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Happy New Year: Stanford Federal Credit Union Offers Refi Auto Loans to Start the Year Right

By Jim Bruene Posted on January 1, 2013
Categories: Credit Unions, Holiday promotions

Besides losing weight and hitting the gym more often, financial matters dominate the New Year’s resolution list. Spend less. Save more. And in general, just be smarter about your money. During this brief window of rational thinking, financial institutions would be wise to promote these smart products and services.

But in a fairly exhaustive search today (31 Dec 2012), looking at the 40 largest U.S. banks and at least that many credit unions (note 1), we found only one New Year-themed promotion (note 2), a 1.49% auto-refi offer from Stanford Federal Credit Union (see below).

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Stanford FCU homepage (31 Dec 2012)

Landing page for New Year promo

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Notes:
1. The first 40 to 50 credit unions listed in the Google results when searching “credit union” from a Seattle IP address.
2. Several credit unions posted well wishes and holiday hours on their homepages. Also, Fifth Third has a “celebrate 2013” message on its homepage as we reported last week.
3. Picture from New Year email and infographic by Finovate alum, Kiboo

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Planwise Releases First Mobile App

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 27, 2012
Categories: planwise

PFM platform planwise recently launched an iPad app; its first move into the mobile environment. We tested it out earlier this week.

Our favorites

1) Simplicity of the money in, money out structure

Planwise doesn’t aggregate financial data, so users need to manually enter their financial information. Fortunately, the San Francisco-based startup keeps things simple by limiting input to three items: income, expenses, and debt.

2) Adjustable plans feature

When the user creates a plan, like going on vacation or buying a car, the cash projection is automatically lowered or raised to reflect the impact (see below). We like how easy it is to turn on or off different plans because it allows the user to test multiple “what if” scenarios.

Noteworthy elements

1) Products

Planwise has partnered with Perkstreet Financial to provide users with debit card offers. Here’s what our offer looked like:

And here’s how the offers are calculated:

2) Alerts

This section contains both positive and negative alerts in the following categories:

Critical
Warning
Suggested action
Plan
Upcoming events
Products/ service
Statistics
Celebration

Here are some alerts we received

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

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Giftly’s Gift Cards Make Gains in 2012

By David Penn Posted on December 27, 2012
Categories: Giftly

Inside a recent profile of Giftly were a handful of interesting metrics:

10,000 Giftlys sold so far in 2012
$4 per Giftly collected on average (processing fees range from $1 to $10, based on price of gift)
Gross revenues for 2012 expected to be $100,000
“Tenfold” increase in sales according to CEO Timothy Bentley

Giftly provides customized gift cards that can be used at a wide variety of U.S. businesses. The company has been widely reviewed this year, with mentions in Fast Company, TechCrunch, and CNet.

Giftly has raised $2.5 million through investors like Baseline Ventures, RPM Ventures, and LightSpeed Venture Partners. They have formed partnerships with BancBox and CBW Bank, among others.

Watch Giftly’s most recent product demo from FinovateSpring 2012 here.

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Tagit Platform Now Available to 120 Million Mobile Users Through Smartlink Deployment

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 26, 2012
Categories: Tagit

Asia-based mobile banking solutions provider, Tagit, recently announced the launch of its first aggregated mobile banking service with Smartlink, a payment switch operator.

When Smartlink deploys mobile services with its Vitenam-based member banks, they will deploy Tagit’s Mobeix platform to more than 40 million cardholders and 120 million mobile users.

Introducing this aggregated service will help Tagit expand its userbase and presence throughout Asia. Vietcombank, Smartlink’s largest member bank, is the first bank to launch Tagit’s mobile banking service.

To learn more about Tagit, watch its FinovateAsia 2012 demo.

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Cardlytics Platform Adopted by America First Credit Union

By David Penn Posted on December 26, 2012
Categories: Cardlytics

The partnership between Cardlytics and Fiserv bears fruit as America First Credit Union announced that it was adopting the Transaction-Driven Marketing program developed by Cardlytics.

Offers from Cardlytics are targeted at 200 million transactions every week, and analyze $500 billion in transactions every year. They were named a “Red Herring Global 100 Winner” earlier this year out of 1,200 candidates.

America First Credit Union has the distinction of being the 12th largest credit union in the United States. Founded in 1939, America First has more than 100 branches and nearly 600,000 members.

The America First deployment is just one of the big wins for Cardlytics in 2012. In August, the company announced a new partnership with Bank of America to power its transaction-based rewards program. Cardlytics is also among the companies selected to present at the upcoming FinovateEurope 2013 in February.

Watch the Cardlytics demo from FinovateEurope 2012 here.

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Holiday Website Promos at the Top-20 Banks

By Jim Bruene Posted on December 24, 2012
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, BB&T Bank, Citibank, Comerica Bank, Fifth Third Bancorp, Holiday promotions, Key Bank, PNC Bank, US Bank

In my annual look at holiday offerings from major banks, I found that Scrooge still roams the halls at many of the big names. Only eight of the 20 largest U.S. banks are using holiday-themed promotions or graphics (note 1). That’s one more than last year, but still two less than 2010.

As usual, PNC Bank is the exception with their two-decade long holiday CPI (Christmas present index). BB&T, Comerica and Fifth Third are also festive this year with gift card promotions supported by seasonal graphics. And US Bank, Citi, Key and Regions Bank used some holiday imagery.

The scrooge list: top-20 banks with no holiday promotions or graphics on Dec. 20):
Bank of America, Bank of the West (BNP Paribas), Capital One, Chase, Citizens (RBS), Harris Bank (BMO), HSBC, ING Direct (Capital One), SunTrust, TD Bank, Union Bank (Mitsubishi UFJ), Wells Fargo

Following is a quick overview of the promotions, including a 1-to 5-bulb rating.

Previous year-end holiday posts: 2011 (big banks), 2011 (CUs/community banks), 2009 part 1, 2009 part 2, 2007, 2006, 2006, 2004

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Big banks in the holiday spirit
(rated 1 to 5 bulbs; screenshots from Thursday, Dec 20)

PNC Bank

Gift Hunt tied to its Christmas CPI (based on the song 12 Days of Christmas)
Visa Gift Card promo (in rotation of four homepage promotions)

Score:

Hompage: PNC is leading with its 12 days of Christmas price index

PNC Bank microsite with gift hunt link

Also running gift card promo in rotation

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BB&T (20 Dec 2012)

Holiday themed graphic featuring mobile check deposit
Small ad for gift cards

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Fifth Third

Rotation of three holiday themed promotions
— Holiday billpay sweeps
— New Years savings pro
mo
— Gift cards

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Comerica

Prominent gift card promo across page and in lower-left corner

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Key Bank

Holiday graphic, but no product promotion

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Citibank

Toy shopping background image

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US Bank

Pitch for online banking, convenient while shopping

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Regions Bank

Small saving money tips

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Notes:
1. Observations taken between 2pm and 3pm Pacific on Thurs Dec 20 from Seattle IP address, Chrome browser with no cookies
2. Animation from http://www.millan.net/anims/christmas.html#

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Manilla Introduces Custom Accounts

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 21, 2012
Categories: Manilla

Last week online organization platform, Manilla, notified me that I can now create custom accounts for services that do not support online payment systems such as rent, babysitters, gym memberships and dog walkers (see email below).

To get started, log into the Manilla accounts dashboard and select create a custom account.

After selecting the account type and assigning it a name, enter due date, amount due, and frequency. Just like with Manilla’s traditional accounts, users may also create email and SMS reminders.

Once saved, the new account appears alongside the others.

New York-based Manilla stated users have requested this for quite some time now, so it is rolling out the feature in time to help consumers organize for the new year.

To learn more about Manilla, watch its FinovateFall 2012 demo.

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Fuze Network Shares Year-End Metrics

By David Penn Posted on December 21, 2012
Categories: Fuze Network

Here are some interesting metrics recently released by Fuze Network.

Performed more than 3.5 million cash-to-card transactions in 2012
Processed more than $250 million in total volume in 2012
Routes transactions to more than 14,000 financial institution card issuers
Provides network access to 150,000 integrated retail endpoints
Earns more than 60% of transaction volume from repeat cardholders

Fuze’s reCHARGE Network allows cardholders to add cash to more than 1 billion credit, debit, and prepaid cards at the point of sale. Watch them in action from FinovateFall 2011 here.

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Finovate Alumni News– December 21, 2012

By David Penn Posted on December 21, 2012
Categories: BillGuard, Capital Access Network, Credit Sesame, Fiserv, Giftly, Holvi, Lending Club, ShopKeep POS, SoMoLend, TradeKing

Compare Broker reviews the new mobile app from TradeKing.

MyBankTracker reviews how BillGuard protects from unwanted charges.

San Francisco Business Times reports: Giftly lets givers put ‘heart’ into gift cards.

Capital Access Network relocates Headquarters to NYC, adds Scott Blum as CMO.

Fiserv partners with TOPS Software to improve payment processing for property managers.

The Washington Post looks at SoMoLend’s community-focused lending.

Forbes names Lending Club one of the top five fintech companies of 2012.

Chicago donut chain “Glazed and Infused” now using ShopKeep POS software.

Wired.co.uk names Holvi startup of the week.

Credit Sesame unveils free credit monitoring service.

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.

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Finovate Alums Help Power CFPB’s Project Catalyst

By David Penn Posted on December 20, 2012
Categories: BillGuard, Plastyc, Simple

As part of its mandate to develop innovation and entrepreneurship in the consumer financial marketplace, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is calling on the help of three Finovate alumni.

BillGuard, Plastyc, and Simple are taking part in the first phase of the CFPB’s Project Catalyst, which has three goals:

Establish firm lines of communication with innovators
Understand new and emerging products in the market
Engage with innovators

In a statement, the CFPB noted that the “data-driven agency … always wants to learn more about what innovators are discovering about consumer wants, needs, and practices.”

To that end, here’s a quick key to what each company does and how each will contribute to the project.

Bill Guard

Bill Guard provides consumers with email alerts to warn of questionable activity in their debit or credit accounts. As part of Project Catalyst, BillGuard will be providing data on customer complaints and dispute resolution.

Watch BillGuard’s most recent Finovate demo here.

Plastyc

Plastyc provides an online-based, prepaid card that serves as an alternative to traditional checking accounts. Here, the CFPB is hoping to learn more about how consumers are using remote mobile check deposit, as well as the importance of immediate access to deposited funds.

To see Plastyc in action, watch their Finovate demo here.

Simple

Simple is a virtual bank that provides checking, savings and debit-card functions via a state-of-the-art user interface. Simple’s Goals savings program, which allows customers to make daily, set-aside contributions toward an eventual purchase, is largely what the CFPB is looking to study.

Simple debuted at FinovateFall 2011. Watch their demo here.

Note that while all three companies are sharing data with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, no personally identifiable information will be included.

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SecondMarket and AngelList Team Up to Enable Micro-Venture Investing for Members

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 20, 2012
Categories: Uncategorized

Yesterday the secondary trading market for private companies, SecondMarket, announced it partnered with AngelList to allow qualified investors to participate in micro-venture investing, or investing small amounts in early stage startups.

According to Barry Silbert, SecondMarket CEO, accredited investors will be able to invest in early stage technology startups in fields such as:

Finance
Education
Science
Advertising

The diverse range of startups, combined with the small dollar amount that the platforms require, will enable investors to better diversify their portfolio.

SecondMarket and AngelList will dual-list the companies, which are vetted and handpicked for the following qualities:

Easy-to-understand business model
Already backed by well-known investors
Have great advisors
Willing to be transparent with numbers

Five undisclosed startups are already on the platform and receiving investments, two of which have already filled their rounds.

SecondMarket demonstrated at FinovateStartup 2009 in San Francisco.

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Finovate Alumni News– December 20, 2012

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 20, 2012
Categories: Billhighway, Cardlytics, Dwolla, PayPal, Simple, SoMoLend, TradeKing, Vermilian

Cardlytics platform deployed by America FCU to provide targeted rewards to its members.

Vermilian’s bancapp technology to power EECU’s mobile banking and marketing smartphone app.

Dwolla promotes its platform by giving $10 in waived transaction fees for every friend you refer through the end of the year.

Xconomy looks at what SoMoLend discussed at the recent New York Enterprise Technology meetup.

Bank Innovation takes a look at what PayPal’s P2P for Financial Institutions means for the payments world.

AppShopper highlights a new app from Billhighway, Give, now available for the iPhone.

Netbanker looks at how Simple makes banking interesting.

Merger mechanics continue as Zecco accounts move to TradeKing.

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.

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