out on the action; get your ticket here today to see all of the demos live.

If you missed any of our earlier installments, take a look at FinovateEurope 2014 Sneak Peeks 1-4 below.

And now, meet another six companies who will be demoing next month at FinovateEurope 2014.

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Arxan Technologies protects mobile apps from hackers and malware exploits with award-winning mobile app shielding products. Prevent fraud, unauthorized access and brand compromise with Arxan’s software security.

Features:

    • Strengthens financial apps with self-defense and tamper-resistance 
    • Delivers comprehensive and multi-OS application hardening
    • Deployed at the end of software development without changes to source code
Why it’s great
Arxan provides global Fortune 500 companies with the world’s strongest and most deployed application protection to launch multi-OS mobile services. 

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Vince Arneja, Vice President, Product Management
Vince Arneja brings over 18 years of experience in senior level technical product and program management, with the last 10 years focused on application, endpoint and network security.
LinkedIn

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Winston Bond, European Technical Manager
With over 20 years of experience, Winston has developed software on a wide variety of embedded, desktop and mobile platforms. Winston is European Technical Manager for Arxan Technologies Inc.
LinkedIn

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CRIF sees financial institutions worldwide turn to its Credit Framework, adaptable technology, integrating predictive analytics and know-how, to achieve optimized decision-making and compliant credit processes.

Features:
    • Lending sales mobile app integrating automated decision-making, information and downstream processes
    • Mobile business intelligence for credit and lending
    • Business user-friendly KPI tracking and fine-tuning
Why it’s great
Combines lending via mobile devices with agile, business user-friendly technology to make smarter decisions in the moment.  

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Aldo Bruschi Vice-President 
Aldo is a seasoned credit and decisioning expert. He is motivated by continuous innovation in applying data, predictive analytics and technology to improve credit and lending processes. 
LinkedIn

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Sheila Donohue
International credit and lending go-to-market professional and global marketer for the CRIF Credit Framework.
LinkedIn


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efigence and IdeaBank developed the first European Internet Banking for SMEs integrated with accountancy and cashflow analysis tools on the web, tablets and mobile which works in cloud.
Features:
    • First European “All-in-one” platform for SMEs including Internet Banking, accountancy and cashflow analysis module.
    • Works in the cloud
    • On web, tablets and other mobile devices
Why it’s great
This transaction system for SMEs connected with cloud accountancy systems and a company’s cashflow analysis changed the way of thinking in the banking sector about products for business.  
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Andrzej Szewczyk, Managing Director at Efigence
Andrzej worked for the largest telecoms and media companies and was implementing pioneer projects that used broadband data transmission for the largest Polish websites.

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Steve Sutton, Innovation Manager at efigence
Steve is focused on international business development. 

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payworks makes it easy to build payments into shopper and merchant apps.
Features:
    • Easy integration of payment functionality
    • Combine shopper wallets and Chip & PIN 
    • Work with different hardware and payment providers
Why it’s great
It provides the world of mobile POS on one single platform.

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Christian Deger, Co-Founder and CEO of payworks
Prior to founding payworks, Christian was responsible for building the South East Asian business of PAYRETO, a managed services company for payment providers. 

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Plutus Software’s KreditAja.com (its flagship product) features predictive analytics to aid both borrowers and lenders.
Features:
    • Superior alternative to traditional credit scoring
    • More holistic assessment of a borrower’s creditworthiness
    • Enables lenders to more accurately assess the risk of borrowers
Why it’s great
KreditAja.com’s proprietary credit scoring system aims to produce a more holistic assessment of a borrower’s creditworthiness via incorporating multiple data sources, including social media.  

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Aidil Zulkifli, CEO
Aidil is a Singapore-qualified advocate and solicitor, and practiced law for more than 2 years before founding Plutus Software.
LinkedIn

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Jagannathan J., CTO
Jagannathan possesses 16 years experience as a technologist and was previously Head of Engineering at Yahoo! SEA/India and Singapore’s leading property portal, Propertyguru.com.sg.

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SaaS Markets is the leading enterprise app store platform for financial companies.
Features:
    • Reduce software costs with a centralized app marketplace solution
    • Give your employees and/or your SME customers all of the cloud-based tools they need to succeed
    • Increase IT security and control
Why it’s great
SaaS Markets’ MarketMaker platform–the leading cloud marketplace platform for financial companies.

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Ferdi Roberts, CEO
Ferdi is a former senior executive at Yahoo, Cisco, and Ariba. Educated at Imperial College in London, he has worked across global tech markets for the past 20 years.
LinkedIn

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Jay Manciocchi, JD, Director of Content
Jay formerly worked as a senior executive at Brafton–the U.S.’s largest content marketing agency. He has further worked at Mercer–the global consulting company.
LinkedIn

Stay tuned next Monday, when we’ll bring you six more previews of the hottest in European fintech.

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Inside Mortgage Harmony’s Partnership with PenFed Credit Union

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mortgage Harmony

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Mortgage banking can be a profitable segment, but shrinking margins, competitive pricing strategies, and lower volumes, it can just as easily be ruthless.

Keith Kelly Mortgage Harmony CEO, Is working on changing this. We caught up with him last week to chat about the recent partnership with Pentagon Federal Credit Union.

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The 1.2 million-member-strong credit union opted to white-label the platform for its users, calling it a One Click Rate Reset Protection. 

To check out the user experience for ourselves, Kelly provided us with a link to a test environment (click here to access). Here is what it looked like after we logged in to the “GTE Financial” test environment:

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The system shows us the details of our current mortgage, along with what it will look like after the rate is reset.

After opting to reset the loan, the customer is prompted to sign the new document using DocuSign:

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Once the signature is confirmed, the site notifies the consumer that the process was successful and informs them when the new rate will take effect.

The Virginia-based company has been busy after the successful implementation of the One-Click Rate Change product with PenFed.

What’s next?
When asked what is next for Mortgage Harmony, CEO Kelly replied that the company is working on a product for auto loans, and plans to go live with the new product with an existing partner this year. What’s more, the company is in the middle of a funding round, which it hopes to close later this year. Check out it’s AngelList site here.

Watch Mortgage Harmony’s demo of its HarmonyLoan product that it debuted at FinovateSpring 2013.

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Finovate Alumni News– January 20, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, FreeAgent, Tagit, TradeHero, Zopa
  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgEntrepreneurial Finance Lab uses psychometric test to stop loan defaulters.
  • Unquote.com examines funding FinovateEurope alumni have received.
  • FreeAgent now enables UK-based sole traders to file their self assessment return to HMRC on the FreeAgent platform.
  • My Manisku Pte Ltd., the company behind TradeHero, selected for Microsoft Ventures Accelerator’s fourth class.
  • The Martin Lewis Money Show talks about P2P lending and Zopa.
  • Tagit-powered Maybank Mobile Money wins Best MCommerce solution ward from Mob-Ex.
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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Finovate Alumni News– January 16, 2013

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Doxo, ID Analytics, Jack Henry, peerTransfer, TSYS
  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgID Analytics names George Gelly Chief Product Officer.
  • Doxo reviews 2013: hits 1 million users mark, achieves 3 to 6x growth in every region of U.S.
  • Northeast Bank to deploy Jack Henry Banking’s SilverLake System core processing platform.
  • TSYS to launch Authorization Controls for credit and debit cardholders.
  • University Business Magazine names peerTransfer a Top Product of 2013.
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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FinovateEurope 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 3

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ETRONIKA, Feedzai, FinovateEurope 2014, IND Group, Meniga, The Currency Cloud, Trustev

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To help you prepare for FinovateEurope 2014, our fourth Finovate event in London, we’ve compiled a small taste of what the companies will demo over the course of February 11 and 12. To see each company demo live, get your ticket here.

Below, you’ll find a preview of the next 6 companies in our series. If you missed the first 2 posts, check out:

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The Currency Cloud provides a transparent online service powering international payments firms. It enables businesses to move money around the world easily, quickly and securely.

Features: 

  • The ability to hold multi-currency balances in an ewallet
  • Faster international payments
  • Delivered though our upgraded intuitive interface

    • Why it’s great:
    Moving money should be easy. It powers next-generation companies with a transparent, fast and trusted global payments platform to transform how the world moves money.  

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    Mike Laven, CEO
    Mike is a seasoned FinTech expert who has been pioneering innovation for over 30 years
    LinkedIn

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    Richard Bastin, CTO
    With a lifelong passion for technology, Richard has been leading technology departments for over ten years
    LinkedIn

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    ETRONIKA unites emerging trends and innovative techniques in IT solutions to amaze the market and create unique opportunities for clients in finance, banking and e-businesses.

    Features:

      • Holistic multichannel partnership ecosystem for banks and partners
      • Personalized service offerings enabled by smart data analysis
      • Customer loyalty platform with enhanced fraud prevention

    Why it’s great: 
    Its ecosystem helps banks and partners to achieve customer experience beyond expectations through upgraded smart data analysis engine and maximized fraud prevention. 


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    Kestutis Gardžiulis, CEO
    Kestutis has 18 years experience in banking and e-channel development. With a background in visual arts and quantum electronics, he is a true idea generator. 
    LinkedIn

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    Asta Sabaite, Head of Marketing
    Asta’s broad marketing perspective comes from years of multinational practice in FMCG and retail industries. Her creative and analytical skills are devoted to fully understand client’s needs.
    LinkedIn

    Feedzai provides payment fraud prevention at Big Data scale.

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    Features: 
      • Connect mobile bank apps to social apps such as Facebook and Yelp, privately
      • Consumers check in and post status (geolocation) to protect their transactions
      • Feedzai’s fraud software lets banks “friend” customers, offering added peace-of-mind
    Why it’s great:
    Feedzai lets consumers and Banks be Facebook friends in order to make omnichannel commerce safe.

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    Nuno Moura Pires, VP of Sales
    Nuno is a senior sales executive with 15 years experience with a solid and extensive experience in technology and software companies like QlikView and SAS.
    LinkedIn
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    IND Group is a digital banking, PFM and payments technology software innovator and vendor for financial institutions.
    Features:
      • Turns the mobile banking channel into a real-time communication platform 
      • Persona-based design
      • Revolutionary card view concept
    Why it’s great: With IND Essence, all services are only a few taps away – anytime, anywhere. Mobile banking has never been so comfortable and easy, yet secure.  

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    József NYÍRI
    József is the Co-Founder and Chief Innovator of IND Group, market leader of innovative banking front-office solutions.

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    Tamas BRAUN
    Tamas is the General Manager of IND (UK), a subsidiary of IND Group, a leading international innovative banking front end solution vendor.

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    Meniga is the European market leader of white-label Personal Finance Management (PFM) and next-generation digital banking solutions.
    Features: 
      • Unique way to create value from data and analyze spending behavior
      • Anonymous and based on consent of retail banking customers
      • New revenue stream. Actionable, real-time insights into retail markets
    Why it’s great: 
    The Market Watch provides unprecedented, real-time, insights into consumer spending behavior, allowing banks to offer a highly valuable service to retail industry players. 

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    Georg Ludviksson, CEO
    Georg is an accomplished technology entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience of founding, building and managing software companies with a global perspective. 

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    Einar Gústafsson, VP Product Management at Meniga
    An interaction and information designer with a special focus on financial data and online banking. Einar has been working in the web industry since 1998 and is responsible for Meniga’s product roadmap.

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    Trustev provides real time, online identity verification to eliminate fraud and increase revenues.
    Features: 
      • Brings retail identity decision making in the internet age
      • Provides identity decisions in real time
      • Uses multiple independent dynamic data sources 
    Why it’s great:
    Its rigorous authentication technologies deal with fraudsters, so you can serve your real customers.

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    Pat Phelan, CEO & Co-founder
    One of Ireland’s best-known serial entrepreneurs, Pat Phelan is recognised across the globe as one of the most connected men in the technology industry.

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    Chris Kennedy, CTO & Co-founder 
    Kennedy is a web professional with over 10 years experience in developing state of the art web engineering solutions with a speciality in building heavy duty web platforms.

    Stay tuned over the next few weeks for more in our Sneak Peek series.

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    LearnVest-Inspired Book, Financially Fearless, Tops Charts as Best Seller

    By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
    Categories: LearnVest

    LearnVEstlogo.jpg

    For a fintech company to succeed outside of the digital realm in the physical world of print is not an easy feat. It makes sense, however, that a company with as much spunk as LearnVest has been able to make a splash with a book.

    Alexa Von Tobel, LearnVest Founder and CEO, has been a rising star in the personal finance realm lately. The New York-based CEO released her own book, Financially Fearless, at the end of last year, and it has recently been listed as the #5 New York Times Best Sellers list in the category of Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous.

    Additionally, it reached:

      • Wall Street Journal Best Seller #1 hardcover in Business and #5 Hardcover in Non-Fiction categories 
      • Chicago Tribune Best Seller #5 in Hardcover Non-Fiction category 
      • Apple iBooks Best of 2013
      • Amazon Best Seller (during the weeks of December 22 and 29, 2013)
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    Readers who forward their book receipt to fearless@learnvest.com can receive a little extra motivation:

      • Advanced access to a $50 credit to LearnVest Planning and one month of support for free ($19 value).
      • Two free tickets to attend LearnVest Live in either New York City, Boston or San Francisco.
      • Exclusive access to January’s premium live, online event – featuring Alexa and covering what you need to know to set achievable goals in 2014.
      • A 10 minute 1:1 session with Alexa (availability is limited).
      • Alexa’s money hacks “cheat sheet.”

    To learn more about LearnVest, check out its FinovateFall 2013 demo, where it debuted its Action Program.

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