“With Secure Vault Payments, students or their parents initiate payments on a college or university web site and are automatically redirected to their own financial institution’s online banking platform to select which account they wish to use for payment. They are then returned to the school’s site, where they receive payment confirmation. Financial institutions authenticate the payer and immediately withdraw funds from the payer’s account and transfer funds to the school’s account the next business day.”
Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)
miiCard Closes First Round of Funding with $900,000
“The funding raised a total of over £550,000 ($900,000) from VC, angel and public sector sources. Investment has been secured from angel syndicate Par Equity, venture capital group IQ Capital and the Scottish Investment Bank’s Scottish Seed Fund.”
PayNearMe Announces Utility Bill Pay with Cash in Fairfield, CA
California-based PayNearMe announced today that it has partnered with InfoSend, the billing-service provider for Fairfield, California, to allow residents to pay their utility bills using cash at 7-Eleven stores.
“InfoSend is able to print a unique barcode directly onto each City of Fairfield utility bill. Upon receipt of the bill, customers can go to any local 7-Eleven where their bar code is scanned at the register. They complete the transaction by paying in cash in a process that takes less than 60 seconds. The funds immediately post to customers’ accounts, and they receive detailed receipts for proof of payment.”
To learn more about PayNearMe, come see its live demo at FinovateFall in New York this September 20-21. Get your ticket here. And, to see an example of its cash-based utility payment service, watch PayNearMe’s Best Of Show demo from FinovateSpring 2011.
AcceptEmail Launches an SMS Invoicing Service
“The new feature to the existing service allows senders to simply convert an AcceptEmail into an AcceptSMS. A short URL sends the recipient via mobile internet to the secured AcceptEmail transaction page. From this landing page the payment can be done, choosing one of the many available payment methods. The outstanding amount is safely paid via credit card, debit card or online banking and soon also via mobile banking.”
Finovate Alumni Website Traffic in July
- Seeking Alpha had the most traffic in July with more than 2 million unique visitors.
- eToro saw the highest monthly growth percentage with 3 times the number of unique visitors in July compared to June.
- Bundle had the highest increase in number of unique month-over-month visits, with 450,000 more visitors in July than in June.
- eRollover had the highest percent year-over-year traffic increase, with 260,000 more visitors from last July.
- PayPal had the highest number of U.S. visitors in July, with more than 30 million visitors.
- Jack Henry & Associates saw the highest monthly growth with twice as many visitors in July than June.
- Wipro Technologies had the highest year-over-year growth, with 3 times as many visitors this year compared to last year.
- FIS Global and Online Resources also doubled their traffic compared to last year.
Capital Access Network’s Risk Determination Method
“Took the ‘overall most innovative’ category in Barlow Research Associates’ Monarch Innovation Awards, which recognizes financial industry innovation. One of the judges, Robert Seiwert of the American Bankers Association, says the concept takes valuable information that used to be considered the proprietary information of analytics firms and makes it available to any bank that wants to pay for it.”
“What Capital Access has come up with is a third way,” Seiwert says. “Instead of waiting 30, 60, 90 days after a quarter is over to get the financial statements, we can get data daily and get into the heartbeat of a business to figure out how it’s doing.”
BOKU Forms Direct Carrier Billing Agreement with Two French Mobile Carriers
“These deals give BOKU nearly 100% coverage of the French mobile market, which is nearly 50 million mobile subscribers total. Bouygues Telecom and SFR are actually launching a new service, called Internet + Mobile, allowing consumers to purchase goods online and use BOKU to pay with their mobile phone number. BOKU says the purchase process only requires two-clicks and gives online merchants access to a full range of price points of up to 10 Euros.”
FinovateFall 2011 Sneak Peek: Part 2
More than 60 leading fintech innovators, both startups and established companies, are gearing up to present at the biggest Finovate ever, Sept. 20/21 in NYC.
ti-media content directly to your clients’ Apple, Android, BlackBerry, or Microsoft smartphones and tablets.

the support center. IND Mobile banking is more than just the extension of online banking features, unique ergonomic design, user experience, security and the fact that it is always-online.

o create missions.
Betterment Expands Portfolio Options by Adding International Investments
“As of last month, Betterment’s portfolio includes international exposure through the addition of two new exchange-traded funds: Vanguard Europe Pacific and Vanguard Emerging Markets.”
Dwolla Announces New Proxi Service
“The new tech will allow users to convert their Dwolla enabled devices into movable Spots to seamlessly take payments without additional hardware, like NFC or dongles.”

Bill.com Launches Invoice Mailing Service
California-based Bill.com launched a billing feature that allows small businesses and accountants to invoice their customers via snail mail.
“Bill.com’s Accounts Receivable (AR) update enables users to send printed bills to their customers via U.S. mail at below the cost of what a typical company would spend printing, stuffing and mailing invoices.”
This new service will benefit those who prefer paperless billing methods by allowing them to send invoices to customers who still use paper invoices.
It also includes new features such as:
- The addition of a Quick Response (QR) code on the invoice that allows the recipient to scan the code and link directly to their Bill.com Payment Portal.
- The ability to integrate with QuickBooks and Peachtree accounting software
To learn more about Bill.com, watch its FinovateSpring 2011 demo here.
Mint.com Adds Bill Payment Reminder Feature
Mint.com launched a new bill payment reminder feature today that provides one place where users can track upcoming bills. This timeline format lets users see their bills over time and allows them to set customized due date reminders.
“‘Juggling due dates and amounts owed, and jumping from websites to paper statements, is tedious and confusing. Busy people have better ways to spend their time and money, such as saving toward a goal,’ said Aaron Forth, VP and GM of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group”
Mint.com will automatically recognize user’s bills based on prior bank statements and monthly patterns.
To learn more about Mint.com, check out its FinovateSpring 2011 demo here.