- Dwolla hit $1 million in payments per day and Ben Milne, CEO, shared a sneak peak of future plans. Link
- Ace Community Credit Union provided customers with access to Dwolla through its site.
- Dwolla CEO Ben Milne explained why starting a business in Iowa isn’t hard. Link
- Dwolla introduced a new Autoload feature. Link
- Dwolla was listed on The Next Web as one of eight awesome ways to pay with your phone. Link
SmartyPig
PayPal and Cortera Take Charge in May’s Web Traffic
Each month we survey the Web-traffic performance of our alums, using data from Web-analytics company Compete to review the sites they operate.
Out of 255 alumni, 62 (24%) had more than 10,000 unique U.S. visitors in May 2011 (see tables below). Of the 62 reviewed, 25 (40%) had fewer visitors than in the previous month and 28 (45%) saw a decline year-over-year.
Private Companies
The 44 private companies are as follows:
Notable successes:
- Cortera saw the highest number of unique U.S. visitors in May, with almost 2 million hits.
- HelloWallet experienced the greatest month-over-month growth, with more than four times as many visitors.
- Betterment saw its traffic increase an impressive 38 times from May of last year.
Private Finovate Alumni With More Than 10,000 Unique Visitors in May 2011
Source: Compete.com retrieved June 29, 2011
Public Companies
The 18 public companies are as follows:
Notable successes:
- PayPal experienced the highest number of U.S. visitors in May, with over 32 million visitors.
- TransUnion Interactive saw the highest month-over-month growth with more than two times the number of visitors in May than in April.
- Sybase 365 experienced the highest year-over-year growth, with its traffic up almost 80% from last year.
Public Finovate Alumni With More Than 10,000 Unique Visitors in May 2011
Source: Compete.com retrieved June 29, 2011
_____________________________________________________________________________
Notes:
1. We reviewed 255 unique sites. Data was unavailable or irrelevant for 201 sites because:
- They had been acquired.
- They were no longer available online.
- They were not covered by Compete for various reasons (including some that were not U.S. domestic companies).
- The number of unique visits was too small to be considered accurate.
- They were subdomains of larger websites.
2. Numbers have been rounded to three significant digits.
3. The charts include companies that did not have measurable traffic in May 2011, indicated by “N/A.”
4. Compete draws its information from the online activity of a panel of more than 2 million U.S. Internet users. It is only an estimate of traffic, and may undercount at-work usage.
Alumni News — Week of June 27, 2011
- Former Lending Club director Joseph Toms joined Prosper as its Chief Investment Officer. Link
- The San Francisco Times reported on Prosper’s growth. Link
Alumni News — Week of June 13, 2011
CheckFree
eWise
alternative payment methods. Link
Alumni Updates — Week of April 18, 2011
Alumni News — Week of April 4, 2011
To see our Alumni companies’ updates in real time, follow us on Twitter.
Alumni News — Weeks of January 24, 31, and February 7, 2011
To see Finovate alumni company news in real-time, follow our feed on Twitter here.
Alumni News — Week of January 17, 2011
Alumni News — Week of January 9, 2011
Alumni News — Weeks of December 13 and 20, 2010
To see Finovate news updates in real-time, follow our feed on Twitter.
Backbase explores mobile banking in its fall webinar series. http://bit.ly/finovate1293
BlazeMobile creates smart payments sticker.http://bit.ly/finovate12133
BrightScope releases top 30 retirement plans. http://bit.ly/finovate12143
Capital Access special report on “Black Friday” and small business sales data. http://bit.ly/finovate1282
SunTrust has added the “Transfer Now” product suite from CashEdge including person-to-person and me-to-me transfers. http://bit.ly/finovate12165
ClairMail and Cardlytics partner to provide transaction marketing opportunities. http://bit.ly/finovate1281
Expensify is hiring for multiple positions. – The company is currently looking for Web developers and computer engineers at several levels. http://bit.ly/finovate1216
FIS launches innovative new mobile banking product. — Users can establish mobile account management with their debit card, no online banking signup needed. http://bit.ly/finovate1291
Geezeo selected by University Federal Credit Union as PFM provider. http://bit.ly/finovate12151
GoalMine hosting cash contest via Facebook to spread the word. http://bit.ly/finovate1292
Kapitall closes series A funding round. — The company did not release funding amounts or sources. http://bit.ly/finovate12163
Congratulations to Mint founder, Aaron Patzer, winner of a TechFellow Award for General Management. http://tcrn.ch/finovate1296
Mozo powering new “Compare, Ditch and Switch” campaign. — The services allows Australians to shop around for better banking services. http://bit.ly/finovate1283
Just in time for the Holidays, PopMoney gift cards at www.giftcardmall.com.
SmartyPig launches cash rewards card with only a one-time activation fee of $4.95. http://bit.ly/finovate12134
Victrio receives $5 million investment for voice-printing technology. http://bit.ly/finovate12141
2010 Saw 40-Fold Growth in the Number of Financial Institution iPhone Apps
As hard as it is to believe, last year at this time only 30 financial institutions had apps in the U.S. iTunes App Store (note 1). And that was a full 18 months after Apple’s phone had opened its OS to third-party programs. A few in the industry still questioned whether smaller banks and credit unions would ever need a native iPhone app.
I think that question has been answered: In the past 12 months, the total financial institution app-count has rocketed upwards to more than 1,200, a 40-fold increase. That’s 100 new apps per month for the past 12 months.
In raw numbers, the past seven days have been relatively unremarkable with just 17 new FI apps. But it’s been one of the biggest weeks in terms of major launches:
- BofA Merrill Lynch research library for iPad only (note 4; iTunes)
- Capital One, whose app was released on Sunday, went to #5 Monday and is up to #4 when I checked a few minutes ago (see inset; note 2; iTunes)
- NetSpend (iTunes)
- Schwab, both v1 of its iPhone app (iTunes) and an iPad version of its On Investing magazine (iTunes)
- SmartyPig (pending Apple approval)
- Stanford Federal Credit Union, which used a striking background for its app home page (see below; iTunes)
And while it’s not nearly as crucial as the iPhone, we are waiting for a slew of iPad apps. Apparently, BBVA Compass demo’ed a cool unreleased iPad app at a mobile conference (note 4). And just today, Schwab released its monthly magazine in iPad format, an industry first.
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Notes:
1. See Online Banking Report #176, Table 18 (link subscription required)
2. Rank is of free apps in the Finance category in the U.S. store. The apps above it are #1 Bank of America, #2 Chase, #3 PayPal
3. HT David Eads in Mobile Manifesto
4. At the same conference as note 3, Bank of America revealed it hit the 6-million mark in active mobile banking users.