Finovate Alumni News– January 18, 2013

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgAmerican Banker reports: ImpulseSave Launches Chrome Plugin to Encourage Savings.
  • SaveUp allows users to vote for potential prizes.
  • SmartyPig introduces the SmartyPig OneClick Chrome extension.
  • Get Rich Slowly blog features Tuition.io.
  • Forbes covers Virtual Piggy, calling it PayPal for Kids. Come see Virtual Piggy demo at FinovateEurope.
  • Springwise features Movenbank. Come to FinovateEurope and see Movenbank’s live demo of its new platform.
  • American Banker reports: STAR Financial Bank Rolls Out PFM Software from MoneyDesktop.
  • Virgin Mobile, C Spire test BillFloat as financing option.
  • Mastercard moves to ease EMV migration within U.S.
  • Azimo announces £300,000 ($480,000 USD) angel investment round. Come see their demo at FinovateEurope in February!
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.

SaveUp Allows Users to Vote for Potential Prizes

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Gamified-savings and rewards platform, SaveUp, is holding a contest allowing users to vote for prizes they want to see on the platform to increase engagement.

As of right now, users have three and a half more days to vote for prizes or submit one of their own. If a user suggests the prize that receives the highest number of votes, they earn 1,000 credits in their SaveUp account.

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Users can vote once per day on the prize of their choice. All prizes are valued around $100. Popular ones include:

    • Emergency fund
    • Victoria’s Secret gift card
    • $100 toward Nest Thermostat
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To learn more about SaveUp, watch its FinovateSpring 2012 demo.

BillFloat Raises $21 Million in New Funding

Thumbnail image for BillFloatLogo.jpgBillFloat announced that it has raised $21 million courtesy of Investor Growth Capital, which led the financing round along with previous investors Venrock, First Round Capital, and Baseline Ventures. New investor Bronze Investments also participated in the round.

The new funding comes as the company focuses on its More-Time-to-Pay (MTP) platform, which provides customers with real-time payment flexibility. Consumers can access MTP online, in stores, and through mobile thanks to the company’s partnership with more than 2,500 billers – from cable companies to utilities.

Founded in 2009, BillFloat has raised more than $36 million. On the agenda for 2013 according to CEO and co-founder Ryan Gilbert, are the following:

  • Expand team by two-thirds, mostly through new developers
  • Drive more than $400 million in loans 
  • Raise up to $100 million in debt financing to fund loans

BillFloat offers loans up to $200 to its more than 700,000 registered users. See BillFloat in action at its most recent Finovate demo here.

Finovate Alumni News– January 17, 2013

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgBillFloat announces $21 million in new funding.
  • Jack Henry & Associates launches retail and commercial lending platform.
  • Compass Plus completes benchmark testing on HP servers.
  • ImpulseSave releases Google Chrome e-commerce plug-in.
  • Dashlane partners with Pwnedlist to enhance security alerts. Check out Dashlane’s live demo at FinovateEurope next month.
  • Mitek to launch Mobile Deposit Alliance, allowing participant banks to share deposit data.
  • TechCrunch reports: eBay And PayPal Expect To Do $20 Billion Each In 2013 Mobile Commerce.
  • El Paso Electric Company partners with TIO Networks Corp to launch EPE MobilePay.
  • Dwolla introduces Guest Send to help developers building bank software make payments from one account to another.
  • Bill.com wins Best Software as a Service category of the 2012-2013 Cloud Awards Program.
  • Clearstream chooses Standard Chartered Bank as its clearing and settlement agent for its investments in South Africa.
  • Payments.com profiles MasterCard Worldwide’s initiatives in Africa.
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.

Simple (Formerly BankSimple) Launches Android App

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Alternative banking platform, Simple announced the launch of its Android app yesterday.

Simple notes that designing the app was “an opportunity to reimagine the Simple mobile experience.” It has a noticeably different feel than the iOS app.

Here are some screenshots:

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The free app is available on GooglePlay for Android 2.3.3 and higher.

To learn more about Simple, watch its FinovateFall 2011 demo.

eDeposit Launches First Mobile App

Thumbnail image for eDepositLogo.jpgWhat’s new in finance apps for iOS? Now businesses can use their iPhones to manage their eDeposit accounts.

The new mobile app from eDeposit allows merchants (and their customers) to send and accept payments, as well as conduct other banking business such as checking balances and monitoring account activity.

Here’s a screenshot.

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Version 1.2.1 is available for free on iTunes.

Watch eDeposit in action at their most recent Finovate demo here.

Finovate Alumni News– January 16, 2013

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgNetbanker highlights Simple and Jwaala’s natural language search.
  • Metaforic extends its app protection system to be compatible with the upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system.
  • Plastyc powers online banking and payments services for H&R Block, launches new white-label service.
  • Andera increases sales bookings by 59%, sees 5x increase in oFlows customers.
  • Cambodia’s leading commercial bank adopts Temenos Group technology upgrade.
  • Fiserv completes acquisition of Open Solutions.
  • AppShopper features eDeposit’s first mobile app.
  • Edelweiss Securities launches real time news terminal powered by Heckyl Technologies.
  • Google Analytics touts Kapitall’s content experiments.
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.

Card Transaction Data is Rich, Who Will Help Users Mine It?

image A few days ago, my wife and I were trying to remember the name of a restaurant where we ate on vacation several years ago.

The answer didn’t really matter, but I shouldn’t have needed to tax my meager memory cells because someone with perfect recall already knows its name, location, and how much was spent. In this case, Bank of America. I used its credit card.

I should be able to hit BofA’s mobile app, type or speak “orlando,” and instantly see the dozen or so charges I’ve made in Central Florida. Even better, I should be able to access the entire paper trail of card charges from that trip and to get a quick refresher of our itinerary four years ago.

Yes, this is the vision of personal financial management and we are slowly getting there. But it’s still a lot of work to manage the data flowing to third-party PFMs. And logging in to yet another program to find a small bit of info can be tedious (see note 1).

Bottom line: We can debate all we want about how many people will use the mythical thing called PFM. But most people want to know something about a past transaction at least once in a while. They shouldn’t have to subscribe to a third-party service find it.

So, listen up, financial institutions. Follow Simple’s lead (and Jwaala which pioneered it five years ago), and make long-term searchable transaction archives a core part of online and mobile banking (notes 2, 3).

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Simple’s natural-language search is an important feature (15 Jan 2013)
Note: Hashtags make subsequent searches even more powerful

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Jwaala search

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Notes:
1. Though, for me, Mint’s QuickView Mac app, has made transaction look-up much faster by doing away with the login.
2. And you can make “transaction search” a profit center. See Google’s business results for ideas.
3. For info on fee-based financial services, see the Online Banking Report (subscription) on fee-based online services (May 2011); paperless banking and online storage (late 2010); and lifetime statement archives (2005).

ShopKeep POS Launches New Solution to Help Minimize Customer Wait Time

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Yesterday iPad point of sale system, ShopKeep POS, announced a new solution for small businesses to minimize time customers spend waiting in line.

This system, called the iPad Mini Register, uses the MagTek uDynamo payment dongle (pictured below). The iPad Mini Register grants mobility, which enables store employees to bring the cash register to the customer by walking down the line, ringing up orders, and accepting credit card payments.

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After the transaction, the order is printed to the kitchen and customers can pick up their order at the counter. A paperless receipt system emails the receipt to the customer.

The solution is available to merchants for $49 per month.

New York-based startup recently sent us some stats:

    • More than 3,500 active customers
    • Processes over $300M in transactions annually
    • Number of employees doubled in the last six months
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To learn more about ShopKeep POS, watch its FinovateFall 2012 demo.

Compass Plus Helps Zapsibcombank Launch Loyalty Program

Thumbnail image for CompassPlusLogo.jpgRussian bank Zapsibcombank will be offering customers a new loyalty program called PLUSES, courtesy of Compass Plus.

The deal will allow bank customers to participate in a discount program that is not tied to a specific retailer. By designating categories such as “My car” and “My supermarket”, customers in the program will have significant flexibility in the way that discounts are applied. Full integration between the loyalty program and the bank’s Internet service means that customers will be able to access the program remotely.

The bank will be relying on Compass Plus’s TranzWare CMS, which handles payment card issuance and circulation, as well as merchant and corporate account management.

Zapsibcombank is one of the TOP-100 largest Russian banks since 2009, with more than 500,000 cards in circulation and an ATM network of more than 400. The bank has more than 60 branches, and specializes in both consumer and SME lending.

Watch Compass Plus’s most recent Finovate demo here.

Finovate Alumni News– January 15, 2013

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgCortera rated higher than competitors in perceived value according to industry survey.
  • Al Rajhi Bank launches online banking platform built with Backbase Portal. Come see Backbase at FinovateEurope Feb. 12 & 13.
  • Brian Madden touts Metaforic’s app immune system.
  • TechCrunch reports: SigFig Crosses $50 Billion In Assets Managed Through The Platform.
  • Bloomberg reports: Fiserv Buys Open Solutions to Grow Financial Services. Come to FinovateEurope to see Fiserv’s live demo.
  • Zapsibcombank launches loyalty program with technology from Compass Plus.
  • Locaid adds Cricket Wireless devices to platform.
  • Promo Codes 2013 features the top six promotions at TradeKing.
  • Visa in India deploys TSYS technologies to assist in account holder authentication.
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.

FinovateEurope 2013 Sneak Peek: Part 1

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For our first ever two day FinovateEurope conference, we’ve selected 64 of the most innovative companies in fintech to demo their newest technology to an audience packed full of banking executives, press, analysts, bloggers, and more.
Each company provided a sneak peek of what they’ll demo next month. Below is the first installment of these teasers. We’ll have more next week.
Don’t miss your chance to see the live demo from each company and be a part of our FinovateEurope conference at Old Billingsgate Market Hall in London on February 12 and 13. Get your ticket here.
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Mobile devices are rapidly taking place of credit cards and visits to the bank. How can you have confidence that the user on the other end of that high value transaction is who they say they are? TraitWareID
So why not learn more about a comprehensive authentication solution specifically configured for applications with mobile users that offers a versatile, single, integrated approach that does not require additional hardware?

Innovation type: Identity, payments, security

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Everyone knows the importance of social networks in the financial world. Millions publicly discuss their experiences with the different brands they interact with throughout the day. It also applies to the financial markets. Investors, large or small, share their views on the main market securities and how emerging news influences their trading. 
And of all the social networks, Twitter is probably the most widely used for this type of analysis. But, is there any chance to analyse the conversations about stocks and to obtain a sentiment? We will show you that is possible.

Innovation type: Online

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Biletu is the new way to organise events and share expenses between friends, family and colleagues.
Innovation type: Mobile, PFM, Rewards

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Cardlytics is a real-time marketing and analytics platform that enables over 350 banks globally to bring profitable, targeted rewards to their consumers. Cardlytics’ latest innovation is an integrated Facebook app, containing a rewards summary page showing a customer their available offers. Launching in 2013, this will allow banks to have a meaningful and valuable customer conversation in social. 
Watch as we demo creating the Facebook-to-Customer relationship, preserving customer privacy through our patent-pending OPS & OMS systems. Once the link is made we will demonstrate the targeted rewards and savings earned for a customer through the Facebook interface.

Innovation type: Mobile, online, rewards

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Comarch will showcase two solutions, which work together guiding customers from the interpretation of their transactions to suggestions of products and services that can really help them improve their financial standing. Comarch solutions use multiple motivation techniques to help customers achieve financial fitness through sound personal finance management.
Innovation type: Investing & asset management, mobile, PFM

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Dashlane, winner of Best of Show at FinovateFall in NYC 2012, will demo their core technology: a consumer app (desktop and mobile) that enables users to instantly checkout, login and fill forms in a flash universally on every website and every device, without the need for any site-side integration with merchants whatsoever. 
In addition to being a secure personal data management tool and the “point of payment choice” for users, Dashlane offers financial services and ecommerce partners a privileged seat next to the user during all their online transactions.
Innovation type: Payments, security

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Big Data. Pretty much the two words that are on everyone’s lips, but much harder to actually put into action… until now, that is. 
ERN will show you how our unique, big data technology platform brings together card payment and merchant data in real time. Using that data and insight, we’ll show you how (at last) you can intelligently target loyalty programs and marketing campaigns effectively. Better still, there’s even a smartphone app to deliver your customers eReceipts and mCoupons.
We look forward to showing you how you can close the loop on payment Big Data and create value from every single transaction.
Innovation type: Mobile, payments, rewards

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eyeOpen is launching the world’s first digital mortgage advisor. The digital mortgage advisor provides consumers with best-in-class mortgage advice. It provides banks and insurance companies with a leading user interface in conversions, advice algorithms and a management information dashboard on consumer behavior.
eyeOpen tested the digital mortgage advisor in The Netherlands with leading banks such as Rabobank, ING and ABN AMRO. The company sells the consumer advice software in Europe from its Amsterdam office and in the USA from its San Francisco office. 

Innovation type: Back office, banking, marketing

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EZBOB offers real-time financing for e-commerce businesses in the UK. The company has developed a web-based lending platform which gathers data, in real-time, allowing for instant lending decisions. 
An e-commerce business is analysed based on data pulled through API connections to data sources such as Amazon, eBay and PayPal, as well as strategic partners such as Channel Grabber, EKM and others. 
EZBOB’s proprietary algorithm allows the company to look beyond a traditional credit score. 
Innovation type: Banking, identity, lending, PFM, small business

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Learn how Financial Simplicity’s portfolio business management infrastructure enables wealth firms to operate thousands of individually tailored investment portfolios efficiently and compliantly. 
It will reveal how portfolio management can blend new world social relevance with operational excellence. Specifically, Financial Simplicity will demonstrate:
    1. Whole of firm portfolio mandate and compliance monitoring in a single screen
    2. On-demand portfolio analysis within a socially relevant context
    3. Investor-tailored portfolio modelling at the click of a button
    4. Implement pre-compliant portfolio decision-making across a Centralised Investment Proposition in a matter of seconds
Innovation type: Investing & asset management

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Story of My Finances is an entirely new approach in digital financial customer service. It takes online banking and PFM to the next level of mass retail financial planning and advice. 
Stories are customer-driven financial life processes, such as How to spend less, Prepare for a rainy day, Buy a home or Retirement planning. Stories help end-customers to get financially fit and to have a peace of mind. Stories are the missing link between everyday people and financial products. 
We believe that we can improve people’s financial life by licensing our white-label technology to financial institutions.
Innovation type: Online, PFM, sales

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You’re seated comfortably watching TV, and suddenly you’re notified that a bank deposit was made into your account. Good news! Simply click, and you can see the details.
The Home Shopping Network presents the set of cooking pans that you have had your eye on for ages. With the press of a button, the pans are on their way to your house!

Innovation type: Marketing, online, sales

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Kalixa believes that today, payments simply don’t meet the real needs of consumers and businesses. For businesses payments are expensive, fragmented and leave them exposed. 
Ed Chandler, CEO of Kalixa, will showcase how next-generation technology that underpins a total payment journey can transform payments from a source of cost, complexity and confusion into a sustainable competitive advantage that stimulates innovation and fuels business growth.

Innovation type: Cards, payments

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We truly believe that the financial industry needs a radical rethink and that innovative financial services offering fair prices, transparency and creating no systemic risk are more important than ever.
Based on these conclusions, we developed an alternative to traditional FX products and services offered by banks and brokers. Kantox is a marketplace where companies can look for and find others companies – their counterparties – to exchange foreign currencies spot and forward without the intermediation of banks.
Innovation type: Payments

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Luminous’ BankFiling loan origination solution enables financial institutions to increase lending to banking customers, while reducing risk.
Innovation type: Banking, lending, small business

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mBank & Efigence present the first European comprehensive Bank 3.0 revolution in a large bank with a full financial product portfolio. 
mBank, an online bank, has successfully leveraged the internet to organically become the third largest in Poland. Now, it’s re-inventing itself by bridging startup-grade innovation on a mass scale. It will implement a wave of next-gen services: transactional banking, transactional/real-time marketing, PFM, social, gamification, video banking, mobility and more. 
It will show its innovative transactional site and the first European implementation of transactional marketing, highlighting a creative take on Facebook, social platforms and real-time consumer gratification.
Innovation type: Banking, online, rewards

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Movenbank will be the first consumer banking experience centered around mobile and enabling a consumer’s everyday financial wellness. We combine mobile banking, mobile payments, and real time financial health and spending insight to help customers spend, save and live smarter. 
Consumers pay with their mobile phones and receive insight on their spending behaviors at the point of sale when it matters most. When was the last time your checking account did that?
Innovation type: Banking, payments, PFM

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Your customers want a mobile service that is as smart as their device. Are you delivering? When customers use your mobile service, they often require assistance beyond self-service to resolve their needs. Having them realize they now need to call your contact center and start from scratch with the IVR causes disappointment and frustration. 
NICE Mobile Reach complements mobile self-service to bridge it with assisted-service channels. It lets companies intelligently engage their mobile customers, seamlessly connect them to the right representative with full context transfer, and then powerfully collaborate with them during the interaction. That’s smart customer service that creates value!
Innovation type: Communications, mobile, sales

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The Open Bank Project (OBP) is an open source-powered API for banks that enables account holders to access their transaction data using a wider range of applications and services. 
The OBP API supports transparency options (enabling account holders to share configurable views of their transaction data with trusted individuals and even the public), data blurring (to preserve sensitive information) and data enrichment (enabling users to add tags, comments and images to transactions). The OBP App Store enables banks and developers to showcase supported apps.
Innovation type: Back office, communications

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The new, highly volatile market order that’s been prevailing for the last few years is raising the pressure on you to come up with asset allocations that are precisely fitted to your clients’ profile. Clients increasingly challenge the proposed investment strategies’ ability generate performance while preserving wealth. 
The BlackSwan Financial Platform lets you engage your clients in an interactive analysis of their risk. Explore investment options together with your clients and guide them through an informed process in selecting the most optimal asset allocation for their profile using clever quantitative finance algorithms.
Innovation type: Investing & asset management

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EdgeConnect is the industry’s most dynamic user experience platform (UXP). EdgeConnect provides a single, consistent platform that enables superior user experiences to be delivered across multiple distribution channels, for any product, any user, in any language and optimised for each device.
A major new editor within edgeConnect, LiveDesigner, is a game-changer in application design. It allows designers to change the look and feel, layout and behaviour while an application is executing, so that they can make changes and see the effects on dynamic application pages prior to live deployment.
Innovation type: Mobile, online, sales

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The Currency Cloud transforms the way businesses make international payments.
 
We inject cost savings, transparency and productivity enhancements into the payment process to deliver a service businesses deserve. Our platform connects to a host of exchange rate providers and payment networks to optimise the conversion, sending and receiving of international payments. 
Businesses access our service directly online, through our API, or via the multitude of firms such as banks, brokers, remittance agents, IFAs, and accounting solutions providers that extend our capabilities through their own services.
We will be showcasing the power of integrated international payments within treasury solutions.
Innovation type: Back office, payments

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Could the banks have avoided over $1 billion in fines for anti money laundering violations with this True Office game?
By playing the True Office | Thomson Reuters Anti Money Laundering desktop and mobile app, financial services employees are exposed to the regulatory risks they confront, and learn how to comply with anti money laundering laws and company policies. 
The data generated from this app provides financial services institutions with compliance analytics that help identify and reduce instances of anti money laundering risk.
Innovation type: Mobile, security

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TSYS Spend Controls puts control over card usage into the hands of the business owner or program administrator. It provides businesses a means to implement upfront transaction controls to ensure cardholder compliance with purchasing guidelines. 
Administrators manage parameters using a simple Web-based user interface, establishing guidelines according to business, department or individual needs. Each transaction is reviewed at the point of sale based on the pre-established parameters.
Innovation type: Banking, cards, marketing

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Virtual Piggy is the first e-commerce solution that enables kids to manage and spend money within a parent-controlled environment. 
We deliver online security platforms designed for the Under 18 age group in the global online market, and also enable online businesses the ability to function in a manner consistent with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) and similar international children’s privacy laws.
Innovation type: Payments, PFM

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VoiceTrust inTalk increases customer convenience, reduces call times, and provides enhanced security at financial institutions’ call centers. It does this by verifying a customer’s identity through passive listening to the conversation between the agent and the customer. 
Independent of the language spoken or the words uttered, inTalk is able to compare the speaker’s voice against the account holder’s voiceprint and indicate whether the speaker is the account holder or an imposter. The agent is alerted with a graphical indicator on their monitor.
Innovation type: Identity, sales, security

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Yseop will present several intelligent text-generating financial solutions. We will demo a prep-to-meeting report written in two seconds, an automatically generated two-page financial executive summary based on the latest market data and a personalized retirement planning application. 
Yseop is artificial intelligence that writes (and speaks) non-repetitive intelligent text, just like a human being, but at a speed of thousands of pages per second. Yseop analyzes a company’s business data, dialogs intelligently with its customers to understand their goals and then generates written comments and recommendations following the best practices of the company’s top experts.
Innovation type: Communications, sales, marketing