FinovateFall 2013: Big Lights, Big City, Big Show

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2013

Next week fintech startups and established enterprises from across the country and the world will begin arriving at the financial capital of the world New York City, New York to take part in FinovateFall 2013.

Take a look for yourself (click to enlarge):

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FinovateFall 2013 is a great opportunity to meet the entrepreneurs and executives from some of the most forward-looking startups and established companies in the industry. We still see typically strong representation from the fintech of the coasts. But we also see a number of companies from the Midwest, the South, and from overseas, all stepping forward to meet the challenges of helping people and businesses make, manage, and move their money, 24/7, 365 days a year.

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Selling our 1,100th ticket this morning, FinovateFall 2013 is officially sold out. But there are plenty of ways for you to catch all the action next week as our fintech innovators take the stage. Follow our Live Blog right here at Finovate.com starting on Tuesday morning at 9 am Eastern and continuing all day for both days of the show. You can also keep up with FinovateFall 2013 by following us on Twitter.
And if you’re still looking for a way to be a part of our audience, don’t despair! We have set up a waiting list in the event that there are last-minute cancellations. To get your name on the list, please email us at [email protected].

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Check Secures $24 Million Financing Round

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Check

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Check announced this morning that it had completed a Series C investment round that will boost the company’s capital by $24 million.

This funding round was led by new investor Menlo Ventures, and included participation from current investors Morgenthaler Ventures and Pitango Venture Capital.

Check will put the capital to good use helping expand the business and grow the company’s role in making it easier for consumers to track, manage, and pay their bills. Said Check CEO, Guy Goldstein, “Americans make $4 trillion worth of bill payments per year, and Check is transforming the bill payment industry with a simple, fast, and easy-to-use mobile app.”

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In addition to the funding, Check will also gain a pair of new board members. Doug Carlisle of Menlo Ventures will be joining the company’s board of directors, as will founder and former CEO of CompuCom, Avery More. This latest round puts Check’s total venture capital financing to date at $49 million.
Formerly Pageonce, Check is a leading innovator in the field of mobile payments. With nearly 10 million consumers using its mobile solution to pay bills and track finances, Check’s Bills & Money app is available as a free download from both the iTunes App Store and Google Play.
Our recent reporting on Check includes news of their partnership with Desert Water Agency in Palm Springs, California, as well as the company’s decision to add expedited payments to the service in June.
Check demoed their technology as part of FinovateSpring in 2010. See the company in action here.

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Capital Access Network Names Former GE Capital Executive, Shiladitya Ray, New CFO

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Capital Access Network

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Capital Access Network, a platform that provides working capital to small businesses, announced the addition of a new CFO, Shiladitya (“Shila”) Ray.

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Ray is the former CFO of Global Operations for GE Capital Americas. According to his LinkedIn profile, Ray is a:

“Strategic Finance leader with global experience in leading finance and business operations. Served as CFO for multiple businesses with 15+ years of executive leadership and experience in global organizations.”

In his new position, Ray will help develop long-range growth strategies.

Capital Access Network’s former CFO, Daniel DeMeo, is now its Chief Executive Officer.

In May of this year, Capital Access Network provided U.S.-based small businesses access to $66 million. In the month of July it provided access to more than $74 million.

To learn more about Capital Access Network, come see its live demo in New York at FinovateFall next week. Or, watch its FinovateEurope 2011 demo.

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Finovate Alumni News– September 4, 2013

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Cardlytics, Check, Credit Sesame, Kabbage, Manilla, Mint.com, Monitise, TSYS
  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgAmerican Banker reports: Cardlytics Announces First U.K. Bank Customer. Come watch Cardlytics’ live demo at FinovateFall in NYC next week.
  • IBM partners with Monitise to provide software, technology services and consulting to improve Monitise’s core services.
  • NPR’s Tell Me More mentions ImpulseSave, Mint, and Manilla as 3 apps to help manage your money.
  • TSYS signs long-term payment processing agreement with Anovia Payments, LLC.
  • Check (formerly Pageonce) secures $24 million in Series C financing round.
  • Information Week highlights Credit Sesame and Kabbage in column on social media and credit worthiness.
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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FinovateAsia 2013 Presenting Companies Revealed!

By Eric Mattson Posted on
Categories: Uncategorized

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With only 71 days to go until FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore, we are incredibly excited to be announcing the cutting-edge companies that will be debuting their latest innovations in financial and banking technology.

Like the inaugural event last year, this year’s FinovateAsia will showcase over 30 innovations leveraging everything from big data to biometrics, gamification to visual analytics and much more!

The selection process was filled with hard decisions for us this year and only reinforced our belief that Asia is going to be an increasingly major force in fintech innovation in the years to come.

Without further ado, here are the innovative companies that will be demoing their newest technologies in November:

  • Advanced Merchant Payments
  • ArthaYantra
  • Backbase
  • BehavioSec
  • BellaDati
  • BlueKite
  • Bridgei2i
  • CustomerXPs Software
  • GMC
  • i-exceed
  • IND Group
  • Intuition Intelligence
  • KlickEx
  • Kofax
  • Luminous
  • Mambu
  • Matchi
  • Mistral Mobile
  • Mobexo
  • Mobino
  • Pangea
  • Red Zebra
  • SaaS Markets
  • Serverside
  • SinoLending
  • Smart Engine
  • TIBCO
  • Tootpay
  • TradeNet
  • TSYS
  • White Label Personal Clouds
  • Yodlee
  • Plus more still to be announced!

If you’re interested in attending the event to watch the future of Asian fintech unfold live on stage, tickets are now on sale at the discounted early-bird ticket price through Friday, October 4th.

We’ll see you in Singapore in November!

P.S. If you can’t wait until then to learn about the latest in financial technology there are less than 10 tickets left for FinovateFall (next week in NYC).

FinovateAsia 2013 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Citi Ventures, Financial Technology Partners, Life.SREDA, Standard Chartered Bank, and Visa

FinovateAsia 2013 is partners with: Aite, The Asian Banker, BankersHub, BeSuccess, Celent, The Emerging Finance, Finance on Windows, FSClub, SME Finance Forum, and Timetric

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FinovateAsia 2013 Presenting Companies Revealed!

By Eric Mattson Posted on
Categories: Uncategorized

fa-btn4-over.png

With only 71 days to go until FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore, we are incredibly excited to be announcing the cutting-edge companies that will be debuting their latest innovations in financial and banking technology.

Like the inaugural event last year, this year’s FinovateAsia will showcase over 30 innovations leveraging everything from big data to biometrics, gamification to visual analytics and much more!

The selection process was filled with hard decisions for us this year and only reinforced our belief that Asia is going to be an increasingly major force in fintech innovation in the years to come.

Without further ado, here are the innovative companies that will be demoing their newest technologies in November:

  • Advanced Merchant Payments
  • ArthaYantra
  • Backbase
  • BehavioSec
  • BellaDati
  • BlueKite
  • Bridgei2i
  • CustomerXPs Software
  • GMC
  • i-exceed
  • IND Group
  • Intuition Intelligence
  • KlickEx
  • Kofax
  • Luminous
  • Mambu
  • Matchi
  • Mistral Mobile
  • Mobexo
  • Mobino
  • Pangea
  • Red Zebra
  • SaaS Markets
  • Serverside
  • SinoLending
  • Smart Engine
  • TIBCO
  • Tootpay
  • TradeNet
  • TSYS
  • White Label Personal Clouds
  • Yodlee
  • Plus more still to be announced!

If you’re interested in attending the event to watch the future of Asian fintech unfold live on stage, tickets are now on sale at the discounted early-bird ticket price through Friday, October 4th.

We’ll see you in Singapore in November!

P.S. If you can’t wait until then to learn about the latest in financial technology there are less than 10 tickets left for FinovateFall (next week in NYC).

FinovateAsia 2013 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Citi Ventures, Financial Technology Partners, Life.SREDA, Standard Chartered Bank, and Visa

FinovateAsia 2013 is partners with: Aite, The Asian Banker, BankersHub, BeSuccess, Celent, The Emerging Finance, Finance on Windows, FSClub, SME Finance Forum, and Timetric

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Lenders: Making a Good First Impression

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Loans & Credit, Website Usability & Design

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I know banks have been stung by various public floggings over the past five years. But sometimes they are too shy for their own good.

During normal times, a big chunk of retail profits come from lending. Yet, many bank websites make loans (other than mortgage and credit cards) look like a minor product line. Kind of like the AA batteries for sale at the Best Buy counter.

US Bank’s newly remodeled website is typical (note 1). Yes, you can find loans across the top navigation (good). But the bank makes users select from a dropdown list to find exactly what they are looking for. It’s not a bad approach, but it’s fairly passive (see first screenshot below).

Compare that to UK’s Hitachi Personal Finance (second screenshot). The lender uses its homepage to  explain its core benefits (low rates and quick turnaround) and lay out the various loan types (personal, auto, furniture, leisure, trade, environmental).

Bottom line: In the United States, we have probably reached “peak checking account fee income.” And you can’t bank on deposit values going back to 5% any time soon. Let’s face it, loans are where the money is for the foreseeable future (note 2). So its time to stop being a loan introvert and sing their praises from your online and mobile outposts.

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US Bank requires users to select a specific loan type before drilling down for more details (3 Sep 2013)

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Hitachi Personal Finance (UK) (link)

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Hovering over one of the loan types brings up a short description

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Notes:
Image credit
1. I’m sorry I’m picking on US Bank, it just happened to be the first URL I typed in.
2. Also, insurance sales have a very robust future, though that a topic for another day (see our full report here, Dec 2011, subscription)

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Finovate Alumni News– September 3, 2013

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BellaDati, Emida, MasterCard, Nutmeg, TSYS
  • BellaDati featured in press from Japan.
  • MasterCard partners with Blue Label Telecoms to equip South African merchants with POS devices that accept chip and PIN, contactless cards. See MasterCard demo at FinovateFall in New York next week.
  • PYMNTS.com talks Big Data with Rob Hudson and Richard Hamilton of TSYS.
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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Lendio Raises More Than $4 Million in Series B Round

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Lendio

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While most of us have spent the past week dreaming of Labor Day destinations, small business lending platform Lendio was busy raising capital. And lots of it.

The company announced late this week that it had secured $4.2 million as part of a Series B funding round. The round was led by Runa Capital, and also included the participation of current investors Tribeca Venture Partners and Highway 12 Ventures.

As reported in a TechCrunch profile of the company published this week, Lendio plans to use the new funding to help the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners that have come through the platform to get access to the capital they need to grow their enterprises.

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Lendio was founded in 2005, and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. The company’s platform connects small businesses in search of capital with lenders looking for creditworthy borrowers and good returns. The company cites a successful match rate of 85% for the companies that complete a Lendio profile.
Lendio earned $6 million in Series A funding in February 2011, and $2 million in debt funding later that year. We last reported on Lendio a month ago, as the company partnered with ProfitStars (another Finovate alum) to provide small businesses with ProfitStars’ BusinessManger and access to LendingNetwork. See our story on the new deal here.
The company presented its lending platform at FinovateFall 2011 in San Francisco. Watch Lendio’s demo here.

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Finovate Alumni News– August 30, 2013

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Jack Henry, Versafe
  • FinovateLOGO.jpgJack Henry Banking takes a look at the trend toward outsourcing by mid-tier banks.
  • Versafe warns about new cross-device, mobile malware challenges to multi-factor authentication strategies. Meet Versafe at FinovateFall 2013 in New York City in September.
  • Intuit launches QuickBooks Cloud ProAdvisor Program, providing free access to Intuit’s online products.
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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FinovateFall 2013 Sneak Peek: Part 6

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Apprenda, Biometric Signature ID, FinovateFall 2013, Innovation Agency, Lighter Capital, Mitek, Numbrs, PayWith, Zooz

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This is our final Sneak Peek of the companies who will debut their new technology on stage in New York on September 10 & 11 at FinovateFall.

You can learn more about our upcoming event here. 

In case you missed them, here are the previous posts in our Sneak Peek series:

FinovateFall 2013 Sneak Peek #1

Today we’ll introduce you to the final set of companies: Apprenda, Biometric Signature ID, Innovation Agency, Lighter Capital, Mitek, Numbrs, PayWith, and Zooz.

Want to be a part of the audience? Get your tickets to FinovateFall 2013 here. They’re selling fast, so get yours before it’s too late.

ApprendaLogo.jpgApprenda is the leading Enterprise Platform as a Service (PaaS) product powering the next generation of software-defined enterprises.

Features:

    • Policy Driven Application Deployment
    • Seamless Hybrid Cloud Capabilities
    • Inheritable Cloud Application Architectures

Why it’s great: Apprenda is a software layer that enables any organization to transform their existing infrastructure into a self-service cloud application platform.

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Sinclair Schuller, CEO & Co-Founder at Apprenda

LinkedIn

Meet more of the team here.

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Biometric Signature ID (BioSig-ID) is a software-only biometric that positively identifies users online: cloud-based with NO hardware required.
Features:
Using gesture biometrics, we can identify users at log in from any device and stop impostors – no hardware needed.
Why it’s great: BioSig-ID verifies the “real” user and allows secure online transactions and prevents identity fraud.
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Jeff Maynard is the CEO and an expert in the field of dynamic biometrics receiving two patents for his inventions.

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Innovation Agency’s Innovation Cafe is an innovation management platform that uses a social-based approach for driving collaborative and measurable innovation within the enterprise.
Features:
    • Recommendation Engine: encourages user participation
    • Real-time Social Graph: helps innovators to view their networks
    • Digital Personas
Why it’s great: Specifically designed for financial services providers, the platform uses crowdsourcing to engage innovation communities.
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Jay van Zyl (PhD), Founder
Jay is an entrepreneur, innovator and educator who lives his passion for finding new ways of driving innovation & change.
InnovationAgencyFounder2.jpgRory Moore (MBA), CEO
Rory is an innovation pioneer and has successfully implemented many innovation initiatives in leading banks.
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Lighter Capital provides growth capital to technology companies in a highly-automated manner: Capital-as-a-Service
Features:
    • Predict a borrower’s future performance using CRM data
    • Monitor for loan defaults using banking, accounting & CRM data
    • Lower lending costs
Why it’s great: By crunching key CRM data, lenders can improve underwriting and borrower monitoring, predicting instability before it shows up in financial statements.
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BJ Lackland joined Lighter Capital as CEO in 2012. He has been a venture capitalist, the CFO of a public technology company, and a startup consultant.
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Rob Belcher leads the investment and finance efforts at Lighter Capital and has 12 years experience in investment banking, VC and consulting.

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Mitek, the founders of Mobile Deposit, developed a complete suite of mobile imaging solutions. This new mobile solution enhances the account opening process.
Features:
    • Engage and retain mobile first consumers 
    • Speed up account opening process here, there, almost anywhere
    • Reduce inaccurate data entry
Why it’s great: Increase acquisition rates and lifetime value of customers with this exciting new solution. See the demo at FinovateFall 2013. 
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James B. DeBello, CEO & President

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Numbrs is Online Banking of the Future.
Features:
    • Future Timeline
    • Transfer Money
    • Adnumbrs
Why it’s great: Numbrs empowers you to own your financial life on-the-go.
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Julien Arnold, CEO
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Johannes Hübner, CTO

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PayWith: What is possible when you connect the scalability and security of the MasterCard Network with innovations in Mobile Payments/Loyalty/Rewards/and Virtual Currencies?
Features:
Merchants can use their existing credit card processing terminals to securely transact mobile payments and run rewards. Pay/Reward/Gift/Security
Why it’s great: Merchants can use their existing credit card processing terminal to transact completely secure mobile payments and run targeted marketing.
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David Strebinger, CEO
Strebinger was previously the founder of Caring Capital and Wantsa Media. Emphasis on Payments/Mobile/Social/Monetization/Advertising.
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Donald Kirkwood, COO
Kirkwood previously founded Axon in the UK. Axon grew to be the largest SAP consulting firm in the world and sold for $650M in 2008.  

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Zooz is a global payment platform that enables e-commerce and m-commerce merchants to optimize their checkout across all channels.
Features:
    • Consumer-centric checkout for multiple platforms
    • Global payment solution with cross-border capabilities
    • Partnership with First Data
Why it’s great: Payments are for people; We’re here to give payments the human touch. Happy and reassured users are more likely to make it to the “Thank You” page!  
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Oren Levy, CEO & Co-Founder

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Ronen Morecki, CTO & Co-Founder
FinovateFall 2013 is just around the corner. If you have questions about the event, visit the information page, check out the FAQ, or email [email protected]. 

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Finovate Alumni News– August 29, 2013

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Dynamics, Lendio, MasterCard, MiiCard, SumUp
  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgTechCrunch reports: Lendio using new funding to help SMBs secure loans & avoid bad credit.
  • Payments Source considers how SumUp is competing in a Square world.
  • Cards International reports: Dynamics unveils U.S.A credit card with stars and stripes magnetic strip. Come to FinovateFall in NYC to see Dynamics showcase its new innovation.
  • MasterCard, C-SAM, DNP team up to bring white-label NFC mobile wallet service to Japan. See MasterCard demo at Finovate Fall in September.
  • OxGadgets reviews miiCard as a solution for online identity authentication. Join miiCard in New York for FinovateFall.
  • Mashreq Bank launches EMV chip and PIN-compliant mobile POS service via partnership with Swiff and MasterCard.
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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