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Finovate Alumni News– August 12, 2013

By David Penn Posted on August 12, 2013
Categories: Locaid, peerTransfer, TSYS, Yseop

TSYS announces support for Paynet's "Great Migration to EMV" initiative. Locaid CEO talks about verification services as a role for Location-as-a-Service companies. Decisions management expert James Taylor reviews Yseop. Former American Express Consumer Cards Services Group President Phillip Riese Joins peerTransfer Board of Directors. 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.

Gamification & Banking

By Jim Bruene Posted on August 9, 2013
Categories: Alerts & Messaging, Game-based, Personal Financial Management

I don't know what we did before the term gamification was coined. Back in the day we just talked about comparisons, metrics, charts and so on (or maybe "game mechanics" if you working on your PhD). But it's nice to be able to wrap those concepts up into a single term, even if it does have a bit of a frivolous, video-gaming connotation.

But, let's not get hung up on the wording. Call it what you want, but the concept of providing detailed feedback about your customers' use and abuse of their money is a critical part of being a 21st century financial provider. My absolute favorite thing about Mint is the weekly financial summary its been sending me for five years. It's still the single most important financial tool I use.

Since it's Friday, I will cut directly to the visual aid (screenshot below). The weekly…

Trustly Extends Direktbetalning Product to Online Housing and Apartment Rentals

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on August 9, 2013
Categories: Trustly

Sweden-based Trustly recently unveiled its online payment solution for house and apartment rental classified ads listed on Blocket, Sweden's version of eBay.

This capability is being added to Trustly's original offering, Direktbetalning, which was limited to purchasing and selling goods on the Blocket platform. You may recall Trustly's FinovateEurope 2013 demo, where COO Carl-Henrik Somp was selling his right shoe.

The new offering helps solve the pain point faced by home renters who are pressured into paying rent for a new home or apartment one month in advance, only to discover that it was a scam.

Direktbetalning solves this problem in a similar way in which it does for goods sold online. Trustly holds the rent money until the day after the rental period begins, then pays it out to the landlord. If fraud occurs, rent money goes back to the tenant. It works like a small escrow, the…

Finovate Alumni News– August 9, 2013

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on August 9, 2013
Categories: Biletu, Braintree, Google, HelloWallet, Holvi

The Economist mentions Holvi as a financial company facing regulation that prevents it from lending. HelloWallet unveils research department. Fast Company lists Braintree as 1 of 10 companies with "developer cred". Biletu launches its new website. Google Wallet to end NFC functionality for storing gift and loyalty cards by the end of the month. 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.

New Online Banking Report Published: Opportunities with Prepaid & Gift Cards

By Jim Bruene Posted on August 8, 2013
Categories: Fee Income, Online Banking Report, Prepaid/gift cards

Many pundits like to talk about how banks have dropped the ball in digital (online/mobile). We take a different view. Banks, especially in the United States, have lost essentially zero market share to Internet-based incumbents (note 1). It's a hyper-competitive market and banks have pushed forward to defend their turf from other big traditional brands. Way to go capitalism.

Of course, it's easy to find things that could have been done better. That keeps us in business. But if you compare the pre- and post-Internet market share in banking to almost any other industry, it's amazing just how well the big brands have fared, at least against web-based upstarts (note 2).

But there are certain product areas where traditional financial institutions have lagged. And one of the most obvious is prepaid/gift cards. Banks have understandably clung to the checking/debit card model with its river of fees,…

Intuit Buys Tax Planning/Preparation Specialist GoodApril

By David Penn Posted on August 8, 2013
Categories: GoodApril, Intuit

Founded in January. Launched in March (see their FinovateSpring 2013 demo). Acquired in August.

That pretty much sums up a very productive 2013 for online tax preparation/planning software company, GoodApril.

The company announced on Thursday that it had been acquired by financial services giant, Intuit, for an undisclosed amount. GoodApril had been scheduled to make their pitch at Techstars Boulder/Denver Demo Day when the news broke. Undaunted, the innovative startup made its presentation anyway, a presentation that must have seemed as much acceptance speech as elevator pitch.

GoodApril's Tax CheckUp solution allows users to anticipate and prepare for potential tax liability in the tax year to come. Headquartered in San Francisco, and having only three employees, the company bills itself as the tax software for "the other 364 days of the year." Tax Checkup analyzes previous tax returns and makes recommendations over the course of the year to…

Tradeshift Adds Features to “Humanize” Project Workflow

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on August 8, 2013
Categories: Tradeshift

Online invoicing startup Tradeshift announced updates to its platform yesterday that extend its reach beyond just e-invoicing.

The new update, called Collaborative Workflow, will enable users to collaborate on tasks and automate workflow, making Tradeshift a more holistic platform for businesses. It attempts to "humanize" the workflow process by:

1) taking the platform mobile
2) automating repetitive tasks
3) allowing multiple users to collaborate on a single project, giving each user a profile picture to associate with their name.

Check out Tradeshift at FinovateEurope 2012 where it demoed its Instant Payments feature.

Finovate Alumni News– August 8, 2013

By David Penn Posted on August 8, 2013
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Finect, Kabbage, Kofax, Leadfusion, Lending Club, On Deck Capital, PayPal, Prosper, SigFig, SocietyOne, Zopa

Kofax announces completion of Kapow Technologies acquisition. ACI Worldwide cites role of their Universal Payments Platform in net new bookings growth for 2013 in this week's Q2 report. SigFig launches iPad app. The New York Times looks at Lending Club, Prosper, Zopa, On Deck, SocietyOne, and Kabbage as significant lending platforms. Finextra reports: PayPal trials new geolocation payment service in London. Leadfusion launches new RESPONSE interface for Premium Financial Tools. Finect Founder Jennifer Openshaw moderates Best Practices in Compliant Social Media webinar. See Finect demo at FinovateFall 2013 in New York. 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.

Why I Want My Auto Insurance Company to Track My Every Move

By Jim Bruene Posted on August 7, 2013
Categories: Game-based, Insurance, Pricing

Our family has been lucky. Extraordinarily lucky. Eighty-plus years of mostly city driving, combined across four drivers, and not a single auto insurance claim (note 1). That means we’ve paid more than $100,000 (2013 dollars) in premiums for nothing, so far (note 2).

Actually, that’s not at all fair to the insurance providers. We’ve paid $100k for the peace of mind and potential financial help had we needed it (not to mention staying on the right side of the law). And it's been worth it.

That said, I wouldn’t mind paying less for the same peace of mind. And that’s why I love the idea of mileage- and behavioral-based insurance (note 3). I haven’t always been a model driver, but I was the first person in my extended family to regularly wear a seat belt and I’ve grown to be a relatively conservative driver,…

PreCash’s PayConnect Helps Make Payments Faster and Cheaper

By David Penn Posted on August 7, 2013
Categories: PreCash

One of the biggest gripes about mobile and online bill payment is that it takes "forever" to post (read 2-3 days), and if you want to (or have to) speed up the process, it's just too expensive.

To solve this problem, PayConnect from PreCash leverages the company's existing, cloud-based processing system to provide same day payment delivery for more than 80% of the transactions it processes.

PayConnect allows customers to make payments at more than 10,000 utility, cable, and insurance companies, as well as other service providers. Customers can use both cash and cards for payment. The company offers a pair of integration options: deploying into existing services by way of an API, or adding PayConnect as a white-label application with an online interface that can be branded. PreCash CEO Steve Taylor cited a report from Aite Group that says more than half of consumers have made bill payments outside…

NICE to Acquire Causata to Enhance Customer Experience Management

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on August 7, 2013
Categories: NICE Systems

NICE, a company that focuses on enhancing interactions with end customers, is about to make it easier for organizations to understand and improve the customer experience.

That's because the Israel-based company announced it will acquire Causata, a customer experience management company.

As a part of the partnership, NICE will integrate Causata's Hadoop-based technologies into its Customer Engagement Analytics platform. This will:

create customer profiles by analyzing their activities over multiple channels converge self-service digital channels (i.e. web and mobile) with assisted-service channels to better manage the customer experience enable banks to provide agents with the complete context of a customer interaction improve real-time decisioning with predictive analytics and machine learning

The acquisition is expected to close in a few days.

To learn more about NICE, check out their demo from FinovateSpring 2013.

Finovate Alumni News– August 7, 2013

By David Penn Posted on August 7, 2013
Categories: Allied Payment Network, Cardlytics, EyeVerify, MasterCard, Nutmeg, PayPal, PreCash, ProfitStars, Wonga, Zopa

MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga announces MasterPass digital wallet now accepted by more than 20,000 merchants. EyeVerify reaches finals in four categories of the 2013 Silicon Prairie Awards. Ralph Marcuccilli, president and founder of Allied Payment Network, talks about the benefits of photo bill pay. ProfitStars introduces hosted version PROFITstar Budget Manager, supported by Windows Azure for cloud computing. First Interstate Bank replaces Excel-based budgeting process. U.S. PayPal users given option to withdraw money using MoneyGram. London Loves Business blog highlights Nutmeg, Zopa, and Wonga as well-known London-based fintech startups. Cardlytics names Jim Morgan as first CFO. Come see Cardlytics demo at FinovateFall in New York September 10 and 11. PreCash launches PayConnect mobile and online bill pay platform. 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.