Alumni News — Weeks of March 7, 13 and 21, 2011

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Andera adds its 500th customer. http://bit.ly/finovate322116
Bill Harris and Mark Goines join the Pageonce Advisory Board. Harris was formerly CEO of Intuit and of PayPal, and Goines was formerly a senior executive at Intuit and Charles Schwab. http://prn.to/finovate322111
Bill.com named to the JMP Securities “Hot 100.” The list includes the 100 best privately held software companies for 2011 according to the investment bank. http://bit.ly/finovate38113
BillShrink adds Anil Arora, Yodlee president and CEO, to its board of directors. The announcement comes just after the launch of “Statement Rewards” from BillShrink. http://bit.ly/finovate322112
Boku moves from virtual-goods billing to real-goods billing in Germany. Now real goods can be added to wireless bills thanks to Boku’s technology. http://bit.ly/finovate324112
Cardlytics wins Judge’s Choice Award in the 2011 Paybefore Awards. The Paybefore  awards are hosted annually by Prepaid Media. http://bit.ly/finovate38111
CashEdge signs Huntington for P2P PopMoney. http://bit.ly/finovate322117
Check out the Filene webinar with Thwakk on how to leverage financial education to increase youth membership. http://bit.ly/finovate322113
Columbus Water Works customers can now pay their utility bill via eWise’s secure payment platform. http://yhoo.it/finovate37113
Cedit Sesame closes on $6.15 million Series B funding round led by Melo Ventures. http://bit.ly/finovate322118
eToro launches “Trade Story.” This social platform helps traders learn the strategies behind other users’ trades. http://bit.ly/hQNDGc
Expensify is featured in Money magazine. http://bit.ly/finovate322114
Guardian Analytics raises $11 million. This is Guardian’s fourth round of funding, this time led by Split Rock Partners. http://bit.ly/finovate323113
H&R Block and Yodlee partner to make it easier to file taxes. http://yhoo.it/finovate3236
ICICI and Intuit partner on a Mint-like platform for India. http://bit.ly/finovate324113

Can Banks and Credit Card Issuers Outflank Groupon with Merchant-Funded Rewards?

imageGroupon may be the biggest company in history that everyone thinks they could have built. Facebook, I guess, is up there too.

It seems everyone is wondering how they could do the “Groupon of ____” (fill in the blank). In my world, the blank is “banking.” I already wrote about the potential for selling financial products through Groupon and other flash marketing sites last July, so I won’t repeat that part. Anyway, that’s Groupon 1.0. 

It’s Groupon 2.0 that I think is even more interesting for financial institutions. The new model, coming in a few weeks, is all about mobile deals. Groupon Now mobileThe company is said to be planning on adding two buttons to your smartphone:

I’m hungry…which will alert you to nearby Groupons you can use for food deals.

I’m bored…which will alert you to just about anything else Groupon sells.

It’s brilliant. And so simple. Again, everyone will wish they’d built it. 

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Banking Opportunities
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So how could you do the same thing in personal finance? What would those buttons be?

  • I’m broke….leads to ATM finder, cash-back location, credit card site, loan app, friends & family loans, P2P lender, etc.
  • I’ve just been paid…leads to ATM finder, branch locations, deposit accounts, billpay, investments, automated savings plans, etc.
  • I’m out of town…leads to ATM finder, FX locations, travel services, 
    resource locator, card-issuer notifications, security preferences, etc.

But those are all pretty much standard functions of online/mobile banking today. The bigger opportunity may be to beat Groupon at the local level, with merchant-funded rewards tied to debit/credit cards (see note 1). Banks could potentially use the same “hungry/bored buttons” and direct customers to cash-back deals at restaurants and other merchants making offers to your cardholders.

Bottom line: Location-based rewards is another example of why mobile banking will be more important than online banking. To put it simply:

Banks enable commerce.

Mobile enables location-based commerce.

So financial institutions are right in the middle of a multi-billion dollar shift in retail spending. Enjoy all the opportunities!

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Notes:
1. For more on merchant-funded rewards, see the latest Online Banking Report.
2. Picture credit: All Things Digital

FinovateSpring 2011 Demo Roster Revealed — Get your early-bird ticket before they’re gone!

FinovateSpring_Logo_Date.jpg

In less than seven weeks, over 60 handpicked companies will take the stage at FinovateSpring in San Francisco to demo their latest financial and banking technology innovations.

The selected companies will showcase their latest ideas to an influential audience that’s shaping up to be Finovate’s largest ever (well above last spring’s headcount of 550). It should be a packed house on May 10th & 11th at the Concourse Exhibition Center and we hope you’ll join us to watch the future of finance unfold live on stage.

Without further ado, here are the companies who will be demoing at FinovateSpring 2011:

  • Afiniate
  • Aptys Solutions
  • Arroweye Solutions
  • Backbase
  • BancVue
  • Balance Financial
  • Bill.com
  • Billeo
  • BillFloat
  • Bills.com
  • BillShrink
  • Blaze Mobile
  • Braintree
  • Bundle
  • ChargeSmart
  • Clovr Media
  • Code Green
  • Crossroads
  • Currensee
  • doxo
  • Dwolla
  • edo Interactive
  • Enloop
  • eWise
  • Expensify
  • Experian
  • Figlo
  • Fiserv
  • Gold Bullion Int’l
  • Gratio Capital
  • HelloWallet
  • HOYOS
  • ID Analytics
  • Ideon
  • Intellaegis
  • Kabbage
  • Kiboo
  • Kony Solutions
  • Lend Street
  • Lendio
  • Liqpay.com
  • MyBankTracker
  • Mint.com
  • oFlows
  • Pageonce
  • PayDivvy
  • PayNearMe
  • PayPal/Discover
  • peerTransfer
  • ProfitStars
  • ReadyReceipts
  • Silver Tail Systems
  • TILE Financial
  • TrustedID
  • Wikinvest
  • Wipro Technologies
  • Xero

In late April, we will also be announcing several additional presenting companies that wish to remain confidential for now.

If you’d like to lock in your spot at the spring event, please register today. Plus, by registering today, you’ll get the early-bird ticket price and save $100 on your ticket. We hope to see you in May!

FinovateSpring 2011 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Tier One Partners, and the law firm of CB&S.

FinovateSpring 2011 is partners with: BankInnovation.net, BankerStuff, CardWeb, Filene Research Institute, Finance on WindowsPYMNTS.com, Mercator Advisory Group and Mobile-Financial.com.

FinovateSpring 2011 Demo Roster Revealed — Get your early-bird ticket before they’re gone!

FinovateSpring_Logo_Date.jpg

In less than seven weeks, over 60 handpicked companies will take the stage at FinovateSpring in San Francisco to demo their latest financial and banking technology innovations.

The selected companies will showcase their latest ideas to an influential audience that’s shaping up to be Finovate’s largest ever (well above last spring’s headcount of 550). It should be a packed house on May 10th & 11th at the Concourse Exhibition Center and we hope you’ll join us to watch the future of finance unfold live on stage.

Without further ado, here are the companies who will be demoing at FinovateSpring 2011:

  • Afiniate
  • Aptys Solutions
  • Arroweye Solutions
  • Backbase
  • BancVue
  • Balance Financial
  • Bill.com
  • Billeo
  • BillFloat
  • Bills.com
  • BillShrink
  • Blaze Mobile
  • Braintree
  • Bundle
  • ChargeSmart
  • Clovr Media
  • Code Green
  • Crossroads
  • Currensee
  • doxo
  • Dwolla
  • edo Interactive
  • Enloop
  • eWise
  • Expensify
  • Experian
  • Figlo
  • Fiserv
  • Gold Bullion Int’l
  • Gratio Capital
  • HelloWallet
  • HOYOS
  • ID Analytics
  • Ideon
  • Intellaegis
  • Kabbage
  • Kiboo
  • Kony Solutions
  • Lend Street
  • Lendio
  • Liqpay.com
  • MyBankTracker
  • Mint.com
  • oFlows
  • Pageonce
  • PayDivvy
  • PayNearMe
  • PayPal/Discover
  • peerTransfer
  • ProfitStars
  • ReadyReceipts
  • Silver Tail Systems
  • TILE Financial
  • TrustedID
  • Wikinvest
  • Wipro Technologies
  • Xero

In late April, we will also be announcing several additional presenting companies that wish to remain confidential for now.

If you’d like to lock in your spot at the spring event, please register today. Plus, by registering today, you’ll get the early-bird ticket price and save $100 on your ticket. We hope to see you in May!

FinovateSpring 2011 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Tier One Partners, and the law firm of CB&S.

FinovateSpring 2011 is partners with: BankInnovation.net, BankerStuff, CardWeb, Filene Research Institute, Finance on WindowsPYMNTS.com, Mercator Advisory Group and Mobile-Financial.com.

Out of the Inbox: ING Direct Raises Price on Overdraft Credit Line by 55%, Still Undercuts Competition by 99%

image This has to be the best notification of a price increase I’ve ever seen (see first screenshot).

ING Direct  (USA) famously does not charge OD/NSF fees on its checking account, Electric Orange. But that’s a bit of a moot point since the bank doesn’t offer paper checks, making it difficult to inadvertently go negative.

However, the bank does allow overdrawing by few hundred dollars if you so choose. And it charges interest on those "overdrafts" at a variable rate equal to 4% above prime, currently 7.25%. The bank reinforces the no-fee pricing in its standard low-balance alert (see second screenshot below).

But that low APR is heading upwards. Last night I received an email notification that effective May 15, the variable rate will be increasing to 8% above prime, or 11.25% today, a 55% increase. That’s still relatively reasonable for unsecured credit.

But the bank’s email doesn’t focus on APR. After clearly disclosing the price increase, it lays out a comparison of what a $100 overdraft would cost the average U.S. consumer for one week, $31, vs. the $0.31 you’d owe ING Direct after 7 days. There are no other fees, transaction or annual, for the ING credit line (complete terms here).

Well played.

ING Direct email disclosing OD credit line APR increase (21 March 2011)

 

ING Direct email disclosing OD credit line APR increase (21 March 2011)

Overdraft notice (22 March 2011)
The bank reinforces its no-fee policy in its email OD alert.

ING Direct (USA) Overdraft notice (22 March 2011)

Announcing FinovateFall 2011 (September 20 & 21 in NYC) — Apply to Demo Your Latest Fintech Innovation

Finovate2011_low.png

I’m pleased to announce that FinovateFall 2011 will take place on September 20 & 21 in New York City. The show will be our fifth annual Finovate in Manhattan and we’re incredibly excited to be back.

Last year, the conference featured a new two-day duration with 56 demos and the audience loved it so we’re keeping it this year. Sadly, because the 2010 show’s attendance grew more than 50%, we sold out our old space several weeks ahead of time. So, this year, I’m thrilled to announce that we’re moving to a new space. In fact, we’re renting a pier. Yes, an entire pier (Pier 92 to be specific) worth of space so you can come see the best new innovations in financial and banking technology in comfort along with hundreds of other leading senior executives, venture capitalists, industry analysts, major press and technology entrepreneurs.

There is a tremendous amount of innovation happening in fintech right now (including dozens of new ideas that will debut at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in just a few weeks), and the fall show is already shaping up to feature an array of exciting, fast-paced 7-minute demos (no slides allowed!) on stage.

If you’re a startup, established company, or financial institution innovating in financial or banking technology, we’d love to have you apply to demo your latest and greatest at the conference. To get more details, please email us at demo@finovate.com.

If you’re interested in watching the future of financial and banking technology unfold live on stage at this must-attend event then get your pre-sale ticket today for FinovateFall 2011 and save $400 off the list price. Tickets have already started to sell before this formal announcement and we don’t want you to miss out! We’ll see you in September!

FinovateFall 2011 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Tier One Partners, and the law firm of CB&S.

FinovateFall 2011 is partners with: BankInnovation.net, BankerStuff, CardWeb, Filene Research Institute, Finance on WindowsPYMNTS.com, Mercator Advisory Group and Mobile-Financial.com.

Announcing FinovateFall 2011 (September 20 & 21 in NYC) — Apply to Demo Your Latest Fintech Innovation

Finovate2011_low.png

I’m pleased to announce that FinovateFall 2011 will take place on September 20 & 21 in New York City. The show will be our fifth annual Finovate in Manhattan and we’re incredibly excited to be back.

Last year, the conference featured a new two-day duration with 56 demos and the audience loved it so we’re keeping it this year. Sadly, because the 2010 show’s attendance grew more than 50%, we sold out our old space several weeks ahead of time. So, this year, I’m thrilled to announce that we’re moving to a new space. In fact, we’re renting a pier. Yes, an entire pier (Pier 92 to be specific) worth of space so you can come see the best new innovations in financial and banking technology in comfort along with hundreds of other leading senior executives, venture capitalists, industry analysts, major press and technology entrepreneurs.

There is a tremendous amount of innovation happening in fintech right now (including dozens of new ideas that will debut at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in just a few weeks), and the fall show is already shaping up to feature an array of exciting, fast-paced 7-minute demos (no slides allowed!) on stage.

If you’re a startup, established company, or financial institution innovating in financial or banking technology, we’d love to have you apply to demo your latest and greatest at the conference. To get more details, please email us at demo@finovate.com.

If you’re interested in watching the future of financial and banking technology unfold live on stage at this must-attend event then get your pre-sale ticket today for FinovateFall 2011 and save $400 off the list price. Tickets have already started to sell before this formal announcement, and we don’t want you to miss out! We’ll see you in September!

FinovateFall 2011 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Tier One Partners, and the law firm of CB&S.

FinovateFall 2011 is partners with: BankInnovation.net, BankerStuff, CardWeb, Filene Research Institute, Finance on WindowsPYMNTS.com, Mercator Advisory Group and Mobile-Financial.com.

ING Direct Running Large Ad on Amazon.com Homepage

ING Direct (USA) is a large online advertiser. And because I frequently click on financial ads, I’m sure they are served to me far more than the average Jo(e). Still, the placement of ING Direct’s ad today at Amazon.com surprised me.

First, I’m not sure I realized that Amazon had turned over that much homepage real estate to third-party advertisers. It must be lucrative. Second, how does it pencil out for ING Direct? That has to be an expensive ad. How many 1% deposits do you have to get to cover those acquisition costs?

Amazon homepage (17 March 2011, 5 PM PDT, Seattle IP)

image

Landing page (link)
Note: While I like online video for sales support, the length of this 2.5 minute video on how to open a savings account seems a little excessive.

image

Off topic: ING’s St. Patrick’s Day graphic
ING Direct’s homepage today placed its orange ball in a pot ‘o gold — a nice touch — but I was slightly disappointed they didn’t animate the ball jumping into the pot. Clicking the pot took users to the bank’s We The Savers blog, with the greeting,”Top o’ the mornin’ to you, Saver.”

image

Encouraging Customers to Post Bank Reviews on Yelp and Google

image Third-party review sites have come and gone over the years, but only recently have mainstream consumers been exposed to them through prominent placement in Google organic search results.

As you can see on our search for “Wainwright Bank,” a link to its Yelp review is on the first page of Google organic results. It’s the third-highest result, not including those that link directly to the bank’s own URL (see first screenshot).

Luckily for Wainwright , it’s the top-rated bank in Boston according to Yelp. In fact, because reviews are aggregated by branch, the bank dominates Yelp, hogging the top four slots (see second screenshot).

________________________________________________________________________

Analysis
_______________________________________________________________

Posting bank reviews doesn’t appear to be a compelling activity. Yelpers spend most of their time reviewing eating and drinking establishments. The most-reviewed bank in Boston is the Alewife Brook Parkway branch of Wainwright with a whopping 14 reviews (average: 3.5 stars). And it takes only six reviews to crack the top-10-most-reviewed in Boston. In contrast, the tenth-most-reviewed Boston restaurant has 554.

And because each branch is ranked separately, just a handful or positive, or negative, reviews can have a huge impact on rank.

So, it might be tempting to encourage reviews by your employees, or employees of your vendors. Don’t do it. Not only is it the wrong thing to do, you stand a very good chance of getting caught. And the ensuing blog post exposing the subterfuge will not only be embarrassing, but also is likely to be ranked higher on the Google results page than the Yelp reviews.

However, you can play the game ethically by subtly encouraging customers to post reviews on Yelp, Google and other local review sites. For example, Amplify Credit Union has links on its Contact Us page that make it easy for users to post reviews at Yelp and Google (see third screenshot). Note that the CU does not try to sway users to post only “good” reviews.

Google search for “Wainwright Bank” (16 March 2011 from Seattle IP address)

image

Top-rated banks and credit unions in Boston according to Yelp reviewers
Note: There are only 31 total reviews across the top-5 banks

image

Amplify Credit Union Contact Us page with links to Yelp and Google (link)

Amplify Credit Union Contact Us page with links to Yelp and Google

U.S. Bank Launches Both PC and Mobile Remote Deposit

I was surprised to see the news release that U.S. Bank had upgraded its Firethorn-powered mobile banking app to include mobile remote deposit. I’ve been following the development of the bank’s PC-scanner-based remote deposit option which also launched yesterday, and I’d never seen the mobile option mentioned (previous post). 

True to form, when I logged in to my account online and clicked on the “Make a Deposit (New)” link, there was still no mention of the mobile option. However, I was greeted with the news that I was now eligible to use the bank’s new PC scanner-based program at a cost of $0.50 per deposit.

I went through the simple online enrollment process (see below), but didn’t test an actual deposit because I don’t have a scanner attached to my laptop.

Bottom line: Congratulations to US Bank for being the second major bank to support both mobile and PC-based consumer remote deposit, trailing just USAA which launched PC-remote deposit in Dec. 2006 and the mobile version in Aug. 2009. Chase also offers mobile consumer remote deposit (launched in July 2010)  but does not offer a consumer PC-based service.

________________________________________________________________________

How it works
________________________________________________________________________

1. Select “Make a Deposit” link on left

US Bank online deposit landing page (15 March 2011)

2. Enrollment
Users must enter their email address, agree to the terms, and answer the following three usage questions:

Enrollment questioinaire US Bank

3. Select “Get Started” on main deposit page

Main deposit page US Bank

4. Choose account to deposit to

Step 1: Choose account to deposit to at US Bank 

5. Enter check details

image

6. Error message requesting Java be downloaded

image

FinovateEurope 2011 Demo Videos Now Available

FinovateEurope-date-web.gif

Six weeks ago, on February 1, thirty-five companies took the stage in London to demo their latest fintech innovations at our first FinovateEurope conference to an audience of 450 executives from companies like Santander, AXA, RBS, RBC,
Lloyds, Deutsche Bank, PayPal, Forrester, CIBC, TSYS, Microsoft, Accel
Partners, Rabobank, ING, Barclays, BBVA, Standard Chartered,
PostFinance, Raiffeisenbank, Yahoo!Finance, WSJ Europe and Celent.

Each company was given just 7 minutes to demonstrate their latest innovation (no slides allowed). The videos on their new innovations are now available free for anyone to check out in the Finovate Video Archives.

The companies (HQ locations in parentheses) were:

If you’re interested in seeing more of the latest innovations in fintech, please join us at our upcoming FinovateSpring 2011 in San Francisco, CA on May 10th & 11th. Register now to lock in your spot for the spring event and save $100 with an early-bird ticket before April 1st!

FinovateEurope 2011 was sponsored by: BlueRock Consulting, Microsoft, Sapient, Santander, The Bancorp & Walker Morris

FinovateEurope 2011 was supported by these partners: 154 Consulting, BankerStuff, BankInnovation.net, CardWeb, Banking Automation Bulletin, Finance on Windows, The Financial Services Innovation Centre, Mercator Advisory Group, PYMNTS.com & theStartup.eu.