Finovate Alumni News– October 21, 2013

  • Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgAlvaro Soltero of Leaf takes a look at the future of payments.
  • Forbes.com features an interview with Brett Meyers, CEO of CurrencyFair.
  • MasterCard launches TravelController to improve expense reconciliation.
  • TSYS, PayPal, & PaySimple listed in top 10 multi-currency processing solutions for October.
  • Lendio launches beta version of Lendio for the loan specialist.
  • FORMFREE and Equifax partner to streamline borrower asset checks.
  • Prepaid Resources announces formation of Trefoil Technology.
  • TransferWise tops £1 million ($400,000 USD) mark in international money transfers.
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– October 15, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgPayPal partners with Revel systems for its physical POS device.
  • TechCrunch interviews Ping Identity Founder, Chairman, and CEO Andre Durand.
  • Comarch launches mobile business banking solution in the U.K.
  • Looking for an app to manage your money? USA Today suggests solutions from three Finovate alumni: Manilla, Mint, and Check.
  • StreetFight features Leaf among its list of 5 mobile payment platforms with integrated marketing solutions.
  • Encap announces partnership with ForgeRock to bring multifactor intelligent authentication to OpenAM.
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– October 3, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgValidSoft releases latest addition to the VALid suite of telecommunication based security products, Zero Latency Correlation.
  • Kabbage partners with Xero to provide SMBs capital based on their online accounting data.
  • Faces of Innovation features Wade Arnold, Banno CEO.
  • FIS Global signs agreement to market ARM Insight’s Prepaid Management Platform.
  • MasterCard announces partnership with Parkeon to provide merchant offers, loyalty services via smart parking terminals.
  • PYMNTS.com interviews ZooZ VP for business development, Noam Inbar.
  • ISO & Agent talks about Moolah LLC’s deployment of Leaf’s LeafPresenter POS tablets.
  • SmartyPig announces CorePro, the next generation of its savings solution which helps companies integrate savings accounts into their existing solutions.
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.

Leaf Raises $20 Million from Heartland Payment Systems

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Hiring more talent and accelerating development of its point-of-sale payment processing systems is what Leaf plans to do with the $20 million in new funding from Heartland Payment Systems.

The financing is a major step up from the $4 million in funding the company had as of its FinovateSpring appearance in May.

Leaf specializes in providing a mobile payment platform for small businesses. The company’s LeafPresenter tablet accepts payments, provides business analytics, and makes it easier for businesses to transact with customers using a variety of payment options.

Aron Schwarzkopf, CEO and co-founder of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Leaf, says that he expects his company to be processing payments at an annualized rate of $500 million by the end of 2013. 

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Heartland Payment Systems is a national payments provider, headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. The company processes more than 11 million transactions daily, and more than $80 in payments a year.
As part of the deal, Heartland will sell Leaf via its 800-member salesforce, and also will develop apps for the platform.
As noted in Xconomy’s coverage of the announcement, Heartland has been active in the fintech startup market, helping LevelUp gain national exposure for its mobile payment app.

Finovate Alumni News– October 1, 2013

  • Personal Capital to open Denver office.
  • Purchasing Insight reports: Taulia to bolster their presence in Europe.
  • Cardlytics announces new brand identity, including new logo and redesigned website.
  • CurrencyFair wins “Most Insightful & Intriguing Internet Innovation” at IIA Net Visionary Awards.
  • Leaf raises $20 million from Heartland Payment Systems.
  • Bright Funds announces support for PayPal.
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– August 16, 2013

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  • SoftwareAdvice.com’s Plotting Success blog ranks MicroStrategy among top six best designs in iPad business intelligence software.
  • Business Bee’s The Daily Buzz takes a look at the LeafPresenter tablet from Leaf.
  • The Telegraph features Zopa in a column on P2P lending.
  • Ad News Australia reports on the rollout of MasterPass from MasterCard.
  • MyFoxChicago interviews Bolstr co-founder Larry Baker on the topic of funding for small business entrepreneurs.
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 29, 2013

  • FinovateLOGO.jpgPaymentsSource talks with Noam Inbar, VP for product development for Zooz.
  • OneID takes a look at the “security theater” of Twitter’s two-factor authentication.
  • TSYS renews payment processing arrangement with Nationwide Building Society.
  • Pizza Marketplace interviews Leaf director of sales Alex MacKenzie on mobile marketing.
  • MIT Technology Review features OpenCoin.
  • Waspit to release new UX & mobile Apps in August to coincide with the new academic year.
  • TIO Networks partners with the State of Washington Department of Social and Health Services and payment processor Paymentus to help customers make child support payments.
  • Virtual Piggy partners with ClickandBuy to Increase Customer Signups, Conversions, and Sales.
  • Mitek receives patent for signature verification and fraud detection.
  • Christian Lanng, TradeShift CEO, takes on the position of Chairman alongside the responsibilities of CEO.
  • CU Times highlights Moven, Micronotes, GoBank, Refundo, AuthenticID, MoneyDesktop, Mint, FIS, Escardgo, and GoNow as noteworthy demos at FinovateSpring 2013.
  • Silicon Prairie News features Banno and EyeVerify demos at FinovateSpring.
  • Check (formerly Pageonce) and Lending Club are among the emerging financial services companies highlighted in Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report.
  • SaveUp helps credit union members save more than $400 million.
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.

Leaf Unveils LeafPresenter to Broaden Small Business Payment Processing Options

Thumbnail image for LeafLogo.jpgThis post is part of our live coverage of FinovateSpring 2013.

Next to the stage is Leaf, presenting the second generation of its LeafPresenter tablet:
“Out-of-the-box, the LeafPresenter tablet lets small business owners create a virtual version of their store: catalogs, items, customers, employees, and inventory. The device can be set up in minutes and is designed to be handheld or stationary in its base, so merchants can immediately begin accepting payments, analyzing business performance, and engaging with their customers.
By supporting numerous payment technologies, the LeafPresenter gives merchants the power to work with the credit card processor, gift card provider, or next generation payment option of their choice, including PayPal, LevelUp, and various digital wallets.”
Product Launched: May 2013
HQ Location: Cambridge, MA
Company Founded: January 2011
Metrics: $4 million in funding raised; 20 employees; 100+ businesses using Leaf
Website: leaf.me
Twitter: @LeafYourLife
Presenting Aron Schwarzkopf (CEO)

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Finovate Alumni News– April 30, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgCortera now offering free Cortera Business Directory accounts.
  • Lendio announces record year-over-year revenue growth of 97% for the first quarter of 2013.
  • Zopa launches Safeguard offer that protects lenders from faulty borrowers through a fund held by a non-profit.
  • PayMyStudentLoans.com reviews ReadyForZero can help students save money in college.
  • PA Consulting Group will deliver identity verification solutions using miiCard.
  • MoneyDesktop launches new version of PFM & updates MoneyMobile app.
  • South Bangla Agriculture & Commerce Bank is the fifth Bangladeshi bank to deploy Temenos T24 banking software.
  • Leaf announces Leaf Membership Network. Join Leaf in San Francisco for FinovateSpring in May.
  • Financial Advisor introduces Finect. Come see Finect demo their technology at FinovateSpring.
  • appPicker reviews Kashoo Accounting for iPad.
  • Small Business Association of Michigan selects Billhighway Give as its mobile fundraising solution.
  • Intuit releases Android tablet banking app. Come to FinovateSpring to watch Intuit unveil its new technology.
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.

FinovateSpring 2013 Sneak Peek: Part 2

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If you missed Part 1 of our FinovateSpring 2013 Sneak Peek, click here to read about some of the innovative companies that will be presenting at our upcoming May event in San Francisco.

To learn more about the show, visit our FinovateSpring 2013 page here.  Or if you’re just looking to pick up your tickets to the event, click here.

Part 2 of our Sneak Peek will feature another 12 companies that will be among those demoing on the Finovate stage in San Francisco next month. We’ll have even more companies to show you next week.
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Allied Payment Network: Allied Payment Network’s “Pay-It-Your-Way” strategy is driving mobile bill pay adoption by leveraging technology that consumers are embracing wholeheartedly – clicking, snapping a picture, or speaking.
Features:
  • Strategic differentiator for FIs
  • Live and available through multiple reselllers
  • Easily integrate into any mobile app
Why it’s great: Allied’s PicturePay has set the new standard for simplicity in mobile bill pay, using voice or a smartphone’s camera.
Encap: Provides a banking-grade, software-based authentication solution that offers uncompromising speed, security, and simplicity to boost
the adoption of financial services and applications.

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Features:
  • 2- and 3-factor authentication that helps drive customer adoption
  • Seamless integration into apps
  • Lower cost of ownership
Why it’s great: Most 2- and 3-factor authentication solutions will make your customers hate your product. Integrating Encap will make them love it.
GoBank (by Green Dot Corporation): The first bank account designed from scratch to be opened and used on a mobile device, with deposits insured by the FDIC.

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Features:
  • Real-time alerts
  • Fast: Join in minutes
  • Fair: No overdraft fees or minimum balance
Why it’s great: GoBank was created with the user experience top of mind to develop an innovative product with no hidden fees, complete transparency, reliability and peace of mind.

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Gremln: Regulatory guidelines make social media compliance difficult for financial services. Gremln provides filtration, approval, and archiving. Teams can work together for secure social media.

Features:
  • Use social media AND keep your job
  • Verify posts are compliance before they are live
  • Multi-tiered approval process
Why it’s great: Your organization’s marketing and compliance forces can work in harmony to create secure, successful social media … all because of Gremln.
Jemstep: Jemstep Portfolio Manager is an online investment advisor that helps people lock in more money for retirement by telling them exactly what to buy and sell.
Features:
  • All they need to knowThumbnail image for JemstepLogo2.jpg
  • Exactly what to do
  • High-caliber guidance, not high fees
Why it’s great: Jemstep Portfolio Manager is the first and only resource of its kind, and it takes the complexity out of investing.

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Licuos: A global B2B payment platform that generates the most efficient A/R and A/P netting, payment and funding proposals for businesses.
Features:
  • Improves the financial efficiency of businesses
  • Reduces businesses’s funding needs and credit risk exposure with their clients
Why it’s great: LICUOS allows businesses to reduce their dependence on banks so that they can significantly improve their working capital management.

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Leaf: Leaf empowers small business owners to run and grow their businesses by providing a mobile payment platform built for local commerce.
Features: 
  • Accept payments via the processor of your choice
  • Analyze business performance from any device
  • Easily engage customers
Why it’s great: LeafPresenter is the first tablet designed specifically for local retail, benefitting small business owners in ways not previously possible.
Lodo Software: D3 Banking uses a powerful, predictive analytics engine and adaptive UI to provide a full range of financial services tailored to customer’s needs anytime, anywhere.
Features:

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  • Consistent customer experience via any digital channel
  • Customized, automated, targeted marketing
  • Flexible integration options
Why it’s great: D3 Banking delivers data-driven, digital banking, empowering financial institutions and their customers.
Micronotes: Delivers on the cross-sell imperative for digital banks.

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Features:
  • Most productive digital cross-sell tool
  • Maximizes $/square inch of digital real estate
  • Gives interactive a whole new meaning
Why it’s great: Micronotes’s Cross-Sell helps financial institutions radically improve the productivity of cross-selling online to increase revenue.
Persint: Provides consumer analytics, leveraging account aggregation and peer data to answer every household’s financial questions of “where do we stand?” and “what next?”
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Features:
  • 120 demographic peers from 5-click survey
  • Scoring of net worth, cash flow and risk
  • Opportunity identification & solution mapping
Why it’s great: Persint’s integration of peer data allows PFM to deliver objective conclusions on performance and credible advice on next steps.
Prestadero: The first, fully operational, peer to peer lending platform for the Mexican market.
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Feature:
  • Prestadero is upending traditional savings and loan operations in Mexico, offering loan rates and fixed income returns never before seen in our market.
Why it’s great: Mexico has some of the largest financial spreads in the world. Why? Nobody knows. Prestadero is here to change that.

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TSYS: By putting people at the center of every decision we make, TSYS is able to support financial institutions, businesses, and governments in more than 80 countries.
Features:
  • Remotely control how, when, by whom, and where money is used.
  • Real-time remote monitoring transactions
  • Increased risk mitigation
Why it’s great: TSYS is bringing its industry expertise to the exciting and fast-paced area of payments and mobile to show a completely different experience from the end-user perspective.
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For more information on being a part of FinovateSpring 2013, see our FAQ. To register, visit out FinovateSpring page here.

Finovate Alumni News– April 11, 2013

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  • Alliance Data teams up with Locaid to provide opt-in geofence pilot program for branded cards.
  • Currensee announces Trade Leaders Investment Program.
  • Leaf announces Quick Serve POS solution for restaurants. See Leaf in action at FinovateSpring in May.
  • Credit Sesame reports growth figures.
  • Banno creates 15 responsive design websites in Q1 2013.
  • HelloWallet hires 6, bringing total number of employees to 40.
  • LG now offers the convenience of purchasing via PayPal on their 2013 line of Smart TVs.
  • American Banker reports Fiserv updates its Unified Wealth Management platform.
  • Money Marketing features Rplan, Nutmeg, and LoveMoney as startups that appeal to the under-30 crowd.
  • Dropbox offers single sign on through partnership with Ping Identity.
  • CMO.com interviews Yandex CEO Bernard Lukey is the director of sales and business development.
  • GigaOM reports PayPal offers 2 new extensions for Magneto merchants.
  • The Economist takes a look at the bitcoin boom, including alternatives like OpenCoin. See OpenCoin demo Ripple at FinovateSpring in May.
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.

Nineteen Finovate Alums Win 2013 PYMNTS.com Innovator Awards

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PYMNTS.com, a website owned by Business Wire and Market Platform Dynamics, recently published the winners of the 2013 Innovator Awards.

Three Finovate alums were selected as overall Best in Show winners:

First place: Pangea Payments

  • Innovation: A new way to send money anywhere, at a flat fee, instantly, leveraging the prepaid rails.
  • Finovate demo: Will demo at FinovateSpring 2013 in May 14 & 15
Second placeWaspit 
  • Description: Combining mobile payments with social media channels to empower and inform the user in everyday purchases.
  • Finovate demo: FinovateFall 2012
Third placeLeaf
  • Description: Small business payments solution
  • Finovate demo: Will demo at FinovateSpring 2013 in May 14 & 15

In addition, five Finovate alums took home Gold awards, five won Silver awards, and seven were awarded in the Bronze category. Here is a summary of all of the winners:

Gold

    • Category: Most innovative
    • Innovation: PayPal POS Initiatives that leverage its worldwide digital wallet accountholder base.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateEurope 2012
    • Category: Best credit
    • Innovation: The consumer’s advocate for demystifying credit with a range of tools and information resources to help them monitor and manage their financial health.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateStartup 2009
    • Category: Best B2B innovation
    • Innovation: Online working capital for small businesses.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateEurope 2013
    • Category: Best SMB innovation
    • Innovation: Small business payment platform integrated with Quickbooks.
    • Finovate demo: Finovate 2009
    • Category: Best innovation via ACH
    • Innovation: Cash flow management, accounts payable/ receivable management platform
    • Finovate demo: FinovateSpring 2011
Silver
    • Category: Most invisible
    • Innovation: Platform-as-a-Service that powers POS 2.0 commerce solutions.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateSpring 2012
    • Category: Best credit
    • Innovation: Offers consumers “more time to pay” their bills on time to help avoid late fees, overdraft charges, service termination and high cost loans.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateSpring 2011
    • Category: Best cash
    • Innovation: Enables consumers to shop online and pay with cash easily for a wide range of goods.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateSpring 2011
    • Category: Best SMB innovation
    • Innovation: Cloud-based, small business platform that integrates invoicing and payment acceptance in one system.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateSpring 2012
    • Category: Best comeback
    • Innovation: Alternative business financing that helps businesses tap into the capital it needs to run the business.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateEurope 2011
Bronze
    • Category: Most disruptive
    • Innovation: Mobile checkout service that enables one touch payments across multiple applications.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateSpring 2011
    • Category: Best technology
    • Innovation: OneID lets people sign in without usernames and passwords, yet delivers authentication solutions with non-repudiation, keeping both people and businesses safe from today’s biggest identity and personal information threats.
    • Finovate demo: Will demo at FinovateSpring 2013 in May 14 & 15
    • Category: Best newcomer
    • Innovation: Aggregates financial account information and allows users to manage their money in one place, online or with a mobile device.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateSpring 2012
    • Category: Best credit
    • Innovation: Brings together investors with creditworthy borrowers to reduce the cost and complexity of traditional lending.
    • Finovate demo: Finovate Startup 2009
    • Category: Best debit
    • Innovation: Reinventing personal banking with modern online and mobile experiences, no surprise fees, and great customer service.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateFall 2011
    • Category: Best prepaid
    • Innovation: A new way to send money anywhere, at a flat fee, instantly, leveraging the prepaid rails.
    • Finovate demo: Will demo at FinovateSpring 2013 in May 14 & 15
    • Category: Best check
    • Innovation: Mitek’s patented mobile imaging technology allows users to remotely deposit checks from anywhere, at anytime by snapping a picture with their camera-equipped smartphone or tablet, and has become the “gold standard” for mobile check deposit.
    • Finovate demo: FinovateSpr
      ing 2012