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Balance Financial Launches Certified Pro

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 26, 2011
Categories: Balance

Last week Balance Financial launched a second service, Certified Pro, a new version of its

billpay service. It's a mix of financial software, training, and tech support that allows Balance's advisory clients a way to offer personalized services to end users. While it's designed primarily for professional bookkeepers and wealth managers, it also has a version geared toward financial advisors and CPAs. Pricing is $49 to $199/mo depending on the version; there is also a free, view-only option. Certified Pro Services Initial and ongoing software training Co-branding that includes a branded sign-up page for end users Marketing support to generate new leads Tech support Bill payment services Document storage that organizes all client-related files in one place The service is currently in beta and is being used by selected wealth managers. More Information Press Release Balance Certified Pro Website

Alumni News — Week of July 18, 2011

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 25, 2011
Categories: ChargeSmart, CheckFree, Credit Karma, Doxo, Dwolla, eToro, Expensify, GoalMine, HelpMyCash, IDTheft 911, iPay Technologies, Lending Club, Lendio, mFoundry, Mint.com, Monitise Americas, peerTransfer, Prosper, SmartyPig, ThreatMetrix, TradeKing, Tyfone, Wikinvest, Xero, Zecco

ChargeSmart AOL's Daily Finance highlighted Chargesmart's secondary gift card market that allows

consumers to pay for bills in exchange for gift cards. Link CheckFree Family Wealth Report stated that CheckFree is leading the way in UMA processing. Link Credit Karma CBS Money Watch discussed Credit Karma's data on America's debt. Link Fox Business News listed Credit Karma's credit score simulator tool as a 15-minute fix for your credit score. Link doxo Practical Ecommerce listed doxo as one of 17 apps for productivity. Link Dwolla Dwolla hit $1 million in payments per day and Ben Milne, CEO, shared a sneak peak of future plans. Link Ace Community Credit Union provided customers with access to Dwolla through its site. Dwolla CEO Ben Milne explained why starting a business in Iowa isn't hard. Link Dwolla introduced a new Autoload feature. Link Dwolla was listed on The Next Web as one of…

Verity CU Asks "What are the Ten Most Interesting Products of 2011"

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 22, 2011
Categories: Strategies, Verity CU

I try not to ride the coattails of someone else's blog post, but here I go doing it anyway, because it's a great mid-year question.

Shari Storm, published author, Filene i3'er, and grand master financial marketer, asked the Internet to help her round out the list of ten most interesting (financial) products of 2011.

Here's what she's found so far (note these aren't necessarily new in 2011, just interesting this year; parenthetical comments are mine):

Mobile banking (note 1) Mobile remote deposit capture Personal financial management tools Personal bookkeeping (e.g., Balance Financial) Rewards checking (including in-statement merchant-funded rewards) Mobile apps that encourage you to build your savings account Short-term fixed-rate second mortgages

For what it's worth, in the comments I suggested (alpha order):

Anti-virus for your card charges (e.g., BillGuard) Bill statement storage online (e.g., doxo, Manilla) Buy…

Finovate Alumni Chosen for Institutional Investor’s Tech 50

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 22, 2011
Categories: Cortal Consors, Receivables Exchange, Standard Chartered Bank

Institutional Investor's Tech 50 List ranks technological leaders and innovators in the financial

industry. It includes nominations and input from industry experts and is finalized by the editors and staff of Institutional Investor who assess the nominees on 4 attributes: Experience and contributions over the course of a career Scope and complexity of responsibilities Influence and leadership inside and outside one's organization Technological innovation or achievement Below are the three Finovate alum chosen for this year's Tech 50 list.

Founded: 2007 Located: New Orleans, LA with offices in New York Funding: $29.8 million from Fidelity Ventures, Prism VentureWorks, RedPoint Ventures, and Bain Capital Ventures Market: Online Accounts Receivable Trading FinovateFall 2010 Demo Founded: 1969 Located: Worldwide with headquarters in Singapore Market: Global Bank FinovateFall 2010 Demo

Founded: 2003 Located: Paris Market: Online Trading and Investments FinovateEurope 2011 Demo More Information …

Announcing FinovateEurope 2012 — February 7th in London! Get your ticket now to lock in your spot!

By finovate Posted on July 21, 2011
Categories: FinovateEurope 2012

We're very excited to be returning to London next February 7th for our second annual FinovateEurope conference. After selling out of tickets for our debut European conference weeks ahead of the event and winning rave reviews from the attendees, next year's conference is not to be missed (get your ticket now to ensure you can attend -- and save £400 via the lowest ticket prices we'll offer).

For the 2012 conference, we've expanded to a larger and nicer venue right on the Thames river in central London so that you can watch fast-paced demonstrations of the best new ideas in European financial and banking technology in comfort. In addition to sneak peek into the future, Finovate also offers attendees a chance to network with hundreds of leading financial executives, entrepreneurs, industry analysts, major press, bloggers, and venture capitalists.

If you're a startup, established fintech company, or financial institution innovating…

Announcing FinovateEurope 2012 — February 7th in London! Get your ticket now to lock in your spot!

By finovate Posted on July 21, 2011
Categories: Finovate, Finovate Europe

We're very excited to be returning to London next February for our second annual FinovateEurope conference. After selling out our debut European conference weeks in advance and winning rave reviews from attendees, next year's event is not to be missed (get your ticket now to ensure you can attend -- and save £400 via the lowest ticket prices we'll offer).

For 2012, we've expanded to a larger and nicer venue right on the Thames river in central London so that you can watch fast-paced demonstrations of the best new ideas in European financial and banking technology in comfort. In addition, Finovate attendees have a chance to network with hundreds of leading financial executives, entrepreneurs, industry analysts, major press, bloggers, and venture capitalists.

If you're a startup, established fintech company, or financial institution innovating in financial or banking technology, we'd love to have you apply to demo your latest…

U.S. Peer-to-Peer Lending Hits Record High for Seventh Month in a Row

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 20, 2011
Categories: Loans & Credit, P2P Lending

This guest post was written by Peter Renton, (@SocialLoans), Editor & Publisher of peer-to-peer lending blog, Social Lending Network.

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With the launch of Prosper in Feb. 2006, peer to peer (P2P) lending arrived in the United States with great fanfare. Borrowers no longer needed banks. Individual investors could be the banker and earn great returns.

But, there have been challenges along the way. In 2008, the SEC decided P2P lending should be regulated as a securities business and both Prosper and Lending Club, which launched in mid-2007, were shuttered for half a year as they retooled. Both companies also initially struggled with higher-than-expected default rates.

It is only now that P2P lending appears to be living up to that initial promise. Last month was the best ever as lending volumes broke the record for the seventh month in a row. The combined volume of Prosper…

AlphaClone’s Sentiment Scores: More Than a Feeling

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 20, 2011
Categories: AlphaClone

Last week, AlphaClone introduced a new feature called sentiment scores which tracks changes in aggregate holdings of individual stocks within mutual fund portfolios *

Sentiment Scores are listed on users' Current Clone Portfolio (see image below) and Stock View Pages. Note how the numbers are color-coordinated with sentiment: Green when bullish Red when bearish Black when there is no change The Scores can also be viewed in a bar graph that displays quarterly sentiment scores over time (see screenshot below). Data can be retrieved as far back as 2000. For more information, check out their blog posts here and here and their Finovate Startup09 demo. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *The sentiment score is derived from taking the total market value in a stock and dividing it by the sum of the market values of all holdings. As an example, AlphaClone provides the following: "...if 30 out of 300 funds own AAPL with…

Guardian Analytics Adds Security Expert to Your Team

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 19, 2011
Categories: Guardian Analytics

FraudDESK, released July 13th by Guardian Analytics, adds an experienced fraud analyst to

your team without having to hire or train anyone. A staff member from Guardian Analytics is assigned to monitor customers's online transactions using FraudMAP software (see screenshot below).

Guardian Analytics Overview Founded: 2005 Location: Los Altos, CA Funding: $25.8 million from Foundation Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Split Rock Partners Market: Security
FraudDESK Capabilities Proactively monitors every online banking session for all customer accounts Monitors Transactions and investigates suspicious activity Detects anomalies and informs FI of likely account takeover and payments fraud before money is lost Provides weekly reports that summarize risk-related trends, analyst activity, and the status of cases in process. The reports also help the FI understand online usage trends and consumer behavior.
More Information Press Release Site Description Payments News Article Guardian Analytics FinovateFall 2010 FraudMAP Demo

New Online Banking Report Published on Youth Banking: Attracting Tween, Teens, & Under-25 via Online/Mobile

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 18, 2011
Categories: Online Banking Report, Strategies, Youth market

We were still in the Web 1.0 world when my kids (teenagers now) started their first savings accounts. So there were few youth banking services available to facilitate online savings and spending.

Fast forward 10 years. We have Facebook, we have Twitter, we have mobile weather info. But we still have virtually no youth banking tools at the major U.S. banks (Wells Fargo is furthest along, see screenshot below).

And that makes no sense.

There are 100 million people under age 25 in the U.S., and obviously, 15 to 25 years from now, a good portion of your profits will come from this group. However, in the next five years, this cohort will generate exactly zero percent of profits.

In the branch-based past, it made business sense to wait another five years to start selling to this group. After all, high-school graduates closed their bank accounts when they…

Alumni News — Week of July 11, 2011

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 18, 2011
Categories: Aptys Solutions, Balance, Bill Guard, BillFloat, Bling Nation, Boku, BrightScope, Cardlytics, ChargeSmart, ClairMail, Continuity Control, Cortal Consors, Cortera, Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, Currensee, Dwolla, Dynamics, Expensify, Guardian Analytics, ID Analytics, iPay Technologies, Lending Club, Lodo Software, mFoundry, Mitek, Monitise, Prosper, Q2ebanking, Receivables Exchange, SecondMarket, Standard Chartered Bank, TILE Financial, TradeKing, Tyfone, Wikinvest, Wonga, Yodlee, Zopa

Last week, AlwaysOn released its 2011 AlwaysOn Global 250 Top Private Companies List that represents the top emerging companies Worldwide. Twelve Finovate Alumni were selected: BillFloat Bling Nation Boku Cardlytics ClairMail Expensify IDAnalytics Lending Club SecondMarket Wikinvest Wonga Yodlee _________________________________________________________________________ In other Alumni News: Aptys Solutions

Aptys Solutions announced that the ACH functionality in its PayLogics payment platform provides same-day settlement. Link Balance Financial Balance Financial launched Balance Certified Pro, a new software that is geared toward professionals. Link Balance Financial released an iPhone App. Link BillGuard TechCrunch reported that BillGuard's "Anti-virus for Bills" is now completely free for users. Link BrightScope CNNMoney's article, Simplify Your Retirement Savings, pointed to BrightScope to provide a clear understanding of retirement savings. Link ChargeSmart ChargeSmart announced that its Bill Payments customers can now pay many of their utility bills with an American Express card. Link Continuity Control Continuity Control raised…

PerkStreet Financial Targets USAA Debit-Rewards Customers with Ads on Facebook

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 15, 2011
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Debit Cards, Facebook, Rewards Programs

Every once in a while I stumble onto Facebook, usually by following a link from a credit union or banking site. It happened a few days ago, when I clicked a link in the middle of Visions FCU Rocks, a cool youth banking microsite from Visions Federal Credit Union.

The Visions Facebook page was fine, but it was the little ad in the lower-right that grabbed my attention (see inset and screenshot below).

PerkStreet Financial, which has perhaps the richest debit-rewards program in the nation, with 1% to 2% cash back, is targeting USAA customers who just lost their debit card rewards program altogether. The landing page (see screenshot below) does a good job laying out the financial benefits and funneling visitors to the online app.

Bottom line: It's a good time to tout debit card rewards, if you are sure you are…