How they describe themselves: ReadyForZero creates a financial software program that helps people better manage and reduce personal debt and improve their credit reputations online. The software benefits both consumers and lenders by proactively preventing challenging financial situations while improving engagement and retention. ReadyForZero is a focused technical product team with specialized expertise in predictive data modeling, machine learning, and user experience design.

About the founders:

• Rod Ebrahimi: Rod started and sold his first technology company while still in high school. At 18 years old, he moved to Silicon Valley where he helped build scalable e-commerce systems. Rod holds a B.S., with Distinction and Department Honors, in Cognitive Science with a specialization in Human-Computer Interaction.
• Ignacio Thayer: Ignacio is an ex-Googler and machine translation expert. Previously, he was a Senior Software Engineer and Tech Lead for Google Research. Ignacio is named on 3 patents for his work at Google. Ignacio holds 2 degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon and UCLA. He is currently on leave from Stanford’s PhD program in Computer Science.

How they describe their product/innovation: ReadyForZero’s online program reduces bank credit losses and lowers collection costs by helping average borrowers better understand, manage, and pay down their debts. By using real-time data about a person’s financial situation, ReadyForZero delivers personalized payment and behavioral recommendations that can immediately save people time and money while at the same time improving retention and reducing credit losses.

Contacts:

Press: [email protected]

How they describe themselves: Rebirth Financial connects small business borrowers directly with individual and institutional lenders. The company hosts an online platform that is structured like an E-Trade for loans. As opposed to LendingClub or Prosper, Rebirth Financial is focused on lending to small businesses. Business financials and documents are available for lenders to browse. Loans are made directly to a business, not to an individual. Loans may be participated amongst financial institutions and individuals. Rebirth Financial also has tools that allow institutional lenders to lower default risk exposure while lessening CRA due diligence requirements.

How they describe their product/innovation: Rebirth Financial will demo its new JAS Rating System: a first­-of-its-kind scoring system that determines the financial health of a small business. The JAS Rating System delivers a clear 1 through 100 score for small businesses, and displays industry specific comparisons. S&P and Moody’s can predict the financial health of a publicly traded business with a close to 96% accuracy. The JAS Rating System can predict the financial health of a private business with 86% accuracy.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev.: Chonchol Gupta, [email protected], 504-782-1665
Press: Matthew Deitch, [email protected], 888-810-7180
Sales: Xavier Cabo, [email protected], 888-810-7180

How they describe themselves: RobotDough is a startup focused on providing easy-to-use stock market analytical tools to global individual investors. We have data on 45,000 companies traded on almost every major market, including London, Hong Kong, China, India, and 130 other smaller exchanges. Our product line includes a sophisticated stock screener, an investment strategy builder that allows users to develop and backtest investment strategies, and a strategy marketplace.

How they describe their product/innovation: RobotDough is launching a portfolio monitoring service that checks your portfolio companies for any accounting red flags. We’ve developed an extensive set of accounting rules based on forensic accounting analysis that looks for hidden accounting red flags. Every night, after we receive new financial data from our providers, we apply those rules to our database of 45,000 companies to find hidden accounting problems. Users can link their brokerage accounts directly to RobotDough and we will automatically crosscheck our database of red flags with their portfolio companies. If we find any problems, we notify the user immediately, so they can take action before the stock price moves.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev. & Press: Wilton Risenhoover, CEO, [email protected], 213-458-9141

How they describe themselves: Segmint, a financial services technology company, anonymously analyzes customer transactions to target Financial Institution customers and place personalized messages on a wide variety of online, mobile and social mediums. Through SegmintEngage, SegmintReward, and SegmintSocial, FIs are able to better understand and market to their customers across multiple channels: within home banking, on the FIs public website, on the open Internet, on social networks, and over traditional marketing channels. Segmint is re-defining “marketing” to be a “Segmint of One.”

How they describe their product/innovation: Today, when responding to customer posts on Facebook©, Financial Institutions (FIs) do not have visibility into the relationship that they have with that customer. With SegmintSocial, the FI employee monitoring Facebook now has a complete list of KLIs and an understanding of the product mix, demographics and lifestyle spending patterns of customers when they post on the FI’s Facebook page. SegmintSocial also provides the FI customer a Facebook page containing customized FI and reward offers. These two unique online experiences enable the FI to deliver a more engaging and relevant social experience for their customers.

Contacts:

Sales: John Relyea, EVP Sales & Marketing, [email protected], 888-734-6468 x 204
Press: Jill Arslanian, Ardent Communications Group, [email protected], 216-712-7778
& Jennifer Raynor, Ardent Communications Group, [email protected], 216-712-7778

How they describe themselves: As Wikinvest, we demoed the first-ever portfolio tracker that syncs directly with your brokerage accounts at Finovate Spring 2010. The product allows you to see all your investment accounts in one place, pushes price data and news from 500+ sources directly to your browser (without a page refresh), calculates your true investment performance (net of dividends, fees, interest, excluding deposits and withdrawals), and is fully customizable. A year later, we’re changing our name to SigFig, and demoing the next-generation version of our product, which analyzes your portfolio data and makes actionable recommendations for how you can invest better.

How they describe their product/innovation: Because of the wealth of data we import from users’ brokerage accounts when they sign up for our portfolio service, we are in a unique position to offer specific and actionable advice.

• The entire product is powered by sync – you don’t have to enter data, we automatically analyze your historical behavior.
• If you own a bad mutual fund or ETF, and there’s a better one in the same category, we’ll recommend a switch.
• We analyze the fees your brokerages charge you — across dozens of categories — and simulate your behavior at other brokerages in our system to see how much money you could save.
• We’ll automatically provide tax loss harvesting advice to help you optimize on taxes.
• If you have a financial advisor, we’ll automatically detect that and compare his or her performance to all others in our system and recommend a switch if warranted.
• We’ll analyze your behavior & style and recommend changes where warranted (such as too-frequent trading).

How they describe themselves: Swipely’s market-leading platform helps local merchants succeed by helping them understand, retain, engage and acquire customers. Swipely’s solution uses the credit or debit cards consumers already have, so there’s never any coupon to cut, voucher to buy or loyalty card to forget. Consumers earn automatic cash-back rewards when shopping at local merchants, including loyalty points good towards rewards on future visits.

How they describe their product/innovation: The Swipely loyalty platform offers merchants an easy way to create dynamic, customized rewards programs linked to their customers’ existing credit or debit cards.  The Swipely merchant portal gives participating merchants unprecedented insights into customer shopping behavior and offers a powerful way to segment and engage with customers based on RFM (recency, frequency, monetary value) profiles. Consumers use Swipely to discover, track and earn cash-back rewards at their favorite places to shop.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev.: Jonathan DiOrio, VP Business Development, [email protected], 415-602-9387
Press: Bari Harlam, CMO, [email protected]
Sales: Matt Oley, VP Sales, [email protected]

How they describe themselves: T8 Webware is a financial Web strategy and personalized services firm that caters specifically to financial institutions. The company provides progressive, non-template driven websites to more than 200 banks and credit unions, all of which are mobile-enabled. It also provides a personalized payment card product, Cre8 My Card, which leverages mobile capabilities to expand bankers’ marketing reach. T8 Webware’s philosophy is to help financial institutions leverage their most powerful marketing tool, the Internet, to drive new business and build an online marketing presence. Most customers experience an ROI within months because of cross sales, while web traffic is also dramatically improved.

How they describe their product/innovation: T8 Webware recognized an industry need for an aggregation system that encouraged customer loyalty and granted real-time, enriched transactions. Grip is a financial decision-support tool that supports consumers’ day-to-day living by empowering them to understand their money flow simply and without clutter. The mobile and tablet app enables financial institutions to provide quick, convenient information to the consumer on the go, addressing top mobile needs. With no reliance on core integration, financial institutions can offer Grip in as little as three weeks without any upfront fees and costs 99 cents each month for customers who use the app.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev. & Sales: Jay Pfalzgraf, VP Sales & Marketing, [email protected], 877.884.3327×120
Press: Heather Sugg, APR Account Supervisor & Regional Manager, Florida, William Mills Agency, O: 813-374-6362, C: 954-854-6203

How they describe themselves: TandemMoney, LLC was created in March 2010 and charged with minimizing consumers’ reliance on credit by building the next generation of small-dollar loan and savings products. TandemMoney reflects the innovators’ commitment to eliminating the financial barriers that reinforce credit dependency and inhibit savings accumulation.

According to the National Foundation of Credit Counseling, only 36 percent of Americans have the savings available to cover a $1000 financial emergency. TandemMoney mechanizes a financial shift for the consumer by initially using credit, a combination of credit and savings, and eventually savings entirely to cover unexpected financial emergencies.

How they describe their product/innovation: TandemMoney is both a consumer line of credit and a savings account that integrate to form a single, evolving source of “rainy day” liquidity. The product conditions borrowing upon the accumulation of savings as consumers must agree to have $20 automatically deposited into savings each month. Advances are made from accumulated savings, at no cost, with credit made available early on to cover any savings shortfalls. When advances are repaid, payments are made to the line of credit AND the savings account – as though the consumer was borrowing and repaying herself. As the savings balance grows with each $20 monthly deposit, the mix of funds available for financial emergencies steadily shifts more to savings until consumers ultimately reach the point of using (and replenishing) their own savings to meet their short-term cash needs.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev. & Sales: Trent Sorbe, President, [email protected], 605-274-7700
Press: Nicole Pullman, Director of Marketing, [email protected], 605-274-7707

How they describe themselves: The Cool House of Financial Media launched its vertical financial search platform, eyeOpen, in beta in September 2010 and the final version on June 30, 2011. eyeOpen creates a new category in financial retailing 3.0, inserting itself between incumbent banks and their customers. eyeOpen is the first brand worldwide introducing the technology of matching (mobile & internet-driven financial planning) to the financial world. eyeOpen aims to help consumers make the smartest financial decision for their life. eyeOpen targets the mass market (age 25-45) and started in the Netherlands with the goal of expanding internationally to the larger European markets and the USA.

How they describe their product/innovation: eyeOpen introduces matching technology in the financial world. The eyeOpen technology enables the business models of a free internet-based financial planner that lets users put information from several sources onto a single screen and then recommends suitable products. In order to get a match for a suitable mortgage, the consumer answers 13 simple questions. Based on his profile, he will be presented with the option that over 1,000 people like him have chosen, and also with 3 product choices based on what over 500 financial advisors would advise people like him. The algorithm behind this model crunches over 2 million data points per consumer and is based on extensive market research.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev., Press & Sales: Diederick van Thiel, CEO

How they describe themselves: The Transecq solution, powered by ENTERSECT ITA, has revolutionized two-factor authentications by utilizing the power of the end-user’s mobile device, fully encrypting the device and creating a multi-factor authentication tool. Strong, two-factor authentication delivered ubiquitously across the globe puts the power of approval in the appropriate hands, providing protection and security way beyond passwords and account challenges. Transecq is the industry leading innovator and developer of mobile security solutions for the financial services market. All the services leverage the security of Digital Fingerprint technology, which uniquely ties a user and his/her mobile phone to an encryption key.

How they describe their product/innovation: ENTERSECT’s Interactive Transaction Authentication (ITA) module provides additional-factor, out of band, interactive authentication for any form of digital action taking place. This module employs all of the security features of the eCertificate system and allows for unique user identification through bilateral, signed certificates. This product completely replaces the need for any other two-factor authentication product and is significantly more secure and fundamentally more user friendly. Responses are relayed back to the server over an electronic and encrypted communication channel – not via a manual OTP re-entry (which can be intercepted) as is the case with other legacy solutions.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev., Press, & Sales: Jim Happe, VP Business Development, [email protected], O: 678-466-6480, C: 678-575-6350

How they describe themselves: No one reads the fine print.  As computerized & regulatory fine print floods the economy, consumers have become numb to clicking “I Agree.” Today, fine print symbolizes uncertainty and distrust.

Our vision is to unlock the value in the “fine print economy” and elevate trust and transparency in the marketplace by simplifying the fine print, so that everyone wins. For consumers, we simplify complex fine print into easy-to-understand content that enables better-informed financial decision-making. For financial services firms, we create a transparent marketplace where companies can reach loyal customers who demand clarity.

At the center of Transparency Labs is The National Fine Print Repository, the nation’s first and only database archive devoted solely to aggregating and cataloging consumer legal, regulatory and financial fine print agreements issued by America’s largest corporations and financial institutions. Using a proprietary methodology, Transparency Labs transforms opaque fine print into clear content that can be understood at the ninth-grade reading level. Transparency Labs is comprised of a team of legal scholars, simplification strategists, contract attorneys, and behavioral scientists from the nation’s leading universities and research centers.

How they describe their product/innovation:

Imagine a day when you could easily understand your fine print and:

• Buy a home and quickly decipher the Terms and Conditions of your mortgage.
• Know exactly what your insurance policy covers, with a click of a button.
• Never have to lie again when you click “I have read, understand and agree to the Terms and Conditions” when visiting a website online.
• Save for retirement with confidence.
• Know the true cost of your mobile phone plan, credit card, airline tickets and bank accounts.

Transparency Labs works by:

• Aggregating thousands of pages of Terms and Conditions issued by America’s largest corporations and financial institutions;
• Analyzing the most widely used standard-form-contracts using an objective & empirical methodology;
• Cataloging over $100 billion in hidden fees and surcharges and millions of fine print data points;
• Tracking ongoing changes in fine print agreements.

How they describe themselves: Leveraging deep roots in banking and technology, the Truaxis team created StatementRewards, the industry’s first purchase-based services platform. The platform helps financial institutions increase loyalty and top-of-wallet card usage by delivering personalized, purchase-based services to customers directly within the trusted bank environment. Flexible integration options allow financial institutions to launch quickly with a single line of Javascript, while also offering the flexibility of an API-based integration.

How they describe their product/innovation: Truaxis, formerly named BillShrink, debuts Purchase Insights at FinovateFall 2011. This StatementRewards enhancement provides the industry’s first social benchmarking for consumers. Detailed transaction summaries will use merchant, category and location data to give users insight into their spending and how it compares with their preferred social groups. Purchase Insights integrates directly within the bank’s existing online and mobile interfaces and is completely free to users without any setup. In turn, banks need zero additional integration to offer StatementRewards to their customers.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev.: Casey Newton, VP Sales, [email protected], 415-322-8475
Press: Matthew Mirandi, Press Relations, [email protected], 917-338-4933