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At 8:30 (Eastern) today, Finovate2009 kicks off with a lineup of 32 new innovations from leading financial services and tech companies.
We’ll cover the breaking announcements on Twitter today, at Twitter.com/netbanker. You can follow the entire conversation on our Finovate Live page or on Twitter using the hashtag #finovate.
For complete descriptions of the companies, see our previous coverage.
This Tuesday, more than 425 people will gather in the heart of Manhattan to watch the future of financial and banking technology unfold at Finovate 2009. They’re coming to see the best new innovations in the space from 32 handpicked startups and established companies via Finovate’s fast-paced, demo-only (no slides allowed!) format. It’s going to be a great show!
Each year at Finovate, a few companies request that their participation be kept secret until right before the show. Today, we’re excited to announce those companies. They are:
These three join the 29 awesome companies we’d already announced (list below):
These companies will showcase their talents before an audience of senior financial/banking/credit union executives, influential press, industry analysts, venture capitalists, bloggers, tech companies and entrepreneurs.
A few of the organizations attending include: Bank of America, Citibank, WSJ, Microsoft, ING Direct, HSBC, Wells Fargo, American
Express, Dow Jones, the Financial Times, E*Trade Financial, SunTrust, ANZ,
Capitol One, NY Times, Financial Insights, Discover, Sybase, Cardinal Venture Capital,
Intuit, Consumer Reports, DataMonitor, Canaan Partners, The Economist,
BusinessWeek, CBS Moneywatch, Bankrate.com, Korn/Ferry, U.S. Bank and Aite Group.
We’d love to have you join us on Tuesday and watch the future of finance/banking unfold onstage. There are some tickets left but since the event starts at 8:30 sharp on Tuesday morning, I’d hurry up and register now if you want to attend!
P.S. Online Banking Report subscribers save even more on tickets to all our events PLUS they obviously get 12 months of great research.
Eric Mattson is CEO of Online Financial Innovations, the parent company of NetBanker, Online Banking Report and the Finovate Conference Series. He can be reached at eric@netbanker.com.
Thanks to a fascinating lineup of presenters (logos below, list here), and what looks like a rosier technology outlook for next year, we are thrilled that as of this morning, Finovate ticket sales have surpassed last year’s!
With five business days remaining before the 29 Sep event, it’s certain we’ll have a record audience of more than 400 at Finovate 2009 (partial list below, note 1). There are still a few tickets remaining, so we encourage you to register ASAP.
Here’s a partial list of attending companies:
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Really, we weren’t looking for ways to plug our Finovate conference. Usually we just come right out and tell you to register now since it’s only 10 days away. But imagine our delight when we opened up the latest issue of Fast Company (Oct 2009) and Dan Macsai’s article included six Finovate companies in his list of eight startups “brimming with hope for the financial industry” (see screenshot below; note 1).
In Dan’s words, these companies are noteworthy as:
Web-based financial startups creating services that embrace transparency (even in their largely fee-based pricing) and improve the customer experience.
Congratulations to the eight winners (in order of their appearance in the article):
Fast Company’s NextFinance column (Oct 2009, pp. 76-78, ad page omitted)
Note:
1. We’ll take a .750 batting average any time. But, we’ll also try to recruit MarketRiders and Mpower to future Finovate events.
I’ve participated in dozens of online banking and technology conferences over the years, first as a banker, then as an analyst, and now as the host. Each time, I try to walk away with not only specific action items, but also overall themes that will drive product development over the next few years.
With 32 new products and services being unveiled next month at our Finovate Conference (see note 1) and with planning season just around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to review the themes taking shape this fall:
Guide to FINOVATE Companies
The following 30 companies (plus two more in stealth mode) will show their latest and greatest innovations in 7-minute demos at Finovate on 29 Sep in NYC. Here’s how our presenting companies describe themselves.
Backbase
Backbase enables organizations to leverage their understanding of valuable customer data into highly personalized eBusiness Portals and Applications. Branding, content, applications, and tools can be targeted to customers using profile-based personalization. Guidance and expertise can be proactively offered based upon specific customer needs. Customers can even be empowered to tailor their own user experience based upon their individual preferences.
BancVue/First ROI 
These successful sister companies provide innovative checking accounts backed by dynamic marketing, data-driven consulting and powerful software to community banks and credit unions. BancVue and FIRST ROI aim to change the world of banking by launching a whole new product-delivery model for consumer deposit accounts and community financial institutions.
Billeo 
Billeo gives consumers a fast, easy and intelligent way to exercise choice and control over their online purchases and payments. Billeo functions as the catalyst to make online purchases and bill paying as easy and financially rewarding as possible. Billeo was founded by experts from the EBPP, card issuer, banking, ecommerce and technology industries.
BillShrink 
BillShrink is an unbiased, free online service that saves people money by continuously updating personalized recommendations on everyday bills. BillShrink monitors millions of wireless plans, credit cards and gas prices across the country to provide an apples-to-apples comparison of the best options available on the market.
Bling Nation 
Bling Nation brings mobile payments to consumers and merchant points of sale, offering lower costs, increased efficiency and improved security compared to credit cards, debit cards, checks and cash. The Bling Nation service also enables financial institutions and merchants to offe
r consumers robust rewards programs and real-time redemptions, promoting loyalty and convenience and supporting “shop local” initiatives.
BrightScope 
BrightScope is an independent data analytics firm that quantitatively rates 401k plans and gives employers, employees, and brokers tools to enhance plan performance and maximize retirement outlook. The BrightScope Rating™ developed in partnership with leading independent 401k fiduciaries, reviews more than 200 unique data inputs per plan and calculates a single numerical score which defines 401k plan quality at the company level.
Canopy Financial 
Canopy Financial provides innovative technology solutions that power the Consumer-Directed Healthcare (CDH) programs of some of the world’s largest healthcare and financial institutions. Ranked #12 on the 2009 Inc. 500 list, Canopy empowers millions of consumers to take greater control of their healthcare dollars, enables price transparency for routine medical services, and increases the speed in which healthcare providers are paid.
CashEdge 
CashEdge is the leader in Intelligent Money Movement™ services that enable financial institutions to engage customers in new ways. CashEdge’s Intelligent Money Movement services provide a single point of access, through an online banking or mobile application, for multiple easy-to-use consumer and small business transfer routes.
Credit.com 
Serving as an educator, advocate and facilitator, Credit.com empowers consumers with easy-to-understand information about money, credit, loans and more. Credit.com is partnered with trusted financial experts and select companies in order to offer online consumers insightful tips, helpful tools and excellent deals.
Fidelity National Information Services 
Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., a member of the S&P 500 Index, is a leading provider of core processing for financial institutions; card issuer and transaction processing services; and outsourcing services to financial institutions and retailers. FIS has processing and technology relationships with 40 of the top 50 global banks, including nine of the top 10.
Firethorn (Qualcomm)
Firethorn, a Qualcomm company, is the crucial link in the emerging mobile commerce ecosystem. As a pioneer in mobile banking, Firethorn is transforming the traditional wallet into a streamlined, efficient and protected mobile revenue channel that will bridge relationships among financial institutions, retailers, wireless carriers and consumers.
Fiserv 
Fiserv, Inc. is the leading global provider of information management and electronic commerce systems for the financial services industry, driving innovation that transforms experiences for financial institutions and their customers.
Home-Account 
Home-Account is a web-based mortgage finding service helping America’s 75 million homeowners take control of their largest asset– their home via their ‘home-account’. The service grades and analyzes homeowners and their mortgages, presents scenarios to improve their financial situation and then pinpoints the best realistic mortgage options in the market.
Infosys 
Infosys defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. These solutions focus on providing strategic differentiation and operational superiority to clients. With Infosys, clients are assured of a transparent business partner, world-class processes, speed of execution and the power to stretch their IT budget by leveraging the Global Delivery Model that Infosys pioneered.
Intuit 
Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. Their financial institutions division, anchored by Digital Insight, provides on-demand banking services to help banks and credit unions serve businesses and consumers with innovative solutions.
iPay Technologies 
iPay Technologies is the leading independent provider of Internet bill payment services. Founded in 2001, iPay develops and fully supports consumer and small business online bill pay solutions for more than 2,800 financial institutions nationwide and in Puerto Rico. iPay offers a 99.93% payment success rate with more than 1,200,000 bill pay customers, and over 4,000,000 payments processed each month.
Kapitall 
Kapitall is a rich web application that makes investing easy for everyone. Inspired by game design, Kapitall combines an intuitive and engaging graphic user interface with powerful tools that make it easier than ever to research companies, build portfolios, share ideas and get smarter about the market.
MShift
MShift, Inc. provides Mobile Banking solutions that offer the widest array of features, including Bill Payment, Presentment, Transfers, Account Summaries, History, ATM locators, and much more. MShift also provides the only available Facebook Banking application – online banking directly tied into the Facebook environment. MShift’s Facebook banking application won the Online Banking Report’s “Best of the Web” award for 2007.
On Deck Capital 
On Deck Capital offers fair and fast financing to small businesses that do not meet traditional bank lending criteria. The company’s proprietary underwriting and loan processing platform looks deeper into the health of small businesses, focusing on the overall business performance, rather than the owner’s personal credit history.
Outright.com 
Outright.com is incredibly simple, online bookkeeping specifically created for the 20 million Americans who work for themselves. Outright offers a streamlined, online solution, with the bookkeeping needs of the small business owners first. Outright’s goal is to keep financial records as simple as possible, helping small businesses accurately track all of their income and expenses to estimate and prepare their taxes. And yes, it works on a Mac too.
PayByMobile
PayByMobile is a virtual wallet that will let anyone text to pay when shopping online. Shoppers load money on their wallet at the same shops where they top up to buy airtime and then simply text to pay when shopping at their favorite online store. PayByMobile uses familiar prepaid mobile usability to deliver a simple yet secure online payment alternative for everyone who has a mobile phone.
People Capital 
People Capital underwrites students without credit history by projecting individual income levels and ability to pay. Their Human Capital Score™ incorporates merit data such as GPA, standardized test scores, college and major to provide a true and unbiased, data-driven measure of economic value of an education. Their peer-to-peer lending platform allows students to finance their college educations through improved access to private student loans.
S1 Enterprise 
More than 100 banks
and three million consumer, small business, and corporate users worldwide rely on S1 Enterprise solutions to access and manage their financial information. A division of S1 Corporation, S1 Enterprise is a leading provider of integrated banking solutions that deliver financial service providers a holistic view of their customers whether online, in the branch or in the call center.
Silver Tail Systems 
Silver Tail Systems provides next generation fraud prevention to protect against business logic abuse – a rising threat on application logic costing financial institutions hundreds of millions of dollars and significant loss of trust. Silver Tail products use real-time behavior analysis to detect and alert on known threats and new behaviors, then enables the business to disrupt these attacks in real-time.
SimpliFi 
SimpliFi is a free online financial planning and advice service that lets anyone plan for their financial future. The company was founded in 2004 as a tenant company in Wake Forest University’s Babcock Demon Incubator. SimpliFi is headquartered in Winston-Salem, NC, and has been providing white label financial planning services to credit unions since 2005.
Skill-Life 
Skill-Life, Inc. began as CentsCity, LLC in January 2007 with the goal of building financially healthy youth and communities. Their initial vision of employing online gaming to teach financial skills has evolved into a more interactive, game-based, and comprehensive resource for awarding incentives and building life skills.
SmartyPig 
SmartyPig allows customers to open goal-based savings accounts and to invite their friends and family to contribute to their goals. The system is based on proprietary, patent-pending technology and the latest in security standards. SmartyPig’s U.S. banking partner is West Bank, a subsidiary of West Bancorporation, Inc. The company’s Australian banking partner is Australian New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ).
Strands 
moneyStrands is an innovative, easy-to-use online personal financial service that goes beyond providing financial analysis tools, with personalized money-saving advice and recommendations, and lets people anonymously compare themselves with people with similar backgrounds and financial goals. The interface is widget-based and highly customizable by the end user. moneyStrands is accessible via a full-capability mobile web version and a native iPhone application.
Yodlee 
Leading financial institutions trust Yodlee to power critical online financial applications. Yodlee’s personal financial management, payments, and customer acquisition solutions unify all personal financial account information to deliver a simple, centralized and secure source for consumers to manage all of their financial tasks anytime, anywhere. Yodlee makes financial institutions’ websites essential to their customers and generates new revenue opportunities.
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Note: You still have until the end of the week to register for the conference and save $100. Current Online Banking Report subscribers can save even more. Email info@netbanker.com for more info.
Today, we’re revealing another handful of the leading fintech companies that will demo their latest and greatest innovations at Finovate 2009 on September 29 in the heart of NYC. The quality and diversity of the ideas that will be demoed on stage is very high this year and we’re incredibly excited to showcase all the chosen companies to you.
The additional companies are:
These four companies join 26 we’ve already announced (list below) as well as two great startups still in “stealth” mode that will debut at the event.
These companies will be showcased to an audience of senior financial/banking/credit union executives, influential press, industry analysts, venture capitalists, bloggers, tech companies and entrepreneurs.
A few of the organizations already committed to attend include: Bank of America, Citibank, WSJ, Microsoft, HSBC, Wells Fargo, American
Express, Dow Jones, the Financial Times, E*Trade Financial, SunTrust, ANZ,
Capitol One, Financial Insights, Discover, Sybase, Cardinal Venture Capital,
Intuit, Consumer Reports, DataMonitor, Canaan Partners, The Economist,
BusinessWeek, and Aite Group.
We’d love to have you join us at the fall event and watch the future of finance/banking unfold onstage. If you register before the end of August you’ll save $100 via the early-bird ticket discount.
P.S. Online Banking Report subscribers save even more on tickets to all our events PLUS they obviously get 12 months of great research.
Eric Mattson is CEO of Online Financial Innovations, the parent company of NetBanker, Online Banking Report and the Finovate Conference Series. He can be reached at eric@netbanker.com.
September 29th, 2009 is going to be a memorable day in the history of financial technology. Why? Because on that Tuesday, dozens of leading fintech companies will take the stage in NYC at Finovate 2009 to debut and demo their latest and greatest product innovations. The quality of the ideas that will be demoed on stage is very high this year and we’re incredibly excited to showcase them to you.
The demoing companies selected (that we can reveal so far) are:
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These companies will be showcased to an audience of senior financial/banking/credit union executives, influential press, industry analysts, venture capitalists, bloggers, tech companies and entrepreneurs.
A few of the organizations already committed to attend include: Bank of America, Citibank, WSJ, Microsoft, HSBC, Wells Fargo, American
Express, Dow Jones, the Financial Times, E*Trade Financial, SunTrust, ANZ,
Capitol One, Financial Insights, Discover, Sybase, Cardinal Venture Capital,
Intuit, Consumer Reports, DataMonitor, Canaan Partners, The Economist,
BusinessWeek, and Aite Group.
We’d love to have you join us at the fall event and watch the future of finance/banking unfold onstage. If you register today you’ll save $200 via the very-early bird ticket discount. Please note that those prices expire on Friday August 7th at midnight.
Eric Mattson is CEO of Online Financial Innovations, the parent company of NetBanker, Online Banking Report and the Finovate Conference Series. He can be reached at eric@netbanker.com.
As soon as we wrapped up our second successful FinovateStartup09 in April (Have you checked out the videos from it yet? They’re awesome and free to watch.), we ramped up the search for demoing fintech companies for our flagship Finovate 2009 conference (9/29 in Manhattan).
As part of that process, over the last two months, we’ve looked at hundreds of diverse financial technology companies (some brand new, some very well-established) to find the most innovative, biggest and best new ideas. Those companies were invited to apply for a
demo spot. And those invites generated a slow trickle of applications that became a flood as this Monday (the early-bird application deadline of 6/15) approached. The quality of the applications is very high this year, and it’s going to be hard to pick.
From here, we’ll spend weeks reviewing the applications we’ve already received, accepting last-minute ones (until 7/15), and agonizing over which great companies to showcase on stage. But, regardless of the final roster of demoing companies, it’s clear that fintech innovation just keeps accelerating. It’s very exciting to watch and to get to share with you at Finovate 2009 this fall (and via NetBanker and via OBR).
We’d love to have you join us at the fall event and watch the future of finance/banking unfold onstage. If you register today you’ll save $300 via the super early bird tickets. Please note that those prices expire at the end of June.
Eric Mattson is CEO of Online Financial Innovations, the parent company of NetBanker, Online Banking Report and the Finovate Conference Series. He can be reached at eric@netbanker.com or 206-331-1178.
Hi, I’m Eric Mattson, CEO of Online Financial Innovations, the parent company of NetBanker, Online Banking Report and the Finovate Conference Series. Ever since I started working with Jim in 2006, he has wanted me to add my voice to his on the blog — especially around our conferences which is where I spend much of my time. So here I am with an important announcement about our upcoming fall conference. But first, a bit of perspective.
From the beginning, Finovate has been a showcase of the best new financial technology from established companies and young startups. Attendees come not only to see and prepare for “what’s next,” but also to experience our unique one-day format — handpicked, short, fast-paced product demos (no slides allowed) mixed with high-impact networking with the companies and each other. (Videos of the demos from previous Finovate events are available to view free.)
Over the last several years, we’ve been happy to have the fall Finovate conference grow and improve with each iteration. And we’re pleased to have just successfully wrapped up the second go at our spring startup-only, spin-off version of the conference in San Francisco a few weeks ago (FinovateStartup).
Yet what Jim and I enjoy the most about organizing the Finovate conferences is the increased insight we’ve gained into the ongoing innovation in financial and banking technology. Every day, we’re contacted by new entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs from around the world working hard and smart with amazing vision and passion to improve every aspect of financial technology. And those conversations make us incredibly excited and optimistic about the future — even in the face of the current economic environment.
So, today, I’m pleased to publish my first post to announce the opening of the company-application window for our upcoming demoing startups fall conference, Finovate 2009, in Manhattan on Sept. 29, because it means we’re about to see the next wave of start-up innovators and then will get to share them with you at Finovate this fall.
Please note that the early-bird deadline for applications is June 15th and the final deadline is July 15th. The demoing companies for Finovate 2009 will be announced at the end of July.
If you work at a startup or established company innovating in financial technology and you’re looking for a platform to share your vision, please contact me at eric@netbanker.com or 206-331-1178 to find out more about the possibility of demoing either this fall or at a future conference.
P.S. In truth, I’d love to hear from any of you NetBanker readers, Online Banking Report subscribers, or Finovate attendees. Drop me a line and let me know what’s on your mind.
We had a blast last week talking to startups and others at our FinovateStartup Conference. Anyone who was there, or followed the blog and/or Twitter coverage (see note 1) would have to agree there were dozens of new and interesting ideas presented.
But the bigger question is, what’s next? Will anyone ever use these new technologies, let alone actually pay for them?
Personally, I believe several of the presenting companies are likely to disrupt the status quo. And at least a dozen more have very strong prospects of becoming standalone, profitable businesses.
The rest will need to be deft at creating partnerships with existing brands in order to survive. But overall, the FinovateStartup Class of 2009 was very promising indeed.
But don’t take my word for it. Here are links to the articles from other bloggers and press:
Banktastic: Brad Garland and the Banktastic team have compiled the largest library of FinovateStartup content with 54 posts and videos covering the event and companies (link).
BusinessWeek (MBAblogs): Larry Chiang interviews FinovateStartup participants to create this article, What I learned at Finovate that I Could Not Learn at B-School
Celent blog: Celent’s Jacob Jegher provides a summary of the major themes and concludes there was not enough emphasis on security by the companies (link)
CNET (Webware) posted a series of three articles:
Fincision: Wow. Mike Linskey gets double-gold-star, not only does he live-blog every demo, he manages to upload a picture of most. Amazing stamina! (link)
Iconoculture: Hans Eisenbeis explores the startups at Finovate in depth in a three-part series (part #1, part #2, part #3).
Investment News: Davis D. Janowski writes about the launch of SimpliFi and Mint’s new financial fitness wizard (link).
Javelin Strategy blog: Javelin’s Mark Schwanhausser is looking for the perfect PFM and is left wanting (link)
Lazy Man and Money: Not at all living up to his pen name, Lazy Man manages to capture the whole show in a series of five blog entries (post #1, post #2, post #3, post #4, post #5)
MobileSlate: Blogger Eric Chan wished for more mobile companies, and concluded, “(Mobile) was definitely on the minds of all the people that I spoke to.” (link)
Payments Views: Glenbrook’s Allen Weinberg managed to live-blog the entire day with a paragraph on every demo. Winner of the ironman trophy (link).
PC World: Yardena Arar looked at ten startups: Syphr, LowerMyAssessement, Lending Club, Mint, ZimpleMoney, DebtGoal, Credit Karma, Mint, Syhpr, and SimpliFi (link)
Prosper Lending Review: Jessica Ward posted a dozen pre- and post-conference reviews of participating startups (link).
San Francisco Chronicle: Tom Agate primarily discusses Prosper’s reopening at the show (link)
The Bankwatch: Colin Henderson writes about the demos from Lending Club, Tempo Payments and Wesabe (link)
Wall Street Journal (Wallet): Mary Pilon handicaps the field in her Wallet blog (link).
Wall Street Journal (VentureWire): Tomio Geron writes about bringing fun into personal finance tasks and looks at the new offerings from iThryv, Mint and Cooler Inc. (link)
And for those elsewhere in the world:
Note:
1. See our Twitter updates consolidated into one post here. For everyone’s tagged tweets, reference these search results.
Here’s the transcript from my live Twittering during Finovate Startup 2009 last Tuesday (in reverse chronological order).
It’s over. Best of Show winners: BillShrink, Prosper, Silver Tail Systems, SimpliFi. Congratulations! Thanks to everyone. 8:01 PM Apr 28th from web
After a wonderful day in San Francisco featuring awesome demos from 56 startups, four emerged as FinovateStartup Best of Show winners.
All attendees, except for the startups themselves, received a ballot which allows them to rate each demo on a scale of one to six. At the end of the final demo session, the ballots are tallied and the presenters ranked based on their average score. A majority of attendees completed a ballot, so it’s a good indicator of the group consensus.
It was a tight race, but the peoples’ choice today are as follows (in alphabetic order). Congratulations!
