Finovate Alumni News– January 6, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgChecking in with FlexScore is top of the list in this Forbes column on financial planning for those turning 50 this year.
  • Mint, Personal Capital, SavedPlus, and LearnVest earn spots on Fox Business’ list of “5 apps to help keep your 2014 financial goals.”
  • CodeSumBlog names BillGuard as its top financial management productivity app.
  • MasterCard completes acquisition of Provus, Turkey’s leading independent payments processor.
  • Google announces that customers can now activate their Google Wallet card via the mobile app.
  • CurrencyFair highlighted in New York Times column on Ireland’s tech start-up scene.
  • The Financial Post covers FinanceIt’s POS financing solution.
  • Expensify revamps UI and adds executive assistant permissions with new “Wingman” feature.
  • Forbes lists LearnVest, Personal Capital and BillGuard as apps for saving money.
  • Xconomy lists Jemstep and Personal Capital as two new online services to put you back in command of your 401(k).
  • TIO Networks acquires Globex Financial Services to add well-known & respected billers to TIO’s business.
  • Signifyd API adds fraud prevention to ecommerce platforms.
  • Saved Plus, Wallaby, FutureAdvisor, Wealthfront, and Level picked for CNN Money’s list of the 15 best financial sites and apps.
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.

Finovate Alumni News– December 16, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgMoneyDesktop to power Kasasa 360 Financial Management Platform.
  • SF Gate reports: SecondMarket allows IRA investment in Bitcoin.
  • Crowdfund Investor features SocietyOne’s P2P Lending platform.
  • Digital Journal promotes Personal Capital and FutureAdvisor.
  • Biometric Signature ID profiled in Huffington Post column on identity proofing.
  • San Francisco Business Times’ Bay Area BizTalk features Bright Funds.
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.

Finovate Alumni News– December 6, 2013

  • Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgMoney Under 30 reviews the Moven app.
  • Bloomberg BusinessWeek takes a look at Comarch’s report on banking in London’s “Tech City”.
  • Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of TransferWise, weighs in on the state of the UK’s financial technology industry.
  • ThreatMetrix protected 1 in 4 U.S. e-commerce transactions on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
  • Cartera Commerce launches American Airlines’ Mobile AAdvantage shopping site.
  • The Guardian profiles “robo-advisors” Betterment, LearnVest, FutureAdvisor, Wealthfront, and Jemstep.
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.

Finovate Alumni News– November 6, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgMarketWatch mentions BrightScope and FutureAdvisor as two ways to enhance your retirement portfolio.
  • Quippi to use PayNearMe to enable cash payments for its international gift cards.
  • MoneyDesktop launches Client Services product to offer employee training, marketing, tech support & other services to increase ROI PFM investment.
  • Atlanta-based Cardlytics opens first NYC office.
  • The Guardian mentions SumUp in its review of popular mobile apps for business.
  • Finovate alums FIS, Fiserv, ACI Worldwide, Jack Henry Banking, and Temenos earn spots on IDC Financial Insights tenth annual FinTech 100 list.
  • PandoDaily takes a look at Netswipe 2.0, Jumio’s payment card scanning solution.
  • Celent reviews Comarch Wealth Management Platform.
  • Ignite Sales launches mobile recommendation guides to accelerate bank customer on boarding.
  • Multicom announces partnership with pre-paid virtual card provider, Ixaris.
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.

FinovateFall 2013 in the Press

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Affluent Strategies
Finovate Fall 2013 Best of Show Winners
by JP Nicols
All Marketing (in Hebrew)
הסטארט-אפ הישראלי, TipRanks, זוכה זה בפעם השנייה בכנס Finovate
by Shirley Asa
American Banker
Business Lender Finds Trove of Insights in Client CRM Data
by Penny Crosman
MoneyDesktop Launches Long-Term Goal Setting Tool
by Sean Sposito
PFM Apps Dominate FinovateFall Day One
by Mary Wisniewski
Reporter’s Picks: Three Top Apps at FinovateFall
by Sean Sposito
The Cutting Edge of Online Banking, as Practiced by a Polish Bank
by Mary Wisniewski
The Top 10 Tweets of Finovate
What Engagement Banking Needs Is Less Engagement
by Jeanine Skowronski
Backbase Blog
Backbase Unveils New Commercial Banking Portal Solution at FinovateFall 2013
by Prue Duggan
Bank Innovation
‘Electronic Checks’ Give Paper Payments New Life
by Philip Ryan
European Innovators Throw Down the Gauntlet: Where’s the Innovation, Americans?
by Philip Ryan
Finovate 2013: Our take on the Best of Show winners
by Steven Ramirez
Finovate Fall ’13: Numbrs, Pixeliris, Word Sentry, and Mitek Come on Strong
by Philip Ryan
Finovate Fall ’13: Strong Demos from Float Money, BizEquity, Zighra & SpearFysh
by Philip Ryan
Finovate Fall ’13: Strong Demos from Instabank, SavedPlus & TipRanks
by Phillip Ryan
Finovate Fall ’13: Think Finance, MBank Lead the Pack
by Philip Ryan
Bank Marketing Strategy
Ten Tips To Doing Finovate Like A Pro
by Jim Marous
Bank Systems & Technology and Wall Street & Technology
5 Game-Changing Financial IT Startups
by Becca Lipman
5 Ways Mobile Banking Is Evolving: Finovate
by Jonathan Camhi
Finovate Fall 2013: A Few FinTech Providers for Capital Markets
by Zarna Patel
Finovate 2013: We’re All Infected With Malware
by Becca Lipman
Making Personal Finance Social Spotlighted At Finovate
by Jonathan Camhi
Barlow Research Associates
Innovations that Improve Business Banking Workflow
by Donna Arce
BostInno, Streetwise Media
Franklin-Based Interactions Reinvents the Virtual Assistant Application, Wins Finovate’s Best in Show
by Andrew Amato
Crain’s New York Business 
Financial-technology startups roil banking’s status quo
by Judith Messina
Hottest tech sector is all about money
by Judith Messina
Credit Union Times
Mitek Debuts Mobile Photo Account Opening
by Robert McGarvey
CreditUnions.com
5 Areas Of Innovation All Credit Unions Need To Monitor
by Scott Patterson
The Role Of Innovation In Today’s Credit Union
by David Mooney
CU Insight
Barclays Just Showed Up to the Party We’ve Been Hosting for a Year
by 
Ron Daly
Discerning Technologist
Just In Time For Finovate: Adding More Fun (And More Focus) To Fintech Applications
ExecutiveBoard.com
Scores of fun at Finovate and Money2020
by CEB Icono
Finextra
Yodlee launches financial relationships app
Finovate blog
FinovateFall 2013 Best of Show Winners
by Julie Schicktanz
Forbes
4 New Online Money Management Tools Worth A Try
by Richard Eisenberg
Forrester blog
Highlights and Thoughts From Finovate Fall 2013
by Peter Wannemacher 
GonzoBanker
Finovate Fall 2013 – The Big Apple
by Scott Hodgins
Hotwire PR blog
Mobile, data and security are hot at FinovateFall
by Lindsay Goldwert
Huffington Post Tech
NextGen Investment Advisory Firms–Go Tech Or Go Home!
by April Rudin
Investment News
Start ups pitch automated advice at tech confab
by Trevor Hunnicutt
Javelin Strategy & Research Blog
FinovateFall 2013. Drinking from the Proverbial Firehose.
by Nick Holland
The Jerusalem Post
Tel Aviv-based start-up TipRanks takes top prize at Finovate
by Niv Elis
Medium.com
Reflections On Five Hundred Minutes of Fintech
by Bradley Leimer
miiCard
Fintech Trends From The Innovators at FinovateFall
by Cassie Anderson
Mindful Insights blog
FinovateFall 2013 
The Modesto Bee
Modesto financial planners offer online tool for success
by Patty Guerra
My Bank Tracker
FlexScore Aims to Complement FICO Credit Scores
by Simon Zhen 
FutureAdvisor: Automated Investing With Tax Efficiency in Mind
by Simon Zhen 
Mitek to Simplify Account Opening on Mobile Devices
by Simon Zhen 
MoneyDesktop: Declutter and Visualize Your Financial Goals
by Simon Zhen 
SavedPlus Makes You Save Every Time You Spend
by Simon Zhen 
Yodlee’s New Mobile App Deals With Money Side of Relationships
by Simon Zhen 
The New Age Online
Finovate and the Rise of the African Entrepreneur
by Douglas White
PandoDaily
Taking data analysis to a new plateau: Narrative Science raises $11.5M
by cale Guthrie Weissman 
Payments Source
E-Check Service Offers an Alternative to Online ACH Payments
by Austin Kilgore
PC World
New services tackle small business finance challenges
by Yardena Arar
Plus World (in Russian)
Инновация ТКС Банка представлена на
PYMNTS.com
Payment Innovators Impress At FinovateFall 2013
by Dan Rosen
Silicon Hills
Akimbo and Toopher Pitching at Finovate in New York
by Laura Lorek
Snarketing 2.0
Finovate Fall 2013: Snarketing’s Best-In-Show Awards
by Ron Shevlin
What To Look For At Finovate Fall 2013
by Ron Shevlin
TechCrunch
Mobile-First Banking App Numbrs Bags Further $3.8M For U.S. Launch
by Steve O’Hear
Upstart Business Journal
Bitcoin’s missing link sneaks into main event at Finovate
by Michael del Castillo
Financial gladiator battle ends with 8 startups standing tall
by Michael del Castillo
The Wall Street Journal

How to Get Investment Advice for Less Online

by Andrea Coombes

‘Stupid’ Banks Look for Innovation
by Michael Hickins
William Mills Agency blog and Beyond the Arc blog
Day 1: Live Blog, FinovateFall 2013 by William Mills III & Steven Ramirez
by Steven Ramirez and William Mills III
Day 2: Live Blog, FinovateFall 2013 by William Mills III & Steven Ramirez
by Steven Ramirez and William Mills III
Finovate 2013: Our take on the Best of Show winners
by Steven Ramirez
We’ll continue to add coverage throughout the next few weeks. If you have FinovateSpring press coverage you would like to add, please email the link to julie@finovate.com.

FutureAdvisor Launches Premium Service

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This post is part of our live coverage of FinovateFall 2013.

Next up, FutureAdvisor launched its premium service:

“How they describe their product/innovation: FutureAdvisor Premium automatically manages your existing investment accounts to save on hidden fees, increase tax efficiency, and optimize for asset diversification. We do this by:
• Monitoring and rebalancing your account as necessary
• Recognizing and actively investing new cash additions
• Periodically completing tax-loss harvesting”
Product Launch: September 2013
Metrics: FutureAdvisor provides guidance to tens of thousand of investors who have securely connected their investment accounts.
Product distribution strategy: Direct to Consumer (B2C), through financial institutions, & through other fintech companies and platforms

HQ: San Francisco, CA
Founded: May 2010
Twitter: @FutureAdvisor
Presenting Bo Lu (Founder & CEO) and Joe Cianciolo (VP Business Development)

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The full demo video will be available at Finovate.com in mid-September.

Finovate Alumni Driving Growth in Online Investment Advisory Industry

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If an investment portfolio gets optimized through an online investment advisor, do brick and mortar brokers make a sound?

As noted in today’s Wall Street Journal, many of the kinds of services that once were accessible only by high net worth investors patronizing financial advisors and planners in person are now available to the rest of us. This includes everything from using computer algorithms to make investment decisions to automatic portfolio rebalancing and asset allocation.

And of the seven companies highlighted in the column for helping make this possible, every single one is a Finovate alum.
In fact, two of the seven – FutureAdvisor and LearnVest – will be demoing their latest technology on the Finovate stage in New York next week for FinovateFall 2013.
The reasons for the growth in online investment advisory are as varied as the companies themselves. Some cite a new generation of investors far more comfortable with both handling their own finances and trusting the Internet to help. Others suggest that with Wall Street falling into disfavor in the wake of the financial crisis, more investors are willing to seek out non-traditional – and less expensive – sources of information and advice.
Bill Doyle, an analyst for Forrester Research who has studied the industry for more than a decade and is quoted in the column, puts it this way: “I’m paying a lot more attention this time around because the software required to transform this industry finally works.”
Whatever the reason, there’s no doubt that venture capitalists believe this time is different. Consider the funding success of the above seven companies in the past two years ago:
Note also that Wealthfront, which helps get investors into low-cost diversified portfolios, has assets under management (AUM) of $300 million. Betterment has a similar model and has AUM of $250 million.

Finovate Alumni News– September 5, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgThe Austin business Journal ranks Q2ebanking #29 of Austin-based Largest Private Companies.
  • City National partners with cloud accounting platform Xero.
  • Forrester Research names Ping Identity a leader in Identity and Access Management Suites, Q3 2013 report.
  • Allre and miiCard partner for First Complete Platform to Sell a Home Purely Online.
  • Wipit-powered Boost Mobile Wallet to provide Quick Check Service.
  • WSJ column takes a look at online investment advisors like Wealthfront, Personal Capital, Jemstep, and FutureAdvisor that use algorithms. Meet FutureAdvisor at FinovateFall in New York.
  • Float Money partners with credit reporting agency eCredable to offer consumers interest-free loans. See Float Money at FinovateFall in New York next week.
  • Finovate alums Betterment and LearnVest highlighted in Wall Street Journal column on innovations in the online investment advisory business. Watch LearnVest demo their technology next week at FinovateFall.
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.

FinovateFall 2013 Sneak Peek: Part 5

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We hope you’re enjoying our Sneak Peek at the presenters of FinovateFall 2013.

You can learn more about our upcoming event here. And if you’ve missed an installment of our series, here’s a handy index to this year’s innovators.

FinovateFall 2013 Sneak Peek #1

Today we’ll introduce you to our fifth set of companies that will be demoing on the Finovate stage in September: Capital Access NetworkFutureAdvisor, Instabank, miiCard, Narrative ScienceP2P Cash, and StrategyCorps.

So why not join us in New York for the show? Get your tickets to FinovateFall 2013 in New York here.


Capital Access Network’s Mobile Funder is a tablet-based tool enabling finance reps to seurely pre-qualify small businesses for capital and submit a full application in a single visit.

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Features:
  • Capital delivered in days, not weeks
  • Empowers reps with direct access to qualification tools
  • Pre-qualifies prospects for two products with one application
Why it’s great: This all-in-one tool gives small business finance reps the power to expedite decisions, close more deals, and deliver capital faster.

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Dan DeMeo, CEO, Capital Access Network
Mr. DeMeo joined in 2010 with an extensive financial services background (Citibank, GE Capital, JP Morgan) and a history of growing businesses profitably.
Meet the Capital Access Network team here.

FutureAdvisor’s FutureAdvisor Premium automatically manages your current investments.

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Features:
  • Manage investment holdings from multiple institutionsFeatures:
  • Rebalance your portfolio automatically
  • Recognize and invest new cash immediately
Why it’s great: Guide your investment portfolio – automatically
Meet the FutureAdvisor team here.

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Instabank set out to create the most beautiful, efficient, and social mobile bank.
Features:
  • Transfer/request money to/from Facebook friends
  • Add photos, comments, Foursquare venues to purchases
  • Rich activity stream and PFM
Why it’s great: Instabank aims to unlock viral customer acquisition via Facebook and become the Dropbox of retail banking.

miiCard (my Internet Identity) is the first global Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) platform providing trusted and traceable customer identities purely online in the digital economy.

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Features: 
  • Eliminate up to 80% fraud
  • Reduce new customer dropout by 50%
  • Dramatically reduce operational costs
Why it’s great: Enabling purely online sales of regulated and high value products in banking, virtual currencies, payments, wealth management, lending and more.

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James Varga, Founder, CEO, miiCard
Mr. Varga has more than a 20-year career in technology and innovation.

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Magnus Bray, Sales Manager, miiCard
Mr. Bray has experience in bringing new innovations to global financial institutions.
Meet Team miiCard here.

Narrative Science provides financial institutions with a fast, cost-effective way to analyze data and automatically generate natural language communications that answer important questions and provide timely insight.

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Features:
  • Infinitely scalable content generation
  • On-demand communications tailored to any audience
  • Consistent narratives structured to meet guidelines
Why it’s great: Quill Financial automatically transforms portfolio and market data into human-quality communications and reports for financial institutions.
Meet the Narrative Science leadership team here.

P2P Cash developed an industry-standard, scalable mobile financial services solution that provides secure, compliant and transparent mobile banking to the world’s 3 billion unbanked mobile phone users.

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Features:
  • Send cash home free
  • Mobile international remittance
  • Only SMS required for recipient
Why it’s great: Send cash home free #InternationalRemittance

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Thomas Meredith, Chairman and CEO, P2P Cash
Mr Meredith has Internet, financial services, and telecommunications experience. Stanford engineer. Harvard MBA.

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Donald Chapman, VP, Business Development, P2P Cash
Mr. Chapman has Consulting, IT, Sales & Marketing experience. Providence College. Babson MBA.
Meet the P2P Cash team here.

StrategyCorps’ BaZing solution makes mobile and online banking so appealing and relevant to customers’ lifestyles they’ll gladly pay a fee for them.

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Features:
  • 300,000+ deals at your fingertips
  • Local merchant offers around every branch
  • Connect like no banking product can
Why it’s great: Customers don’t like fees for basic banking products. BaZing changes that by making banking products worth paying for.

Stay tuned for more from our FinovateFall 2013 presenters in edition #6 of our Sneak Peek series, coming Thursday.
FinovateFall 2013 is only a few weeks away. To learn more about FinovateFall – and to register and get your tickets today – visit our FinovateFall 2013 page here.

Finovate Alumni News– July 30, 2013

  • FinovateLOGO.jpgOpenCoin is among the virtual currency innovators looking to form a self-regulatory body for the industry.
  • MasterPass from MasterCard launches in the United Kingdom.
  • Bank Innovation takes a look at FIS Global’s recent remarks on the company’s technology deal with Sainsbury.
  • Yahoo Finance looks at rewards earned using Dynamics ePlate credit card.
  • StreetFight features reasons to opt in for card-linked loyalty programs from Cartera Commerce, Cardlytics, edo Interactive and Swipely.
  • Netbanker features BillGuard, Manilla, and Credit Karma as value-added apps driving mobile adoption.
  • eToro adds price alerts to eToro Trader app.
  • Bright Ideas features Noreen Hafez, senior product marketing manager at Akamai.
  • Kasasa holds sweepstakes, films big-bank breakup video, featuring CEO Gabe Krajicek.
  • Betterment joins fellow Finovate alumni FutureAdvisor and LearnVest in this NYT column on bringing “financial planning to the masses.”
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.

Finovate Alumni News– June 10, 2013

  • FinovateLOGO.jpgThe Oakland Tribune’s Inside Bay Area profiles OneID founder and CTO Steve Kirsch.
  • EZBOB adds variable lengths, longer periods, lower interest, and loyalty discounts on its loans.
  • Realty Mogul co-founder and CEO Jilliene Helman talks crowdfunding and real estate investing.
  • MicroStrategy business intelligence solution, MicroStrategy Express named a finalist at 2013 American Business Awards.
  • Newfination interviews Jilliene Helman, co-founder and CEO of Realty Mogul.
  • SF Gate blog looks at Personal Capital, Wealthfront, and FutureAdvisor.
  • Newfination interviews Kristoffer Lawson, Holvi CEO, on replacing your bank with Holvi.
  • Mortgagebot launches MortgageMarvel site to help consumers shop for mortgages.
  • CNET interviews Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche on recent funding and future growth.
  • Bloomberg BusinessWeek takes a look at the business of Google Wallet.
  • Money Under 30 reviews TradeKing.
  • Intellaegis’s masterQueue technology helps catch wanted fugitive.
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.

Finovate Alumni News– May 30, 2013

  • Cardlytics granted patent to deliver targeted marketing offers through its network of nearly 400 banks.
  • PYMNTS.com interviews SumUp’s managing director, Stefan Jeschonnek regarding Groupon and Amex’s recent investment.
  • Talkapolis interviews iQuantifi founder & CEO Tom White.
  • World’s largest online shoe company deploys Taulia’s cloud-based solution.
  • UK-based Nutmeg appoints Lee Cowles as its new managing director.
  • Lending Club expands offices in San Francisco.
  • TSYS signs long-term, consumer credit card payment processing agreement with KeyBank.
  • ACI Worldwide to provide online banking, bill pay, and mobile banking services.
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.