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Next, we have Inner8 on stage with a demo from CEO Doug Doyle and Director of Product Sam Kasle.
Inner8 will be demo’ing an innovative approach for investing.
Inner8 is one of the youngest companies on stage, having launched the private beta just a few weeks ago. They call themselves the “match.com” of investing. They can match people to people, people to specific stocks, or even market conditions to specific stocks.
Next up is another alum of Finovate Startup, Matt Iverson, CEO of Boulevard R.
Boulevard R helps consumers with longer-term financial planning issues such as retirement planning.
Boulevard R helps users create a financial plan online using a 3-step process. The site allows users to work with a certified financial planner. They also have an integration with Advanta credit cards.
Users can go back and use the dashboard to see the plan they’ve produced and alter any of the inputs. They also have a “what if” key to run different planning scenarios.
Next up is Mitchell Savage, EVP of Vidoop. Vidoop also appeared on stage at our Finovate Startup conference in April as Confident Technologies.
Vidoop provides solutions for login authentication and password management.
Vidoop showed an out-of-band authentication solution where during login the server calls the customer via telephone, and the user must either press # or, if preferred, enter a 4-digit PIN code to be authenticated via phone.
They also showed their visual approach, a “secret hidden in plain view,” in production at Charles Schwab.
Banks can use the system free-of-charge if they allow some of the visual images to contain product placements. On the demo, a Smart Car was shown as one of the visual image choices.
At the halfway point of the morning demo session, we have David Kansas, president of FiLife. FiLife makes its first Finovate appearance today.
FiLife is a joint venture between IAC and Dow Jones, now owned by News Corp. The company launched the personal finance website last year with a blog, and added personal financial management features in June 2008.
FiLife is making the first public presentation of its capabilities today at Finovate. The website allows users either to find other “smart users,” or to read advice and ask questions from “friendly gurus.”
What’s new
FiLife is introducing a series of product pickers, starting with credit cards. A unique visual display shows the different product choices. They also have attribute sliders, similar to Kayak, to narrow down the choices.
Kansas also demonstrated the “stacker” approach to helping users figure out how they stack up with their peers.
Next up is Sybase 365, with a demo from Cameron Franks, director of mCommerce America and Carroll Cucarola, technical account manager.
In its first appearance at Finovate, Sybase will show innovations from their mobile suite for banking and payments.
Sybase showed the broad capabilities of its mobile suite including the intelligent SMS capability that uses natural language syntax so users can determine the command to text a request to the bank, e.g., “what’s my balance” or “balance.”
The fourth presenter this morning is Jordy Berson, group product manager at Check Point Software Technologies.
Check Point is a new Finovate presenter and will demo its security solution for safer online banking.
Check Point is showing their ZoneAlarm ForceField, which, when installed on users’ machines, warns them if they go to a phishing site; even more important, it keeps malicious programs from being accidentally downloaded during Web surfing. It uses a virtual sandbox to protect Web sessions even if users’ machines already contain malicious software.
The next presenter is Gabe Griego, VP marketing at Wesabe.
Wesabe was the first online personal finance company to integrate social aspects into its service. The Silicon Valley company launched in late 2006 and appeared at Finovate Startup in April.
What’s new
Wesabe has added new graphing capabilities to easier compare your personal data with the community. You can also compare spending at individual merchants based on how the user has rated the merchant: fan vs. user vs. captive.
Next up, one of the newest companies at Finovate, WeSeed. The demo will be shown by Jennifer Openshaw, president/co-founder and Steve Simoncic, creative director.
WeSeed is an investment site targeted for beginning or novice investors. Its motto is “investing for the rest of us.” They are signing up beta testers now.
Finovate 2008 kicks off with a demo of Intuit’s Quicken Online. The presenter is Todd Stanley VP/general manager of Quicken Online and Barron Ernst, product manager.
Quicken Online, the online version of the popular desktop personal finance manager, was launched in January 2008. One notable difference between Intuit’s strategy and other online PFMs, is that Quicken Online costs $3/mo. The vast majority of competitors are ad supported and free of charge.
What’s new
Intuit is removing the fee from Quicken Online; it is now free of charge, which means, of the major online personal finance companies, only Mvelopes/Finicity charges a fee.
The new user interface will be available Oct. 30.
Introducing more mobile integration.
Much of this week’s NetBanker coverage will focus on our annual financial innovations showcase in New York City, Finovate 2008. On Tuesday, we’ll post updates on all 24 presenting companies (list here). Wednesday we’ll announce the official Best of Show winners, as voted on by the nearly 400 attendees (see note).
We’d like to thank the presenters shown above and our four sponsors, Qualcomm’s Firethorn, Microsoft’s MSN Money, RBC Venture Partners, and the law firm Chambliss, Bahner, & Stophel, who also sponsored Finovate Startup.
But most of all, we applaud our attendees for continuing their focus on new technology and creative thinking during trying economic times.
Note: There are still a handful of seats remaining, if you’d like to attend click here.
As noted here last week, Loanio launched its much anticipated peer-to-peer lending exchange Oct. 1.
And we are lucky that founder Michael Solomon has agreed to take the stage this Tuesday at Finovate to show everyone the results of his nearly two-year development effort.
The reason for the last-minute addition is that another P2P lender planning to launch at Finovate, Pertuity Direct, has delayed its grand opening to ensure that regulators are comfortable with its business. Given recent worldwide events, that’s understandable. We look forward to seeing its demo at Finovate 2009.
There are still a few seats remaining at the nearly sold-out event (registration is here). The complete lineup is listed here.
Article updated at 2 PM Pacific with quote from one of Zopa’s partner CUs, Affinity Plus.
Zopa’s U.S. social deposit/lending site will be shuttered, just 10 months after its launch (see previous coverage here). The site, which delivered loan applications and CD customers to six credit union partners, apparently was closed by Zopa. At this point the exact reason is unclear (see update below). Zopa blamed the U.S. credit situation and said it wanted to concentrate its efforts in other markets.
Here’s part of the statement from CEO Doug Dolton that appeared on the Zopa forum earlier today (also here’s the official blog entry at Zopa UK):
The facts are: Due to the extremely difficult consumer credit circumstances in the US, we made the decision to focus our ongoing efforts in the UK, Italy and Japan. We have six credit union partners in the US, and we have been working with them to modify our business model to offer our customers the best possible offerings, given the poor credit conditions in the US.
We’re certainly facing unprecedented economic times worldwide right now, but I am pleased to report that our UK and Italian operations are doing better than ever, and I look forward to continuing to develop those marketplaces. I apologise for any confusion regarding our circumstances.
As of this morning, the Zopa US homepage is unchanged, but you can no longer sign up as a new member and all the Learn More links redirect to USA Federal Credit Union.
Implications
It’s surprising that the company would throw in the towel on the significant investment it made here. However, if Zopa’s CU lending partners had curtailed, or stopped, making loans through the site, something noticed last week by the Prosper Lending Review blog, the whole strategy would no longer be viable (see update below).
But this has nothing to do with what Prosper, Loanio (which launched last week) and hopefully Lending Club (expected be accepting new lenders shortly) are doing with person-to-person lending. Zopa US, unlike Zopa UK, was NOT a P2P lending site, it was a lead-generation site for six credit unions. When those CUs stopped needing loan-leads due to the credit crunch, it took the legs out from under the U.S. division. Even continuing to just take deposits made no sense, since each depositor was required to assist a borrower by gifting a portion of the deposit interest.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see Zopa back in United States in the future as a true P2P lending site, copying the model of its U.K. and Italian divisions. The social aspect of its offering certainly resonated with consumers and industry players as well. The company was one of four Best of Show winners in our April Finovate Startup conference, an award by majority vote from the audience (video here).
For more information, see our Online Banking Report on Person-to-Person Lending. And those attending our Finovate next week will see two companies demo P2P lending.
Update: 2 PM PDT, 9 Oct 2008
As one of the credit unions who were partnered with Zopa, I would like to clarify that we have no credit availability issues and have changed none of our lending practices. This decision was made by Zopa.
— Sarah Mason, SVP, Affinity Plus Credit Union