Fintech Fundings: 17 Companies Raised $580 Million Week Ending July 31

Fintech Fundings: 17 Companies Raised $580 Million Week Ending July 31
By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Funding

money_growthAnother monster week in fintech. Depending on how much Stripe received in its round (at a $5 billion valuation), something north of $600 million flowed to 17 fintech companies worldwide. That closes out the month at just under $2 billion raised ($1.65 billion equity; $250 million debt), more than double the $900 million raised a year ago ($675 million equity; $225 million debt).

About 80% of the money this week ($479 million) flowed to Finovate and FinDEVr alums, our biggest week ever (not including the Lending Club IPO which raised $865 million). To put that in perspective, during all of 2014 our alums raised just over $1 billion (excludes IPOs (Yodlee, OnDeck, and Lending Club). An even more startling number: In July 2014, we had one alum funded to the tune of $27 million. During July 2015, 17 alums raised more than $750 million.

Will fintech funding go higher? It’s hard to look at the year-over-year trend and think that it will get much higher. The bigger question for startups, and their backers, is what happens after “peak fintech?” Is there a gradual decline to a sustainable level of investment, or are we witnessing a bubble, which by definition is the precursor to a bath. Given the enormous size of the financial services industry and the pent-up demand for digital services, as well as infrastructure modernization, we firmly believe in fintech’s sustainability.

Finovate and FinDEVr alums raising money this week:

  • Kabbage $120 million (of rumored $150 million at $875 million valuation)*
  • Twilio $130 million (at a rumored $1.1 billion valuation)*
  • Behalf $119 million
  • Shopkeep $60 million
  • Radius $50 million
  • Expensify $17.5 million
——
* Presenting at our upcoming developer event, FinDEVr 2015

Here are the 17 companies by deal size from 25 July to 31 July:

Kabbage
Alt-lender to small businesses
HQ: Atlanta, Georgia
Latest round: $120 million Series E (of rumored $150 million at $875 million valuation)
Total raised: $585 million ($357 million debt, $228 million equity)
Tags: Lending, credit, underwriting, SMB
Source: Finovate

Twilio
Cloud communications
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $130 million ($1.1 billion valuation)
Total raised: $234 million
Tags: Messaging, SMS, text messaging, marketing, VoIP, API, developers, FinDEVr presenter 2015
Source: Crunchbase

Behalf
Small-business short-term alt-lender
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $119 million Series B
Total raised: $129 million
Tags: Credit, lending, underwriting, SMB, financing, factoring, receivables financing, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

Shopkeep
iPad point of sale system
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $60 million Series D
Total raised: $97.2 million
Tags: Credit, debit cards, merchants, SMB, online, acquiring, POS
Source: Finovate

Radius
Predictive marketing technology
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $50 million Series D
Total raised: $129 million
Tags: Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

China Rapid Finance
Consumer credit marketplace in China
HQ: Shanghai, China
Latest round: $35 million Series C (at $1 billion valuation)
Total raised: $56 million
Tags: Lending, credit, underwriting, consumer loans
Source: Crunchbase

iwoca
Short-term small-biz financing
HQ: London, United Kingdom
Latest round: $20 million
Total raised: $31.5 million
Tags: Credit, alt-lending, SMB, financing, loans
Source: Crunchbase

Expensify
Expense report management
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $17.5 million
Total raised: $27.8 million
Tags: Expense reports, SMB, accounting, enterprise, strategic investor
Source: Finovate

Seedrs
Equity crowdfunding marketplace
HQ: London, United Kingdom
Latest round: $15.6 million Series A
Total raised: $22.8 million
Tags: Investing, P2P, SMB, peer-to-peer
Source: Crunchbase

Crowdcube
Debt and equity crowdfunding marketplace
HQ: Exeter, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: $9.4 million
Total raised: $13.1 million
Tags: Lending, investing, SMB, equity, loans
Source: Crunchbase

OneVest
Platform for investing in startups
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $3 million Series A
Total raised: $5.3 million
Tags: Investing, SMB, wealth management
Source: Crunchbase

Cryptocurrency Research Group
Card processing
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $3 million grant
Total raised: $3 million
Tags: Bitcoin, crypto, blockchain, R&D
Source: Crunchbase

Stockal
Automated stock-trading adviser
HQ: Bangalore, India
Latest round: $160,000
Total raised: $160,000
Tags: Investing, mobile, trading
Source: Crunchbase

Buyatab
Digital giftcard solutions
HQ: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: eGift cards, SMB, prepaid card, gifting, fee income
Source: FT Partners

realbest
Online real estate platform
HQ: Berlin, Germany
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Homeowners, mortgage, house buying
Source: FT Partners

Stripe
Online payment processing and management
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: Undisclosed (less than $100 million at $5 billion valuation)
Total raised: $190+ million
Tags: Payments, credit, debit cards, API, merchants, SMB, online, acquiring, Visa (investor), American Express (investor)
Source: Crunchbase

Cognia
Payment processing for telephone-based transactions
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: $4.6+ million
Tags: Payments
Source: FT Partners

 

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Radius Raises $50 Million in Round Led by Founders Fund

Radius Raises $50 Million in Round Led by Founders Fund
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Radius

Radius_homepage_July2015

An investment of $50 million gives predictive analytics innovator, Radius, total capital of more than $125 million and a valuation of somewhere between $500 million and true unicorn status: $1 billion, according to Fortune.

The round was led by Founders Fund, and featured participation from a host of other investors, including AME Cloud Ventures (Jerry Yang), BlueRun Ventures, Formation 8, Glynn Capital Management, Salesforce Ventures, and Yuan Capital. The new funding will support product development, as well as developing what Radius CEO Darian Shirazi called “the Radius customer success organization.”

In a statement, Joe Lonsdale, a founding member of Formation 8, highlighted the rapid adoption of Radius’ technology as a reason to support the company. “The team at Radius has pulled ahead with a clear network effect, which means that their data is getting updated hundreds of millions of times a day,” Lonsdale said. “It’s no surprise they are becoming the leading platform for marketing to businesses, and it’s clear they’re just getting started.”

Radius_FS2014_stage

Radius CEO Darian Shirazi demonstrated his company’s platform at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

Speaking of the struggle marketing professionals often have when working the data to better engage and reach customers, Shirazi said, “We address the challenge with a single, beautifully designed application that allows CMOs to navigate, define, expand, and acquire their entire customer universe.”

The capital infusion comes just a few weeks after Radius made headlines with a quartet of executive hires. In June, Radius added Chief Operating Officer David Obrand; Vice President of Sales Jerry Clarno; Senior Vice President of Strategy Andrew Garvin; and Senior Vice President of Marketing Angela Zener.

Radius specializes in providing businesses with big-data technology that helps them better understand their customers, identify new market opportunities, and intensify their marketing efforts. Solutions like the Radius Intelligence Cloud and Business Graph, according to Shirazi, make it easier for marketing teams to reach specific audiences. The company’s proprietary technology within The Intelligence Cloud uses data on more than 30 million SMEs in the United States, and more than 50 billion data points to help businesses turn their customer data into actionable marketing opportunities.

Radius was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Expensify Tallies Up $17.5 Million in Funding to Support its New Fintech Investment Fund

Expensify Tallies Up $17.5 Million in Funding to Support its New Fintech Investment Fund
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Expensify, Funding

ExpensifyScreenshot

Automated expense-report-management platform Expensify closed a $17.5 million round of funding earlier this week from OpenView Venture Partners. The new installment brings the company’s total funding to $27.2 million.

The San Francisco-based startup, which has 16,000 customers, will use the funding to support its newly launched endeavor, Expensify Ventures, a strategic investment fund for early stage fintech startups. According to David Barrett, Expensify CEO:

Every day we meet with entrepreneurs and companies that have awesome ideas when it comes to solving some of the corporate world’s biggest pain-points, and making life easier for both employees and employers … . From receipt-capture to expense management and even booking travel, a ton of companies are out there trying to make these processes easier, and Expensify wants to be involved.

ExpensifyVentures

Expensify is positioning itself as a unique type of investor with an empathetic point of view. “Fundraising is pretty much the worst part of a CEO’s job,” the company states on its web page. “We know—we’ve been there. But we’ve made it through the ring of fire (many times) and are now in a position where we’re ready to give back. Let us help.”

As a VC, the company is looking to invest in startups focused on financial technology, mobile OCR, travel services, payments, and anything relevant to business travelers and accountants. One of the first companies to partner with Expensify through Expensify Ventures is Piper, an alternative receipt solution.

Expensify’s most recent Finovate appearance was on stage at FinovateSpring 2013 where it debuted its invoice solution.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

i-exceed Unveils Appzillon 3.1 with Enhanced Security, UX

i-exceed Unveils Appzillon 3.1 with Enhanced Security, UX
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: i-exceed

Appzillion3_1_screenshot

Meet the new Appzillon.

i-exceed technologies announced the release of Appzillon 3.1 this week. The company’s flagship mobile application development platform now comes equipped with a number of new enhancements designed to make it easier to create “fully functional, omnichannel apps.”

New widgets, style editors, additional default themes, and over-the-air (OTA) support have been added to the platform. New security features include static analyses reporting, enforced geo-fencing, biometric authentication, as well as the ability to add multiple encryption layers for further security automatically.

App testing has also been enhanced on the platform so that a single test can now be executed automatically across a number of different channels. The admin module has been upgraded to provide detailed analytics on app usage and performance.

 

iexceed_homepage_July2015

Recent headlines for i-exceed include the company’s partnership with Kris FinSoftware to spur development of the mobile internet in the Philippines—announced in July. i-exceed also notched a major deployment with Exim Bank in March, and began the year with an agreement with Indonesia’s Telkosigma to help the company build and market mobile versions of its banking, financial, and capital markets solutions.

i-exceed was founded in May 2011 and is headquartered in Bangalore, India. The company demonstrated its Appzillon platform as part of FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AcceptEmail, Acculynk, Algomi, Ayasdi, BehavioSec, Bill Guard, Expensify, FIS, Lending Club, Mint, On Deck Capital, PayStand, Pindrop Security, Smarty Pig, SocietyOne, Toshl, Tradeshift, Tradier, TSYS, Yodlee

On Finovate.com

  • “Expensify Tallies Up $17.5 Million in Funding to Support its New Fintech Investment Fund”

Around the web

  • AcceptEmail partners with PayWithMyBank to make bill pay convenient and less costly.
  • SocietyOne hires former Lending Club executive as its new chief marketing officer.
  • Spend Matters highlights Tradeshift as a company to watch in 2015.
  • Pindrop Security releases new version of fraud detection system to more effectively identify and predict fraudulent activity.
  • Yodlee hosts webinar on how to build financial apps to meet rapidly evolving customer expectations.
  • BehavioSec mentioned as one “wild invention of the future” that the Pentagon is behind.
  • Tradier announces 75+ investor platforms and advisors integrating with its API.
  • Algomi adds 100th buy-side firm to its Honeycomb Network.
  • American Banker: FIS in talks to acquire SunGard.
  • PYMNTS.com interviews Sarah Hartman, senior director of consumer payment solutions at TSYS.
  • India West profiles Ayasdi founder and CEO, Gurjeet Singh.
  • Benzinga’s list of 10 PFM apps for teens and young adults features Toshl Finance, Manilla, BillGuard, Mint, and Smarty Pig.
  • Acculynk teams up with TouchPay, combining online billpay with self-service payment kiosks.
  • OnDeck rolls out mobile app for account management on the go. Come see OnDeck at FinDEVr in San Francisco, 6/7 October 2015.
  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews PayStand CEO Jeremy Almond.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Behalf Closes $119 Million Series B

Behalf Closes $119 Million Series B
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Behalf

Behalf_homepage_July2015

Check out the big raise for Behalf.

Alternative small-business financier Behalf announced a $119 million investment that takes the company’s total capital to $129 million. The Series B round was led by MissionOG, an early to growth-stage VC firm, and the new funding will go toward adding staff, as well as providing more and larger working capital lines to SMEs.

Joining MissionOG in the Series B were Maverick Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, and Victory Park Capital. Victory Park Capital provided a credit facility as well as an equity contribution.

Behalf also announced the opening of new headquarters in New York City.

Behalf_stage_FF2014

From left: Behalf VP of Product Meeka Metzger; Director of Product, Andrew Abshere; and founder and CEO Benjy Feinberg presented the Behalf’s Vendor Platform at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

Behalf enables small businesses to buy up to a $50,000 inventory. The company directly pays vendors for the small business, and the business pays Behalf back on terms ranging from $10-$30 per $1,000 per month. Behalf uses its proprietary credit-scoring technology to approve as many as 40% of its applicants, and can provide credit decisions in less than four minutes.

Merchants appreciate being able to pay vendors on whatever terms their vendors demand, and repay Behalf on terms that may be more flexible and favorable to them.

The company began 2015 with a new collaboration involving MasterCard and Comdata, to provide financing options for small businesses using MasterCard. In February, Behalf CEO Benjy Feinberg was interviewed by Ideamensch, and in March, the company was a finalist in the “Best B2B Innovation” category at the 2015 PYMNTS Innovator Awards 2015. Founded in 2011 and based in New York City, Behalf demonstrated its Vendor Platform at its Finovate debut, FinovateFall 2014.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Neon Release Adds Touch ID and Enhanced Notifications to Oink 2.0

Neon Release Adds Touch ID and Enhanced Notifications to Oink 2.0
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Oink, Virtual Piggy

Oink_app_homepage_July2015

Touch ID authentication and an enhanced notification engine are among the features in the Neon release of the new mobile app from Oink.

The upgrades balance greater functionality for younger millennials and generation Z on the one hand, with increased transparency for parents and regulators on the other. Dr. Jo Webber, CEO and founder of Oink (formerly Virtual Piggy), acknowledged that specific challenge. “By adhering to U.S. COPPA laws we are delivering the appropriate controls and safeguards to allow Oink money-transfers to be used by all members of the family,” she said.

Oink_Neon_screenshot_250xOink 2.0 is available for download from the Apple Store. The app is optimized for iPhone 5 and requires iOS 7.0 or later.

The app was introduced in early June. It features a new P2P capability that allowed family to deposit funds into an Oink account that could be used to fund a parent-supervised Oink card. The new notifications engine will give parents “complete visibility” into who is funding their children’s accounts, as well as the ability to manage individual funders, and to freeze spending from the account.

This past spring, the app was featured in USA Today’s list of “5 financial musts for college grads.” Oink was founded in February 2008, and is headquartered in Hermosa Beach, California. The company demonstrated its mobile app at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Francisco, having won Best of Show honors at FinovateEurope 2013 in London earlier in the year.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

ShopKeep Rings Up $60 Million Investment

ShopKeep Rings Up $60 Million Investment
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ShopKeep POS

ShopKeep_homepage_July2015

In a Series D round led by Activant Capital, ShopKeep has raised $60 million in new funding. The investment boosts the company’s total capital to more than $97 million.

The company plans to use the new financing to “grow its overall customer base, strengthen industry partnerships, and launch international operations, starting with the U.K. this month.”

Steve Sarracino, Activant Capital founder, who will be joining ShopKeep’s board of directors, put ShopKeep at the front of an “evolution” in the world of mobile payments and small business technology. “We see tremendous opportunity for the company to build on its existing success as the operating system for small business and retail.”

ShopKeep_stage_FF2012

From left: ShopKeep co-founders, CEO Jason Richelson and COO David Olk, demonstrated ShopKeep POS at FinovateFall 2012 in New York.

ShopKeep president and CEO, Norm Merritt added that he sees his company’s role as more than just providing SMEs with a point-of-sale system. “We now play the role of an IT department to small business owners, democratizing invaluable business-management tools previously accessible only to the big-box retailers.”

ShopKeep has developed an iPad-based point-of-sale system and business-management platform for small businesses. The company has more than 2,000 users of its technology; more than 18,000 customers; and processed more than $6 billion in transactions via its network in the past year.

The company was honored with a 2015 Silver Stevie Award for Customer Service in March. Also that month, ShopKeep acquired Payment Revolution for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition added payment processing to the ShopKeep platform. In January, ShopKeep launched its Pocket app that included real-time reporting functionality.

ShopKeep was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New York. The company demoed its point-of-sale system, ShopKeep POS, at FinovateFall 2012. While no valuation was released, based on this funding we added the company to our Fintech Near-Unicorn list.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Arroweye Solutions, Behalf, Betterment, Dashlane, Expensify, HelloWallet, InComm, LoanNow, MasterCard, Oink, PayPal, Qapital, ShopKeep POS, SimplyTapp, Social Money, Taulia, TransferWise, Virtual Piggy

On Finovate.com

  • “Behalf Closes $119 Million Series D”
  • “Neon Release Adds Touch ID and Enhanced Notifications to Oink 2.0″
  • “ShopKeep Rings Up $60 Million Investment”

Around the web

  • Citibank India and MasterCard launch digital wallet, Citi MasterPass, in India.
  • This is Money features TransferWise in a look at the lack of transparency in exchange fees.
  • LoanNow earns #4 spot in Orange County Business Journal’s “Best Places to Work in Orange County 2015” roster.
  • PYMNTS looks at how PayPal’s Paydiant is powering Subway’s mobile-payments app.
  • Payments Views talks with Doug Yeager, HCE inventor and CEO of SimplyTapp, in its latest podcast.
  • Expensify launches New Investment Fund, Expensify Ventures, for fintech startups.
  • American Banker considers how banks are using startups such as Social Money and Qapital to bolster their offerings.
  • Dashlane launches One-Tap Password Changer for Apple Watch and iPhone.
  • John Hancock Retirement Plan Services now offers Morningstar’s HelloWallet financial wellness tool to plan-sponsors on its Total Retirement Solution platform.
  • Arroweye Solutions to provide EMV Credit and Debit Cards for Mountain America Credit Union.
  • TechCrunch: Betterment tops 100,000 customers and $2.5 billion AUM.
  • Taulia reports record revenue and ten customer wins for Q2 2015.
  • Mobile Payments Today looks at InComm’s drive to bring open-loop prepaid to mobile wallets.

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.

 

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

The Full FinDEVr: A Look at the Final Line-Up for FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco

The Full FinDEVr: A Look at the Final Line-Up for FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco

FinDEVr2014_stage_large

We’ve been teasing you for weeks with previews of the companies that will be taking the stage at FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco.

Today we’re happy to unveil FinDEVr 2015’s full roster of platform-builders, API-developers, and tool-makers whose cutting-edge technologies are an indispensable part of fintech innovation.

FinDEVr returns to San Francisco, 6/7 October, for two days of demonstrations, discussions, and networking with a diverse group of fintech CTOs, engineers, and builders. Visit our registration page today and take advantage of “very early bird” savings. We hope you’ll join us.

FinDEVr 2015 will also feature at least two additional companies, one still in stealth mode.

The premier event for fintech developers, FinDEVr 2015 brings together everyone from CTOs to independent builders, engineers, and hackathon veterans. Read our Guide to FinDEVr 2015, and find out:

  • What makes FinDEVr special?
  • How big is the audience?
  • Who will attend?
  • Information about our 2-day, dual-track format, with more than 14 hours of demonstrations and presentations on the latest in platforms, APIs, software tools, and more.

See for yourself what all the talk is about. Check out our demo videos from last year’s inaugural FinDEVr event.

Early bird discount pricing is still available. But the savings won’t last forever. So visit our registration page today and save your spot at the fintech developer event of the year. We’ll see you in San Francisco!

FinDEVr is sponsored by Yodlee Interactive. Our event partners are the Bank Innovators Council, BankersHub, BayPay Forum, bobsguide, California Bankers Association, Celent, The CoinTelegraph, Mercator Advisory Group, and SF Fintech.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Design: Mixed Verdict as Chase Bank Mimics Mobile Look on New Desktop UI

Design: Mixed Verdict as Chase Bank Mimics Mobile Look on New Desktop UI
By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Chase Bank, Website Usability & Design

chase_new_v_old_homepage

Chase unveiled a new homepage (on right above), the second in the past three years. While the first (on left above), unveiled in Oct 2012, was a massive rebuild, the latest is a more of a large remodel. I was not a huge fan of the 2012 version, so I’m glad to see the improvement, especially the downsizing of the page-dominating log-in area.

The first impression is good and the overall look and feel supports the Chase brand. But I think other homepages (e.g., Umpqua Bank, Verity Credit Union or even Capital One) do a better job showcasing banking products as opposed to “lifestyle” content that Chase seems enamored with (see #5 below). However, website design is much more than the homepage, and Chase’s previous design is a top performer in Change Sciences overall 2014 website usability and conversion ratings. So clearly Chase knows how to convert their massive website traffic. I’m sure they will be closely following the metrics after the change and will tweak any under-performing areas.

Chase’s press release provides a handy outline to lay out a few thoughts on its website. (And I apologize in advance to the Chase team for a bit of snark sneaking through; press releases have a way of doing that to a person.)

So here are the five points taken verbatim from the press release along with our comments:

1. Feel at home: Localized images personalize the site for returning visitors.

My take: This is a great feature brought over from Chase’s mobile app. Customized images are a nice and a relatively easy way to localize—still important in a country with 10,000 banks and credit unions, 99% of which are locally oriented. However, Chase’s implementation is a bit jarring. The eight images dizzily zoom right-to-left every 7 seconds and never stop. Luckily, they don’t begin until after you’ve been on page for 20+ seconds, so you can log in before the show begins.

2. Take a scroll: As with any newsfeed, customers can scroll down the homepage and have access to relevant content.

My take: Take a scroll is a clever bit of wordsmithing, but it’s a bit unusual to claim it as a benefit. That said, I do like the comparison to a newsfeed, a more modern concept generally not associated with banks.

3. Navigate with ease: The easy-access menu stays clearly in sight as customers scroll down the homepage.

My take: Chase’s fixed navigation is a UI feature that’s important on longer pages. But is it smart to mimic the mobile UI so closely? A universal complaint about mobile websites is their inconsistent navigation compared to desktop websites where nav has become well standardized. Yes, the design looks cooler, like a ginormous iPhone screen, but does the aesthetic win come at the expense of usability? With those jumbo images flashing by every 7 seconds, you do not want to linger. There is also inconsistent navigation: The homepage uses the mobile approach while the inner pages have the older navigation—do we assume that’s temporary?

4. See the choices: Customers can find which checking accounts, credit cards or mortgages best fit their lifestyle.

My take: Chase claims: “Customers can find which checking accounts, credit cards or mortgages best fit their lifestyle.” I’m pretty sure real people don’t think about their bank accounts that way, but what I believe the bank is saying here is that exposing readers to products within the “news and stories” section (see below) will lead to more sales. I have my doubts, and Chase can alter this quickly if the metrics aren’t supporting the tactic.

5. Learn from both experts and customers: News and Stories’ timely advice and insights move to a more prominent place.

My take: Big brands have been toying with “content marketing” off and on for 20 years. I understand the bank’s desire to market this way, but with so many other credible sources of personal finance info, you just end up looking amateurish compared with the NY Times, CNN Money, not too mention the hundreds of personal finance blogs. And even if you pay Pulitzer prize-winning journalists to write original content, you cannot avoid the fact that the article is POSTED TO A BANK SITE. My advice, stick to facts, tutorials, and links to third-party resources.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinDEVr APIintelligence

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinDEVr 2015, FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVr2015LogoV2Date

Are you building new financial technology? Be sure to register soon for the only event exclusively for fintech developers, FinDEVr 2015, on 6/7 October in San Francisco.

Industry news

  • SETL uses blockchain to help facilitate settlement of market transactions.
  • PaymentsViews interviews Doug Yeager, inventor of Host Card Emulation (HCE)
  • Let’s Talk Payments looks at how the financial services industry is learning to love the blockchain.

The latest from upcoming FinDEVr 2015 presenters

  • Worldpay and Paymetric team up to launch integrated payments solution for international commerce.
  • Marketing Mag interviews new VP of marketing for Thinking Capital, Roshni Wijayashinha.
  • ScriptRock updates its DevOps platform with new data visualization and search.
  • Coin Telegraph talks with Fidor Bank AG Product Manager for Cryptocurrencies and Assets, Vladimir Tomic (in German).

Alumni updates

  • Giftbit earns spot in Techstars Seattle 2015 accelerator.
  • Google Cloud Platform’s customer-supplied encryption keys now available in beta.
  • Bitcoin.com ranks Blockchain.info as the most-visited website in the bitcoin ecosystem.
  • Pich Technologies launches new website.
  • SimplyTapp President Ted Fifelski quoted in Mobile Commerce Daily feature on mobile payments.
  • CopSonic wins two prizes at Innocherche Awards, is named “Favorite of the Public.”

Stay up to date on daily developments by following FinDEVr on Twitter.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook