Conferences

FinTech at TechCrunch Disrupt

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conferences, Insurance, Youth market

imageThis past week, NYC hosted TechCrunch’s semi-annual tech event. TechCrunch Disrupt covers the entire tech spectrum from software to 3D printers to gaming and ecommerce. Generally, the financial vertical accounts for 2% to 3% of the companies involved. That said, several notable fintech companies have done well there. Notably, Mint won the first event in 2007. And in 2011, both InvoiceASAP (demoing at Finovate next week) and BillGuard (see post) made it to the final round, (with BillGuard finishing second overall).  

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Startup Battlefield
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This year, three of the 30 "battlefield" companies that made it one stage were in fintech. One of those, Zenefits, was one of seven finalists called back to demo again to the judging panel. Enigma a public-dataset discovery and analytics startup, was the eventual winner.

1. OK’d by PaidPiper (description | demo)

  • Kids payment tracking and authorization service
  • Partnering with Vantiv
  • Mobile first…team has mobile background
  • Can also be used by small biz with their employees
  • Charging parents 5% of value transferred (non-starter…needs to get to monthly subscription)

2. Trustev (description | demo)

  • "Social fingerprinting" to provide a "Trustev score" pulled from social media and other data sources
  • $20 billion lost in 2012 by online merchants
  • 27% of all online orders are reviewed by humans for potential fraud
  • Call themselves "Stripe for fraud"

3. Zenefits — Battlefield Finalist (description | demo)

  • Free, comprehensive HR-benefits platform, monetized with health insurance commissions only
  • Displaces client company’s health insurance broker to fund the free HR services
  • Co-founded by Wikinvest’s Parker Conrad
  • Y-Combinator alum
  • Typically, small customers can pay up to $2,000 per year for similar services

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Startup Alley Tradeshow
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The "startup alley" is the tradeshow floor where more than 100+ startups and event sponsors have tables to talk to interested parties. There were eight more fintech companies there:

  • ePaisa: Mobile POS startup
  • EXP Commerce: Futures market for consumer products
  • PayTango: YC company authorizing payments with fingerprint biometrics
  • Peela: Brazilian gift card provider "gift cards on steroids"
  • Purchext: Parental spending control system using sale receipt capture/OCR (now) and/or NFC (soon)
  • Taclaro.com: Brazilian online insurance supermarket
  • TouchtoPay : Fingerprint-based payment system
  • YourCapital: Algorithmic financial advice for DIYers

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Panel Discussion
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Financial subjects come up throughout the program, for example three VCs over the three days mentioned that they were putting money into Bitcoin. But there was only one focused financial-services session, a panel entitled, Show Me the Money.

Panel members: PayPal (Hill Ferguson, VP), Stripe (John Collison, Co-founder), Gumroad (Sahil Lavinga, Founder)

  • PayPal launched "login with PayPal" today
  • Stripe is powering Walmart’s new Goodies food-subscription service
  • PayPal used to buy $7 billion annually in digital goods (music, online gaming, etc)

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Links from My April 13 FIS Customer Conference Presentation

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conferences, FIS

image Thanks again to FIS for allowing me to speak at its annual customer confab in Milwaukee. And thanks to everyone who attended.

Here are the links from my presentation in the order presented:

image 2010/2011 highlights:

 imageMobile does new tricks:

imageOnline information management:

Merchant-funded rewards:

image

Family banking:

———

* Will be demoing at FinovateSpring 2011, May 10 & 11

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Watching the Mobile Payments Battle Unfold

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Alt Payments, Conferences, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Payments

Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Daniel Thomas, a 25-year veteran of the financial services industry and a principal consultant with Mindful Insights LLC. He’s been involved in strategy and product development for Online Resources Corporation, ARINC, and TeleCheck. He recently authored a report on merchant-funded in-statement rewards for Online Banking Report.


image The Alternative Payments Systems Innovations (APSI) conference held in San Francisco last week may want to change its name to Mobile Payments Systems Innovation. It seems that all things mobile has totally eclipsed any interest in non-mobile untraditional payments.

And for good reason, the speakers and a hundred or so fully engaged attendees at the second annual APSI summit, seemed unanimously to agree that the convergence of virtual and physical purchasing, social networking, rewards and promotions will be solved by the use of mobile phones. And that is saying a lot given the mix of technology companies, payment companies, merchants and financial services companies represented in the room.

However, there is uncertainty on what exact form the eventual solutions take. But each company with an innovation is positioning themselves to be on the winning side when the dust settles and at least one prediction by chip maker INSIDE Secure Corporation’s COO Charles Watson says “it will unfold in the next 18 to 24 months to see who are the winners and losers.”

imageFor us payments geeks, it’s a little like being one of the people from the Virginia countryside who brought lawn chairs to watch the first battle of Manassas in the Civil War. We have an opportunity to witness payment history before our very eyes. For those companies that are on the battlefield, well, some will win and others will become what Steve Klebe, VP, business development and strategy at BilltoMobile calls “alternative payments roadkill.”

The key issue is control of the consumer. This is not a new issue, of course. Richard Crone’s (president of Crone Consulting, LLC) timeless mantra, “The one who enrolls (is the one who) controls” is as true with m-payments as it was with e-payments and bill payments before that. However, no longer is this control of the consumer limited to a tug-of-war between the banks and the merchants. Mobile Network Operators (MNO), handset manufacturers and even social networks are all investing in innovative new technologies and functionality to be in the best position to do the enrolling.

The technologies that are being developed to win this control tend to fall into three main categories:
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NFC-enabled phones (and stickers)
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Mohammad Khan, president of ViVOtech, the NFC payment and promotion solution provider says that 2011 is the year of NFC and that “by the end of the year, 60-70 million NFC-enabled phones are expected to be released–mostly in North America.” The presumption here is that consumers equipped with this new functionality will be looking for a place to use it and will ultimately drive merchants to upgrade their POS equipment to accept tap-and-go payments.

Indeed, INSIDE Secure’s Watson predicts that NFC enabled smart phones will generate the next generation of phone apps that have nothing to do with payments but will get consumers hooked on tapping (think: tapping posters to receive coupons, tapping labels on store shelves to learn about products, tapping when you walk into a store to check-in and receive offers, tapping phones with someone you meet instead of exchanging business cards, etc.) and that this acceptance by consumers will drive their demand for tapping to pay at the point of sale.

Yet other companies fail to see the value in NFC to consumers. Chris Hylen, VP and GM, Intuit Payment Solutions Division says Intuit is banking on its Go Payment card swipe system that attaches to the iPhone. They believe that in the future everyone that wants to receive money will be able to receive credit card transactions. To prove it, Hylen played this adorable video clip of girl scouts accepting payments with their device. What could be easier?

He went on to say that “NFC is a solution looking for a problem” since it is much easier for a consumer to pull out their card than it is to open their phone, go to the appropriate app, enter a password, select a payment type and then tap the phone to a POS reader. This sentiment was echoed by Vince Kadar, CEO of Telepin Software who asserted that NFC means “Not For the Consumer”.
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Virtual Wallets
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Okay, so maybe virtual wallets are the answer? After all what could be easier for a consumer to understand? Their phone now contains all of the information that used to be in their leather wallet. But which wallet will we use? The one promised by the group called ISIS led by AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Discover and Barclays Bank? Or the one developed in the future by the partnership of Google, Citi and Verifone? Or the neutral and agnostic wallet announced and demoed at the show by Zenius Solutions President John Weise, the Zenius Mobile Wallet?

Since control of the consumer is the goal, every large merchant, mobile network operator, handset manufacturer and card issuer is going to be developing a wallet that they will want you to use as your primary wallet. How is that going to work? I can smell a new business opportunity for data aggregators like Yodlee and CashEdge a mile away, but won’t that defeat the purpose of gaining control? Somehow I can’t get the vision of George Costanza’s wallet out of my head.
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Carrier Billing
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The simplest solution, deemed the only “frictio
n-less” mobile payment type by the service providers that offer it, is the concept of paying for items with a charge to the phone carriers’ monthly bill. The concept is inherently secure since the payment providers have real-time access to the phone company database (and they know where you live!) and a second factor of authentication, a text message to your phone that you need to reply-to.

The companies leading the charge in this space include PaymentOne, MoPay, BilltoMobile, and BOKU. And while its true that they don’t have the problems that NFC and wallet providers have, there are currently clear boundaries to the types of items that can be bought with carrier billing services.

Purchases today are limited to small dollar (micropayment) virtual goods such as ring tones, wallpaper, game purchases (if you are one of the millions of people that like to pay to throw virtual sheep) and the like. However, you cannot buy a refrigerator at Sears. At least not until these companies work out the issues between the merchants and the carriers about who pays for fraud losses, how often funds are settled with merchants (remember you only pay your phone bill once a month and Sears isn’t going to want to wait a month to get paid for their refrigerator!) and how customer service will be handled for things such as charge-backs.
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Summary
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The conference concluded with a focus on major merchants and explored their needs and wants for new payment types. Representatives from Walmart, 7-Eleven, Inc., Macy’s and SUBWAY Restaurants each explained how they were looking for reduced costs, reduced lines, reliability, security, easy implementation and low maintenance associated with any new payment mechanism they deploy. In addition, they want the system to include the ability to offer rewards and promotions near-store and in-store.

That’s a pretty tall order for any new payment solution. Are the merchants being unreasonable? After all, each has tens of thousands of POS locations to worry about, employee training, employee turnover, software changes to make, capital decisions on hardware, and so on. Looking at it from that perspective, one can see why these retailers are among the many that brought extra comfortable lawn chairs to the battlefield sidelines. Maybe it won’t be such a quick war after all.

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Notes: 
1. The conference was expertly organized by Strategic Solutions Network. Many thanks to CEO Aron Barkan along with Sara Sturman, Paula Haggerty and Debbie Bernbaum for an informative, interactive two days.
2. Picture credit: Prince William Conservation Alliance 
3. For more info on mobile banking, see our previous Online Banking Reports.

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Links from My FIS Presentation

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conferences, FIS, Presentations

image Thank-you to all FIS clients that attended my What’s new in mobile/online banking presentation in Orlando or Milwaukee. I had a blast and I greatly appreciate your attentiveness as I tried to explain the innovations from the following 40+ companies. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

As promised, here are the links so you can dig deeper yourself. The entire deck is available to conference attendees through the FIS website. The links are in the order they were presented (with slight variations between the two): 

Mobile

1. Addison Avenue Credit Union augmented reality mobile ATM finder: https://addisonavenue.com/mobile/. Powered by Junaio from Metaio.

2. Tombstonebuilder.com for custom gravestone graphics

3. E*Trade Mobile Pro iPad app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/e-trade-mobile-pro/id313259740?mt=8

4. NBA mobile’s Game Time Courtside iPad app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nba-game-time-courtside/id364284970?mt=8

5. My Kitchen iPad YouTube video (293,000 views) (see end of post for video)

6. Square’s iPad POS system app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/square/id335393788?mt=8

7. Mitek mobile deposit: http://www.miteksystems.com/OOMPH_MobileDeposit.asp

8. PayPal mobile Bump-to-Pay app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paypal/id283646709?mt=8 powered by Bump Technologies

9. USAA mobile: https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_utils/McStaticPages?key=usaa_mobile_iphone_main

10. Starbucks card mobile payments app: http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps/starbucks-card-mobile

11. PayPal text-message security option: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing_CommandDriven/securitycenter/PayPalSecurityKey-outside

12. Bank of America Safepass text-message security option

13. Chase Bank text banking: https://www.chase.com/index.jsp?pg_name=ccpmapp/shared/assets/page/Chase_Mobile_Banking

14. Virtual Bank Web-based mobile apps: http://www.virtualbank.com/VBanking.aspx

Online

15. Mint.com online financial management; financial fitness

16. PNC Bank Virtual Wallet calendar view financial management

17. Bobber Interactive teen/pre-teen game-oriented savings platform

18. SmartyPig goal-based savings combined with prepaid cards

19. Betterment savings account replacement launched this week

20. Credit Karma private-branded Sears Card site

21. DebtGoal debt-management and payment tools

22. Payments in social gaming at Zynga’s Farmville and Foopet’s Foobank

23. Kwedit’s virtual credit services and real payments for virtual goods

24. Blippy’s real-time transaction and media consumption streams

25. Parkzing automated parking ticket reminder and payment service

26. MoneyAisle’s new auto refinance auction service

27. TransFS’s merchant card processing lead-gen site

Channel Integration/Social Media

28. Baker Tweets

29. Quicken Loans Twitter feed

30. Social media links at Amplify Credit Union 

31. Chase Bank’s Chase Community Giving Facebook fan page

32. University of Wisconsin Credit Union Sourcecode blog supporting online banking users

33. Truliant Federal Credit U
nion blog

34. PNC Virtual Wallet Inside the Wallet blog (accessible only from within online banking)

35. Young & Free South Carolina from South Carolina FCU powered by Currency Marketing 

36. Kennebunk Savings employee directory and branch finder

37. Bank of Montreal branch finder (link in upper right of homepage)

38. Blue Shoe Mobile Solutions low-cost ($500) iPhone app creation for restaurants

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Links from My Presentation at the National Credit Union Directors’ Convention

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conferences, Credit Unions

image Thanks to everyone who attended my presentation: Ecommerce Opportunities for Credit Unions yesterday at the CU National Directors’ Convention in Las Vegas. 

Here are the links to the examples cited:

Mobile banking

Second-generation online banking (online banking 2.0)

Connecting with people

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Notes from the Mobile Commerce Summit (day 2)

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Blackberry, Conferences, Mobile Banking, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Payments, Wells Fargo

image Day two of the Mobile Commerce Summit ran just for the morning (see Day 1 highlights), but anyone who overslept missed the highlight of the conference: the much-too-short panel discussion on revenue opportunities that started at 8:15 AM and ended at 9:00 (note 1). 

Panel: Mobile revenue opportunities 

  • Drew Sievers, founder & CEO, mFoundry
  • Joe Salesky, chairman & chief strategy officer, ClairMail
  • Cameron Franks, director, Mobile Commerce Americas, Sybase 365
  • Jayatsu Bhattacharya, SVP business development, Mobile Money Ventures (Citigroup & SK Telecom joint venture)
  • Mustafa Patni, former director of mobile banking, WaMu

Observations from the panel:

  • POS payment services: NFC at point of sale
  • Value-added services
  • Fees for mobile banking services: transaction, monthly, or annual
  • Premium accounts with a rich mobile feature set
  • Stock/investment trading (Citi Hong Kong is able to charge a premium for mobile trading)
  • Bill pay: expedited payments
  • Person-to-person (P2P) payments
  • Much of the revenues will be indirect, from deepening and improving customer relationship
  • Remote deposit capture for businesses
  • Merchant advertising: offers to customers as they shop
  • Loyalty programs: driving customers to certain merchants with alerts, offers, and discounts
  • Lots of cost-saving opportunities: self-service customer service, moving bill payments to on-us transactions, loyalty program management, security, fulfillment, marketing, call deflection

Panel: Smartphone impact on the customer experience 

Armin Ajami, VP retail Mobile channel, Wells Fargo

  • Almost half of smartphone users use the mobile Web daily (source: ABI research, Feb. 2009)
  • 18% of U.S. consumers have smartphones
  • 263,000 apps now available for smartphones, predicted to grow to about 700,000 by 2013
  • There are 27 different app stores today
  • Mobile-optimized website <wf.com> launched in July 2007, text banking launched Oct. 2007, native iPhone app launched May 2009
  • Funds transfer on mobile-optimized websites takes 2 minutes with 5 clicks, no zooming or scrolling vs. 10 minutes via iPhone mobile browser with 7 clicks, 5 zooms, 7 scrolls and 10 minutes

Alain DeSouza, sr. mgr., market development solutions marketing, Research in Motion

  • Globally, 12% to 14% of mobile phones sold now are smartphones; in North America, it’s now above 20% (22% to 26%)
  • Blackberry app store officially launched April 1, 2009
  • Not excited about putting NFC chips into handsets (adds cost); will do it when it makes business sense (last year it was a top-5 opportunity, this year more of a top-20)
  • P2P transfer is not a killer app, but could be important for adoption
  • Be careful not to waste bandwidth in your app development

Note:
1. Note to conference organizers: Never start a session at 8:15 AM after a Thursday night in Las Vegas.

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Notes from the Mobile Commerce Summit (Day 1)

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conferences, Mobile Banking, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Payments, USAA

image About 100+ folks gathered in the brand new M Resort near Las Vegas for the third annual Mobile Commerce Summit by SourceMedia. Jeff Dennes from USAA and Jim Simpson from City Bank of Texas, both provided an extraordinary amount of metrics on their mobile rollouts (details below).

The biggest innovation of the day was iPhone-enabled remote check-deposit capture soon to be available from USAA (official launch June 25; see picture below). 

imageSession highlights
Jeff Dennes, executive director, mobile money & movement, USAA:

  • 7.9 million logins so far this year vs. about 7 million in all of 2008
  • Highest week to date, 476,000
  • 4.8 million USAA members own mobile; 1.5 mil use it to access Internet
  • 20% say mobile is primary channel
  • 11.4% of members using USAA mobile
  • Why so much usage: no branches, members trust USAA, extremely mobile military-oriented customer base, more technically capable than average
  • Have SMS, Firethorn downloadable app, WAP <mobile.usaa.com>, native iPhone app
  • Native iPhone app released 2 weeks ago: Went to number 1 in first week with 55,000 downloads; 45,000 logins in first week, 93,000 in second week
  • iPhone app built in-house and has patents filed
  • Will be launching first iPhone remote deposit-capture app on June 25 (see photo above); tune in to the bank’s webcast at 7 PM Central time at <budurl.com/usaaannouncement>
  • Current iPhone app has insurance functions: filing a claim, roadside assistance
  • Personal financial management functions coming soon
  • With mobile rollout, are seeing call volumes going down
  • 35% of access to mobile site comes from iPhone, 35% from Blackberry
  • Will be building app for Blackberry; others as demand warrants (e.g., Pre)

Jim Simpson, VP IT, City Bank of Texas

  • Mobile banking is powered by ClairMail (use Jack Henry for core processing and online banking)
  • Launched 17 Oct 2008 with balance, history, funds transfers, “call me,” near-real-time alerts (not batch) including reward-checking status/summary (sent out 7 days before end of checking cycle telling users how they stand on meeting necessary activity levels
  • Have microsite: www.citybankmobile.com
  • Made a major cross-channel marketing effort at launch: TV, print, radio, in-branch, and so on; used it to differentiate themselves in competitive Lubbock market
  • 10.2% online banking penetration
  • 64% use weekly
  • Average age is 32
  • Average account balance on primary account is over $5,000
  • More than 3,000 active users
  • Limited use of mobile browser site, bnkngo.mobi; text-message banking is much more popular (also have gocitybank.mobi); get 5,000 balance requests via text messaging each week vs. 25 or 30 mobile Web logins
  • Real-time alerts (vs. batch) is one of the key benefits that users like; they often can text message a confirmation of the transaction while still standing at the checkout counter; not always that fast, sometimes can be a few minutes later
  • Coming: End-of-day, text-based account summary, “payit” loan payment via text (in response to text alert), iPhone/Blackberry apps
  • How to make money? Adding ad-supported links within text messages; e.g., link back to the restaurant where the transaction originated

Ginger Schmeltzer, SVP, SunTrust

  • Currently at 2.5% penetration of online banking users powered by Firethorn
  • 33% access via iPhone; 33% via Blackberry
  • Have an RFP out now to find vendor(s) to increase functionality
  • See real benefits from using mobile channel to decrease fraud

Patrick Reetz, VP & director, online banking, M&I Bank

  • Rolled out mobile in Oct 2008 powered by MShift
  • Within 11 days, achieved one-year goal of 2% penetration of online banking users (longer term, their initial goal was 10% by YE 2010)
  • Currently have 7% penetration

Ellen Johnson, SVP retail online services, Huntington Bank

  • Have just under 25,000 users of mobile Web banking, launched in June 2008
  • Number of users of text banking surpassed mobile Web in April, launched 6 months ago
  • Mobile banking customers are 38% more profitable; text banking, 13% more profitable
  • Call center contacts per active user dropped 3.4% in first 6 months
  • Have a mobile microsite for marketing

Juli Anne Callis, president & CEO, National Institutes of Health Federal Credit Union (previously at Keypoint Credit Union)

  • At Keypoint Credit Union, even usage between iPhone and Blackberry access
  • Keypoint powered by mShift and will be using mShift at her new CU
  • Launched on Facebook Nov 2007 (OBR Best of Web winner)

Amy Johnson, channel manager — CEO Mobile, Wells Fargo

  • Launched 2 years ago (April 2007), and Wells Fargo remains the only major U.S. bank offering full corporate mobile banking
  • Mobile Web-based system
  • No charge except certain text messages (and those fees may go away)
  • No set-up process
    — just log in at mobile site with existing online credentials
  • Will not disclose usage, but are targeting top-tier customers: top 10%-15%
  • Access: 30% iPhone, 50%+ BlackBerry
    — no Android so far
  • $2.5 billion in wire approvals via CEO Mobile in 2008

Kevin Morrisson, AVP card products, H&R Block

  • Using text messages to defer calls to call center (currently receive 80 million annually), especially people checking to see if their refund has arrived.
  • Program was piloted this year and is expected to roll out nationwide later this year. Found dramatic decline in voice calls from test group.
  • Mobile program powered by Metavante/Monitise joint program. 

Rebecca Mann, director of strategic alliances, Western Union

  • Using mobile to replace either the sending or receiving part of a money transfer
  • Partnering with US Bank for international remittances

Lisa Stanton, CEO, Monitise America

  • Can do more secure services within an app compared to mobile Web or SMS

Matt Krogstad, VP business development, M-Com

  • Critical for banks to be point of registration and source of funds
  • Should be able to register outside online banking
    — via call center, ATM along with mobile phone
  • In Australia, mobile money transfers was slower to take off, approx. 18 months after adoption of mobile banking

Clint Heyworth, attorney, consumer finance group, Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel

  • One-to-one relationship with phone (e.g., you have it with you) makes it better for security compared to PC where others have access
  • Not a lot of legal differences between delivering banking services via mobile vs. online
  • Don’t expect to see specific regulation regarding the mobile channel; will likely be the same regulations as for online banking

Tom Wills, senior analyst, Javelin Strategy & Research

  • Security is single biggest factor inhibiting mass consumer uptake
  • Only 500 pieces of malware have been identified so far in mobile vs. thousands of new ones every day online
  • 47% of respondents are uncomfortable with mobile security (Mar 2008 data)
  • Main concern is hackers, mentioned by 73% of those above
  • Expects anti-virus software makers to build mobile versions

Rebecca Sausner, editor, Bank Technology News

  • Total revenues for mobile banking vendors this year will be $26 million (source: Aite)

Sean Moshir, CEO, CellTrust (also mobile banking sub-committee co-chair of Mobile Marketing Association)

  • 66% of consumers still not yet comfortable using mobile device for financial transactions (source: 2009 KPMG Global Consumer Survey)
  • 7% said they would pay a nominal fee to access online banking services via mobile phones (source: 2009 KPMG Global Consumer Survey)

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Links from my Metavante Client Conference presentation

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conferences, Metavante

image

Thanks to everyone who attended my presentation on Trends in Ebanking last week at Metavante’s annual user conference. Here are the links to the examples cited:

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FinovateStartup Early-Bird Ticket Deadline Tuesday

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conference Calendar, Conferences, Finovate

image With our FinovateStartup conference just a month away (April 28), I wanted to alert readers to the upcoming early-bird deadline. This Tuesday, March 31, is the last day to save $100 by purchasing tickets for the early-bird price of $895 each. Registration is here.

You’ve seen the amazing lineup of 52 participating startups (latest four here plus previous 48 here), but I also wanted to point out there is an equally impressive lineup of attendees already registered for the event (see selected logos below).

Whether you work for a tech company, bank, credit union or other financial services company, there is no better way to be exposed to so many new ideas in just a single day. It can be extremely thought-provoking to view the market through the lens of focused, energetic and creative startup. It’s an entire day thinking outside the box. 

Some of the ideas you’ll experience April 28:

  • Opportunities with decoupled debit
  • Social savings, lending and investing
  • Helping consumers find the best financial solution to fit their needs
  • How to leverage the community to help solve financial problems 
  • The grand reopening of person-to-person lending
  • New mutual funds targeting retail investors
  • The best ideas for online personal financial management
  • New ways to help users find and track investments
  • Using PIN-debit online
  • How to help consumers manage their total debt
  • Small business solutions for managing expense reports online
  • iPhone applications that help you engage customers
  • An online solution for accounts-receivable financing
  • Using the credit report/score as a jumping off point to targeted offers
  • New ways to increase actual and perceived security
  • Mortgage optimization engine

Sample of registered attendees for FinovateStartup 2009

image


Participating startups at FinovateStartup 2009

image

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Finovate Startup Conference Company Descriptions

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conference Calendar, Conferences, Finovate, Launches

image To give you an idea of the types of innovations being funded in financial services these days, here’s a capsule description of the first 48 companies demoing at FinovateStartup April 28 in San Francisco (note 1).

Attention attendees: You have just one day left to register (here) at the discounted price of $795. 

Finovate Startup 2009 Participants

Acculynk
Acculynk is a payments solutions provider with a suite of software-only services that secure online transactions by utilizing a graphical, scrambling PIN-pad for the secure entry of sensitive cardholder information.

AlphaClone
AlphaClone is a web-based investment research service that lets users explore the investing ideas of top hedge fund and institutional money managers.

Aradiom
Aradiom is a mobile solutions provider and designer of Java mobile applications and platform development technology including turn-key applications, embedded soft-token security solutions and BlackBerry® enterprise applications.

BillShrink
BillShrink is a personalized savings advisor that helps consumers make smart, money-saving decisions by providing continuously updated, personalized, usage-based recommendations on everyday services like credit cards and cell phone plans

BudgetTracker
BudgetTracker is a personal finance manager that allows users to manage their finances and keep track of their budget, bills, and transactions online without having to install software.

CalendarBudget
CalendarBudget is a free online personal budgeting tool that helps users organize and track their finances, plan future spending and save money.

Centrro
Centrro is a financial search engine that allows consumers to anonymously shop for personal financial products that best fit their specific credit profile.

CircleUp
CircleUp provides group communications services, which enable actionable and efficient interactions across diverse social, email, mobile, messaging and private web networks.

Cooler Inc.
Cooler Inc. enables users to know, decrease, and offset the global warming impact of their everyday purchases and activities by using the country’s only peer-reviewed carbon calculator to calculate impact and then providing reductions targets and strategies, and offering recommendations on high quality carbon offsets.

CreditArray
CreditArray is a vault of proprietary information to allow consumers to better apply for and manage their credit portfolios.

Credit Karma
Credit Karma provides consumers free access to their credit score and offers credit simulators, advice, and credit score comparison tools in order to allow them to more actively manage their credit and financial health.

GoalSpring
GoalSpring’s product, DebtGoal, makes paying down debt as easy and efficient as possible by taking into account all of a customer’s debt and helping them organize, optimize and pay it down.

Expensify
Expensify simplifies keeping track of business expenses by combining an electronic payment card and a web-based expense manager to automate expense report preparation, approval, and reimbursement.

Green Sherpa
Green Sherpa offers personal cash flow management software that lets users conveniently download, manage and update all their financial accounts via a single online resource.

Home-Account
Home-Account is in stealth mode at this time. 

HomeATM
HomeATM provides a secure PIN debit and PIN credit card transactions method via the Internet that utilizes the HomeATM swipe pad technology to allow users to conduct secure PIN-based transactions from home, ensuring virtually zero fraud and lower merchant processing fee costs.

iBearSoft
iBearSoft is the creator of iBearMoney, a personal finance application for the iPhone that allows users to input and categorize their transactions, run financial reports, analyze payments, and keep track of expenses.

iThryv
iThryv is a financial literacy platform that combines a content delivery system and an incentive system in order to create an immersive learning environment which provides a powerful tool when used in partnership with online banking and core providers.

Jwaala
Jwaala provides software for banks and credit unions that improves their online banking services. Their MoneyTracker application offers a personal financial management solution that can be added to any bank or credit union’s existing online banking solution.

kaChing
kaChing is a social investment community that applies an open source and social-networking strategy to offer every investor the opportunity to find outstanding investors, emulate their portfolios, and access the returns, insights, transparency and talent previously only available to wealthy individuals.

Kapitall
Kapitall is a rich web application that aims to make investing easy for everyone. Inspired by game design, Kapitall combines an graphical user interface with tools that make it easier than ever to research companies, build portfolios, share ideas and get smarter about the market.

Lending Club
Lending Club is an online social lending network where people can borrow and invest money at attractive rates.

LendingKarma
LendingKarma is a person-to-person lending site that makes it easy for parties that know each other to create loans and provides borrowers and lenders with tools to help service the loan and see it through to repayment.

Looniesdesk.com
Looniesdesk.com enables people to manage their finances online using an open source financial platform that allows developers to build sophisticated applications which will help users enhance their experience and increase the efficiency of the service.

Mint
Mint is an online per
sonal finance service that securely downloads users’ financial transactions, allows them to categorize their transactions, provides a unified view of all account activity and relevant account alerts, and offers personalized suggestions for significant savings opportunities.

Moneta
Moneta provides a secure, quick and easy form of online payment that directly debits users’ checking or money market account allowing users to only enter a secure username and password when making online purchases.

NCore
NCore provides enterprise class delivery channel solutions to financial institutions within the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions fusing applications, innovative security and middleware technology into a single integrated platform.

OurCashFlow
OurCashFlow offers personal finance management tools for financial institutions that can turn their website into a place where customers can create a budget, save money and achieve their savings goals.

Pennyminder
Pennyminder helps individuals and small groups manage their shared and personal finances by tracking deposits and withdrawals allowing them to see what’s happening with their money

People Capital
People Capital is a peer-to-peer private student loan service that utilizes a unique scoring system to predict a student’s potential and provide a true, unbiased measure of the economic value of an education that empowers students to make better educational decisions and offers multiple advantages for both borrowers and lenders.

Pertuity Direct
Pertuity Direct offers social lending for personal loans by bringing together the advantages of capital markets, social networks and traditional banking.

Portfolio Monkey
Portfolio Monkey provides free online portfolio management tools to help average investors optimize their portfolios and find customized investment ideas so they can create more efficient portfolios with higher expected return and less risk.

Prosper
Prosper is a person-to-person lending marketplace where people list and bid on loans using Prosper’s online auction platform.

The Receivables Exchange
The Receivables Exchange is a real-time online market for trading accounts receivable that gives businesses access to working capital at a competitive cost by connecting a global network of accredited investors to the nation’s small and mid-sized businesses.

Rudder
Rudder is a free personal finance software designed to minimize the effort required in managing money by helping users to manage their budget, track their bills and analyze their expected income and projected expenses.

Silver Tail Systems
Silver Tail Systems provides fraud prevention to defend users’ websites against business logic abuse through the use of behavior detection, efficient investigation and real-time mitigation to track suspicious behavior and divert the bad actors, leaving legitimate users unaffected.

SimpliFi
SimpliFi provides independent financial advice online. Users can complete a profile and receive a personal financial plan with specific actionable steps.

SmartHippo
SmartHippo uses the power of the community to find users the best rates on financial products and services.

SmartyPig
SmartyPig is a social saving service that helps users save for a specific goal by allowing them to invite others to contribute to their account, providing incentive boosts from top retailers, and offering a competitive interest rate.

Strands
moneyStrands is a money management service that helps users get information on anything from practical savings tips to getting help tracking expenses down

Syphr
Syphr is a technology and marketing credit union service organization that created RateMatch, a service that matches participating credit unions with the thousands of credit report purchasers per month.

ThreatMetrix
ThreatMetrix helps companies control online fraud and abuse in real time by profiling the device used in an online transaction so companies can determine whether the users are fraudsters or customers.

Transparent Financial Services
Transparent Financial Services is online comparison-shopping service for small businesses that uses technology to help users compare and purchase financial services like payroll processing, credit card processing and business loans.

Victrio
Victrio offers a credit risk management system that uses voiceprint recognition technology to fight credit card fraud and identity theft.

Wesabe
Wesabe is an online personal finance management tool that provides members with information about where they spend and links them with a community dedicated to helping each other make smart financial decisions.

WeSeed
WeSeed seeks to demystify the stock market by helping real people share what they know and make smart investing decisions based on the collective wisdom of the community.   

ZimpleMoney
ZimpleMoney is a web-based financial services platform enabling people and organizations to manage and administer financial agreements including loans, leases, rentals, tithing, trusts and settlements.

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Note
1. Several other participants are remaining anonymous for the time being. 

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Nine More Added to Finovate Startup Conference Lineup

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conferences, Finovate

imageThe financial services startup community will be out in force April 28 at our second annual Finovate Startup conference.

The nine new companies below, along with the 39 participants announced two weeks ago, plus several we can’t yet name, bring the total to 50 startups. That’s eleven more than last year! We can now say that we’ll have the largest group of financial services startups ever assembled in one place.

Don’t miss your opportunity to talk to the companies that will help change the financial services landscape in the coming years. Join the many bank, credit union, and technology execs in San Francisco on Tuesday, April 28, for a thought-provoking and exciting day (see note 1).

The early-bird deadline ends Friday, so register now for just $795. Current Online Banking Report subscribers can save even more. Look on the back page of the most recent issue, or email info@netbanker.com for your customer discount code. 

Here are the latest additions to the conference (note 2):

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Notes:
1.  And if you can come early, don’t forget BarCampBankSF2, happening Saturday and Sunday, April 25/26 (previous post). 

2. Are you a startup interested in participating? Contact Eric Mattson.

3. Members of the media, including financial industry bloggers, should request a press pass here .

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FinovateStartup 2009 Conference Participants Announced

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conference Calendar, Conferences, Finovate, Launches

imageFinovateStartup09, our annual springtime technology event in the San Francisco Bay area, is just three months away. Today, we announced the first wave of young companies committed to participate on April 28.

More companies are in the pipeline, and when all is said and done we expect more than 50 startups to be on hand to demonstrate the latest in online and mobile financial services and technology.

The Finovate format combines fast-paced demos (no PowerPoint!) with extensive networking where you can meet the start-up founders along with influential industry executives, press corps, and analysts. To get a taste for the event, take a look at videos of past demos.

Because we hadn’t named any companies until today, we’ve extended the Super Early Bird registration deadline until this Friday, Feb. 6 (register here). See you in San Francisco.

Finovate Startup 2009 lineup (as of 2 Feb. 2009):

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