miiCard Launches Open Beta of a Digital Passport for Online Identification

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Next, miiCard launched an online identity verification service to help consumers prove that they are who they say they are:

“miiCard uses information only a user would know, accesses details to their online bank account, and creates a secure, encrypted link to this account which has already approved a primary identity check to meet AML/KYC regulations. 

miiCard utilizes Yodlee’s global account aggregation to provide validation weightings and traceability of source required by finance industry guidelines. Each point of validation is rechecked daily for accuracy and suitability. Vendors establish appropriate level of assurance requirements for their product/service. miiCard then allows those vendors to identify an individual with enough assurance to support the transaction, like the sale of a regulated financial product.”

Product Launched: February 2012

HQ Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

Company Founded: September 2011

Metrics: £550K seed funding, 5 employees

Website: miicard.com
Presenting James Varga (CEO)
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Finovate Alumni News– January 19, 2012

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  • WorkLight launches special program for enterprise mobile and ISV developers.
  • TRUSTe certifies miiCard’s website to display the TRUSTe Web Privacy Seal.
  • Clifford Change law firm deploys Check Point software for a network security solution.
  • Bill.com helps banks offer business customers a more powerful payment, invoicing, and cash management platform.
  • SC Magazine considers ValidSoft’s view of voice biometrics. Come see ValidSoft at FinovateEurope Feb. 7.
  • Huffington Post recommends Mint.com, HelloWallet, Credit Karma, TradeKing, ReadyForZero, & Betterment for college students.
  • Q2ebanking selects Matt Flake as new CEO.
  • Doxo looks back at 2011 achievements.
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– January 10, 2012

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  • Wired Magazine UK describes how miiCard is working to help prove online identities.
  • Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch looks at how LearnVest seeks to shake up financial planning.
  • Plastyc publishes a fee and feature comparison between its UPside Visa prepaid card and Suze Orman’s The Approved Card.
  • eWise’s Secure Vault Payments adds Nebraska Online Child Support website to vendor list.
  • ThreatMetrix acquires TrustDefender, expands Cybercrime Defender Platform.
  • Outright releases a widget to help those filing a 1099-K escape possible IRS audits.
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.

miiCard Partners with Consumer Data Company Callcredit

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This morning, online identity verification service miiCard announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with UK-based Callcredit:

“Blending the identity validation and authentication services of miiCard with the consumer data and identity verification services of Callcredit will create a new kind of online identity service that not only provides convenience for the consumer but cost savings, fraud protection and increased conversions for in the industry.”

The two companies aim to be the first to provide the UK with an online identify verification service.

To learn more about miiCard, watch its FinovateFall 2011 demo.

Finovate Alumni News– January 9, 2012

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  • Prosper launches web app for Apple and Android Mobile devices.
  • ActivePath appoints former President & CEO at Oversee.net, Jeff Kupietzky, as CEO.
  • Investment News recommends advisors introduce HelloWallet to their clients.
  • The Huffington Post names BrightScope a “civic startup.”
  • miiCard partners with consumer data company Callcredit.
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– January 4, 2012

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  • Forbes recommends Budgetpulse, Mint.com, Buxfer, and Yodlee as PFMs to help keep track of your money.
  • Fox News advocates ReadyForZero to help pay down debt.
  • Prosper launches Kindle Fire sweepstakes.
  • Fast Company breaks down how ReadyForZero works.
  • Tamebay shares how miiCard is helping to increase trust online.
  • P2P Lending News reports that Prosper and Lending Club facilitated $40 million in loans in December.
  • Expensify gives users 10 free scans per month.
  • Geezeo signs 5 credit unions during the last week of 2011.
  • Cortal Consors announces new version and expansion of Hopee.
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.

2011 Funding for Finovate Alumni– Over $423 Million Raised

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgTo wrap up 2011, we’ve compiled a list of all of the funding Finovate alumni received over the course of the year. 

The results were impressive:
  • A total of 34 companies received funding, some more than once
  • The companies collectively raised over $423 million dollars
  • The months with the highest number of companies receiving funding were June August, both with 8 companies
  • The highest amount of funding came in the month of June, when the alumni brought in over $124.4 million
Here is a month-by-month breakdown of funding received:
January — $40.8 million raised by 3 companies
February — $10.3+ million raised by 3 companies
March — $20.4 million raised by 4 companies
June — $124.4 million raised by 8 companies
July — $1.1 million raised by 1 company
August — $103.4 million raised by 8 companies
September — $33 million raised by 1 company
October– $22 million raised by 2 companies
November — $16.3+ million raised by 3 companies
December — $52.2 million raised by 5 companies
Note: Funding that companies received before they demonstrated at Finovate was not counted. If you see any funding that is not on this list, please send the name of the company along with a link to the funding information to julie@netbanker.com and I will add it.

Finovate Alumni News– December 19, 2011

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  • Scotsman.com recommends using Zopa as a way to earn a better return on investments.
  • Experian announces Financial Stability Risk score.
  • 123Kinect profiles ETRONIKA. Come see the technology live at FinovateEurope on February 7.
  • Symantec features Q2ebanking in its podcast.
  • Monitise signs 5 year partnership agreement with FIS.
  • Tradeshift signs deal with French government.
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.

FinovateEurope 2012 Sneak Peek: Part 1

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Right now, over three dozen leading fintech companies, both hot young startups and established players, are gearing up to demo their latest innovations at the second annual FinovateEurope next February 7th in London.

To whet your appetite, we asked each handpicked company to provide a sneak peek of what it will be demoing on stage. Below is the first installment. We’ll have another installment next week.

Don’t miss your chance to see fast-paced demos of the newest ideas from each company and meet the execs responsible for the cutting-edge of innovation in financial and banking technology. Plus get your FinovateEurope ticket before December 23rd and you’ll lock in the early-bird price!

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AcceptEmail will launch a revolutionary way of billing and collecting. The inventor of billing and payment via email will introduce AcceptSMS, the world’s first Short Invoice Service. 
With this technology, AcceptEmail users will be able to send payment requests to a smartphone or PDA via SMS, WhatsApp Messenger or social media in an easy and clever way. Improve your customers’ payment behavior by offering multi-channel and customer friendly payment methods.
Innovation type: Communications, mobile and tablet UI, payments

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Find out more about a solution that Raymond James has already adopted to give its investment advisors authenticity on social networks. It also generated a $1 million prospect for another wealth management firm after just 96 tweets.  
Actiance will also demonstrate how you can measure and analyse your network growth to accurately plot your social graph.
Innovation type: Communications, marketing, security

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Brokertainment combines the fun and thrill of stock market trading with a reduced risk due to extremely low minimum investments (1 euro) and ultra-short term durations of derivatives (around 5 minutes). 
Brokertainment will present a new product called STOCKBATTLE.
Innovation type: Investing and asset management

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Business Centric Services Group (BCSG) will present an exciting new credit management tool to the SME market, which will break down the traditional barriers of cost, complexity and awareness. 
BCSG has identified a customer need for this product through research, which highlighted that over half of small businesses never run credit checks on new customers, and just under half do not monitor their existing customers and suppliers.
Its innovative tool allows complex information to be delivered in a simple and usable format, ensuring the best possible end-user experience. 
Innovation type: Banking products, online UI, small business

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Almost all banking today is being done in digital space. Why not communicate with computers in a natural way, as we do in the real world? 
Imagine a financial application that recognizes your face, congratulates you, analyzes your voice to identify you, and navigates you in online banking. You choose what is most convenient for you at that time: using your voice, gestures, keyboard, or a mix of all the approaches. You are smiling. 
Motion and speech belong to the game world or laboratory geeks– not to online banking solutions that refer to a serious, unshakable, respectable realm. ETRONIKA wants to challenge this point of view by introducing a new UX approach to financial online services.
Innovation type: Banking, identity, online UI

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InvestorBee puts data at consumers’ fingertips so they can make smart, confident investments.
    • It’s fact, not opinion. Users can tap into the database to learn from the experiences of over a million UK investors.
    • It’s an investment health check. Users can compare themselves to their peers to set realistic saving targets and investment goals.
    • It’s simple investing without guesswork. In a few easy steps, users can choose an objective risk-based strategy that’s right for them.
InvestorBee users extract wisdom from the crowd to make better, simpler investment decisions.
Innovation type: Investing and asset management, PFM

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Fiserv will demonstrate its next generation mobile P2P, small business an
d eCommerce merchant payments. As an international provider of digital banking and payment solutions, Fiserv delivers market-proven capabilities with innovations in both the mobile and online channels.
Innovation type: Mobile and tablet UI, online UI, payments

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IND Group gamified its white-label Internet Banking and Personal Finance Manager. It added these methods to its new Banking-Front Office. The solution is based on the fact that customers love to do almost anything if they are rewarded for it. 
With the two-level point system, banks can give points for things like function use, transactions, and product or service purchases. Customers can collect points and badges for dedicated actions. The system is closely connected with Facebook, where users can post their results and badges. With its strong visualization features and real rewards, the gamified IND Internet Banking and Personal Finance Manager creates a compelling, engaging user experience.
Innovation type: Online UI, PFM, rewards

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Luup will launch a mobile payment service for corporations and governments that is set to bring them cost-savings, efficiency and productivity gains. The service solves one of the biggest daily challenges that organisations face worldwide. 
Through an interactive live demo from various mobile devices, Luup will showcase how the new service is a fast, convenient and secure way to optimise processes. Attendees will experience how Luup solutions are unique in being universally deployable, bank-grade, live and proven– as well as scalable and easily managed.
Innovation type: Mobile and tablet UI, payments

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miiCard, My Internet Identity, is the first service that allows a consumer to prove their identity to the AML/KYC standard purely online.
Through miiCard, a vendor can identify an individual to a level of assurance that supports real-time online sales of regulated financial products, and replaces the need for a ‘wet signature’ reducing operational costs and increasing conversions. 
miiCard creates trust, protects consumers and fights against fraud. It helps realize the full potential of the digital economy by enabling higher value online business.
Innovation type: Identity, payments, sales and customer service

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Sandstone will be showcasing its next generation mobile banking app that contains sophisticated money management/ OFM tools, the latest anti-fraud and security measures, and user experience capabilities that enable financial institutions to better engage with their customers.
Using the latest HTML5 technology, the app can be developed once and then delivered seamlessly across all smart phone app stores to run on any smart phone mobile device. The registration process for the app locks the user to the device while the page-fingerprinting technology ensures that fraudulent users will not be able to connect to the secure server.
Innovation type: Banking, PFM, security

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Service2Media and Rabobank will introduce mobile payments via a banking app for all webshops. Customers of Rabobank that have installed the Rabobank Mobile Banking app can now pay for their mobile purchases as easily as their online purchases by using a mobile version of the online payment method IDEAL
The new mobile IDEAL payment is facilitated by starting the Rabobank Banking app on an iPhone once a payment request is issued on the merchant’s mobile site. The user then authorizes the transaction in the app with his account number and access code before being redirected to the merchant’s mobile site. Mobile banking is now possible without an e-reader as long as the balancing account is known.
Innovation type: Banking, mobile and tablet UI, payments

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Securing M-Banking
The advancement of technology is making our lives easier. Mobile banking, or m-banking, is here and with 800,000,000 smartphones already in circulation globally, it is going to grow. But how do we make m-banking safe and practical to use? You can’t hold your smartphone in one hand and your bank secure key in the other when walking down the street – that’s not “making our lives easier”.
A much simpler solution is using out-of-band, real-time, multi-factor authentication and transaction verification. ValidSoft will demonstrate how its products can do just that.
Innovation type: Identity, payments, security

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One of the primary tools direct sales agents need is a tablet variant of the unified desktop. Wipro has developed a customer acquisition framework on a tablet-based device, which is a step in this direction. 
CAMS on Tablet leverages mobile, analytics and intelligent processes for on-the-go pe
rsonalized offers and application capture. The solution is also relevant in next generation bank branches where a differentiated environment is created for HNI customers.
Innovation type: Mobile and tablet UI, PFM, sales

Finovate Alumni News– November 9, 2011

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  • Read Write Web argues the mobile payments capital of the US is Des Moines, IA thanks to Dwolla.
  • Fox Business News reports GoalMine seeks to level the investing field.
  • PayPal updates its Android app with support for NFC payments.
  • eWise hires Alexandre Gonthier, former Boku CTO, as new CEO.
  • Lendio makes its business loan matching service free.
  • Finextra reports Intuit partners with AT&T to take on Square in the emerging mobile card processing market.
  • Xero updates its app: increases speed and improves UI.
  • Business Insider lists Dwolla and Simple as 2 of 20 most innovative startups in tech.
  • Billeo launches ShopSmart to bring consumers relevant discounts.
  • Zecco hosts $500 sweepstakes.
  • miiCard gives first 10,000 users free accounts for life.
  • Netbanker: Top 10 Reasons Why BankSimple Dropped the Bank.
  • Expensify creates four pricing plans.
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, 2011

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  • FreeCreditScore.net profiles PayNearMe.
  • Pittsburgh’s Smart Business looks at how Dynamics CEO Jeff Mullen has founded and grown the company.
  • James Varga from miiCard reflects on FinovateFall.
  • BlueRidgeNow.com recommends using findabetterbank.com to avoid banking fees.
  • New Zealand Herald discusses Rod Drury’s success with taking Xero public.
  • Entrepreneur looks at how Dwolla’s services compare to big bank’s small business services.
  • Bobber Interactive and Bundle are making finance interesting with social engagement.
  • The San Francisco Chronicle reports LearnVest is 1 of 30 most valuable startups in New York.
  • Bank Technology News cites that Citi is the first bank to publicly launch a site designed using Yodlee’s FinApp platform.
  • Mint.com discusses the value of CreditSesame’s Credit Badge.
  • The Spokesman-Review discusses the popularity of P2P lending sites Prosper and Lending Club.
  • The Paypers features Samurai from FeeFighters, an online payment gateway.
  • Loren’s World blog lists Expensify as 1 of 5 best apps for business women.
  • USA Today lists BillFloat as a good alternative to a payday loan.
  • DeadlineNews.com names FamZoo as a “site to see.”
  • Balance Financial launches version 1.2 of its mobile app in the Apple app store.

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.

miiCard Creates Validated Online ID Card

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Later this afternoon, miiCard demonstrated an identity service that proves users are who they say they are:

“Simply put, we have a catalyst for change in miiCard – a user-centric federated identity that can truly change the way we transact online. A new proposition in the Electronic Identity and Verification (eID&V) market- place, miiCard, for the first time, offers the capability to establish online trust purely online and in real time. Whilst other identity providers and credit reference agencies validate informa- tion about someone – such as their address, credit rating and, more recently, some have introduced behavioral aspects such as questions about transaction history, miiCard validates that a customer is who they say they are. Equally important to the vendors, benefits to the consumer are:

      • Security and control of personal data 
      • Convenience, consistency and simplicity 
      • Trust between parties in a purely online environment

miiCard is a federated identity service, which means it sits between the consumer and the vendor (or other consumer) and provides a level of trust between parties. miiCard can support not only the UK but North America, Western Europe, India, Australia, New Zealand and soon South Africa.”

Product Launched: October 2010 

HQ Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom 
Company Founded: 2010 
Metrics
: Seed funding raised, 5 employees
Website: miicard.com

Presenting James Varga (CEO)

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