How they describe themselves: Strands develops software technologies that help people discover personally relevant content and products on the Internet. One of the three business units in the company, Strands Personal Finance has launched moneyStrands, an innovative consumer oriented online personal finance management service utilizing Strands recommendation technology. Strands Personal Finance licenses the moneyStrands PFM platform to financial institutions looking to bring top notch PFM capabilities to their end users. The highly successful white label implementation for Spain’s BBVA has recently been covered as a financial innovation case study by Forrester Research. Strands Personal Finance has also announced that is powering TIM – the PFM pilot project for Netherland’s ING.

What they think makes them better:

• moneyStrands offers a balanced user experience that combines proven core PFM use cases with a cutting edge, widget-based UI that is highly customizable by the end user.
• Available in both Spanish and English, moneyStrands is also accessible via a full-featured mobile web version and a native iPhone application.
• moneyStrands supports manual data importation in addition to automatic account aggregation.
• moneyStrands engages its users through effective and clutter-free visualization of their finances, while taking advantage of Strands’ proprietary content and product discovery engine for contextually relevant product and content offers.

Contacts:

Biz Dev & Sales: Atakan Cetinsoy, [email protected], 415-398-4333 x.201
Press: Alla Oks, Marketing Director, [email protected], 415-398 4333 x. 202

How they describe themselves: TILE, The Investing Learning Environment, provides an online private labeled environment for financial advisors and parents to educate the next generation of high net worth investors, 15 to 25 years old, about Spending, Growing, and Giving their money. We estimate the next generation will inherit more than $1 trillion over the next 10 to 15 years – representing a tremendous challenge and opportunity for today’s wealth managers. Using a combination of Workflow, Community, and Content, TILE engages its members to create their own financial identity. Its unique tone and interface is accessible, relatable, and focused on this attractive, and important demographic.

What they think makes them better: TILE is a paradigm shift in fi nancial services. In the audience it targets, its tone, and its medium, TILE is one of the first financially oriented services to recognize and embrace the new world of Generation Y. Philosophically, TILE takes a people versus product driven approach to facilitate communication between young adults, parents, and advisors. Practically, TILE is not “just budgeting tool/a fancy market watch” and there is no advertising. The three-pronged (Spend, Grow, Give) approach to building a financial identity introduces true next generation financial services.

Contacts:

Biz Dev: Amy Butte, [email protected], 212-905-6250
Press: [email protected], 212-905-6250

How they describe themselves: Our objective at Rudder is to promote sound, financial health. We do so, by providing users with the kind of tailor-made, forward-looking information they need to make better financial decisions. With a focus on what lies ahead, we let users know what they can do to meet their goals and avoid financial distress. Current economic conditions have forced us to re-think our approach to managing finances. At a time when many of us are deeply concerned about our financial well being, Rudder provides a solution that helps us stay on track.

What they think makes them better:
Forward-looking – Unlike other PFM tools that dwell on the past by showing you pie charts of where you went wrong, we take a proactive, forward-looking approach. The past is important insofar as what you can learn, but the focus should be on what lies ahead and what one can do about it.

Customizable – Money management means different things to different people. So, a PFM tool cannot have a “one size fits all” feature set. With Rudder, you can choose the features they need and ignore unwanted noise.

Effortless – Rudder does all the analysis and gives you the information you need. Moreover, you can consume Rudder via email without ever logging in.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev. and Sales: Nikunj Somaiya, CFO, [email protected], 832-651-4706
Press: Josh Dillworth, [email protected]

How they describe themselves: Founded in 2004, New York-based SecondMarket, Inc. (Member FINRA | MSRB | SIPC) is the largest centralized marketplace for illiquid assets, such as auction-rate securities, bankruptcy claims, collateralized debt obligations, limited partnership interests, mortgage-backed securities, private company stock, restricted securities in public companies and whole loans. SecondMarket’s online trading platform has 3,000 participants, including global financial institutions, hedge funds, private equity firms, mutual funds, corporations, and other institutional and accredited investors that collectively manage over $1 trillion in assets available for investment.

What they think makes them better: SecondMarket is the first vertically integrated platform for the trading of illiquid assets – where buyers, sellers and information regarding a variety of illiquid securities are aggregated and organized into a centralized system where participants can leverage actionable data to make informed investment decisions on otherwise untradeable assets.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev.: Sam Hodges, VP Bus.Dev., [email protected], 212-668-6675
Sales: Paul McCabe, VP, [email protected], 212-668-3912
Press: Paul Kelash, [email protected], 212-445-8000

How they describe themselves: SeerGate develops tokenization-based e-payment solutions for Financial Institutions. Its flagship product, the Secured Lock™ e-Debit System, offers safe Real-Time Payments for online/mobile environments, opening banks to Social Networks, while addressing Security Concerns and Mitigating Risks. The Secured Lock™ e-Debit System ensures that current and future e-Payment alternatives Remain Bank Products.

What they think makes them better: The Secured Lock™ e-Debit System offers the simplicity, safety and flexibility required by the evolving needs of online customers combined with the security and risk mitigation components necessary to turn banks into the providers of direct e-debit payments to their customers. The Secured Lock™ enables online transactions to be validated against a real bank account, a real person, connecting the financial institutions securely to the online transaction directly. The Secured Lock™ e-Debit System ensures the financial institutions’ leadership of current and future online/mobile financial services.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev.: Alicia Roisman Ismach, VP Bus. Dev. & Co-Founder, [email protected], US: 650.616.4281, Israel: +972-9-742-3595
Press and Sales: Eldad Aharoni, CEO & Co-Founder, [email protected], US: 650.616.4281, Israel: +972-9-742-3595

How they describe themselves: Silver Tail Systems provides next generation fraud prevention to protect against business logic abuse – a rising threat on application logic and identity theft costing financial institutions millions of dollars and significant loss of trust. Silver Tail Forensics uses real-time behavior analysis to detect and alert on known threats and new behaviors like Man-in-the-Browser and session hijacking. Silver Tail Mitigation enables the business to disrupt these attacks in real-time, without involving engineering resources. Founded by fraud prevention experts from eBay and PayPal, Silver Tail significantly reduces online fraud losses, protects your brand and increases customer trust.

What they think makes them better: Silver Tail is the first technology to use real-time behavior analysis to detect and disrupt business logic abuse on financial institutions’ websites. Only Silver Tail analyzes session behavior to identify anomalies – not only known threats, but new attack vectors like Man-in-the-Browser. And only Silver Tail provides real-time disruption of attacks without engineering resources. Because Silver Tail’s team of fraud prevention experts fought fraud for the largest, most targeted online brands, they built Silver Tail to be the most advanced fraud protection solution available, scalable to 100K clicks-per-second on minimal hardware.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev., Sales & Press: Sherrick Murdoff, [email protected]

How they describe themselves: SimpliFi was founded with a simple mission: create a web service that would allow anyone to easily create and update their own financial plan. SimpliFi launched its first version four years ago, and since then has been working with credit unions to help their members improve their financial futures through planning. With the growth and explosion of interest in web-based personal finance services, the time is ripe to bring SimpliFi to the general public. The initial target market is the US, with Canada, Australia, and England next in line.

What they think makes them better: Unlike mass information sites or budgeting/PFM tools, SimpliFi actually provides personalized advice on what to do with your money! As an SEC-Registered Investment Advisor, SimpliFi provides unbiased advice on savings, spending, debt management, insurance and investments–no generic articles or blanket suggestions here. SimpliFi dynamically “grades” each plan, helping users assess risk and adjust their plan accordingly. Over time, SimpliFi monitors users’ progress towards goals and provides reminders for when action items are due. And SimpliFi only makes product recommendations that can help a user complete action steps–no random broadband or cell phone deals allowed.

Contacts:

Press: Korina Buhler, [email protected], 415-402-0230

How they describe themselves: SmartHippo.com is the first ever platform that allows individuals to use the power of the community to save money when shopping for rates on financial products and services. Many borrowers currently end up with higher mortgage rates simply because they lack the necessary information or knowledge to negotiate the best possible deal. SmartHippo champions a consumer-friendly approach to lending based on transparency and accountability. We’re leveling the playing field and putting the balance of power back in the hands of consumers. Lenders can create a profile, have a conversation with customers, and post their rates for free.

What they think makes them better: Other web sites advertise bait and switch rates, or simply collect consumers’ personal data in order to sell it to the highest bidder. SmartHippo is the first truly transparent marketplace where consumers can rank and review lenders and where the best rates and lenders with the best feedback filter to the top. Lenders do not pay to be included, and consumer can shop anonymously and for free.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev.: George Favvas, Cofounder and CEO, 514-667-1572, [email protected]
Sales: Martin Hudon, Cofounder and VP Operations and Engagement, 514-667-1574, [email protected]
Press: Kelly Rusk, Community Manager, 415-839-9211, [email protected]

How they describe themselves: Strands develops software technologies that help people discover the most personally relevant content and products on the Internet. Strands has 3 business units:

• Strands Business Solutions offers client businesses a hosted web site personalization service.
• Strands Personal Finance has launched moneyStrands, a consumer oriented online personal finance management service utilizing Strands recommendation technology.
• Strands Social Discovery is developing Strands.com, a consumer oriented lifestreaming tool for people with active lifestyles.

What they think makes them better:
moneyStrands offers a balanced user experience that combines proven core PFM use cases with a cutting edge, widget-based UI that is highly customizable by the end user. Available in both Spanish and English, moneyStrands is also accessible via a full-featured mobile web version and a native iPhone application. As it evolves, moneyStrands is aiming to better engage its users by injecting a measured element of “fun” into money management, while taking advantage of Strands’ proprietary content and product discovery engine for effective personalization.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev. & Sales: Atakan Cetinsoy, V.P. Personal Finance Products, [email protected], 415-398 4333
Press: Alla Oks, Marketing Manager, [email protected], 415-398 4333

How they describe themselves: Engaging with a prospect early when a buy cycle commences is a strategic advantage that produces a first-mover advantage and the opportunity to influence the buy. We’re building a company that gives banks and credit unions that advantage with new loan and customer prospects.

What they think makes them better: Syphr, LLC, has developed a lead/loan generation service for credit unions and community banks that utilizes our patent-pending rate discovery technology on the sites that sell credit reports to consumers to source potential loan/new customer prospects among some 175,000 consumers that purchase a credit report each month. The program, RateMatch, links consumer with a credit union or community bank following the purchase of a credit report, and provides rate/pricing comparisons and a report that demonstrates how much they can save by refinancing.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev. & Sales: Tim Brothers, Chief Operating Officer, 502-741-6852
Press: Chris Langley, President, 845-258-0403

How they describe themselves: Tempo is the leader in decoupled debit, which is a new type of MasterCard debit card that can be provided by any organization and connects to a consumer’s existing bank account. The principal consumer benefit is higher rewards relative to traditional bank-issued debit cards. Cards are marketed in conjunction with partner organizations on a partner-branded (and MasterCard-branded) basis. In effect, Tempo is trying to build a 21st century, debit focused version, of MBNA.

What they think makes them better: While debit card usage has grown explosively over the past decade, the market has seen little innovation. Debit cards are effectively a feature of a bank account, and are never marketed as an independent product. Tempo’s new product enables consumers to apply online for decoupled debit cards. For the first time, it is now possible for a consumer to get a debit card from an organization other than their bank, without having to change their bank account.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev. & Sales: Anthony Ruebner, VP Sales & Business Development, [email protected], 650-287-4330
Press: Mike Grossman, CEO, [email protected], 650-287-4330

How they describe themselves: The Receivables Exchange connects Buyers and Sellers in a real-time auction marketplace to buy and sell accounts receivable. We were founded on the belief that, with 60% of working capital tied up in outstanding invoices, businesses should have greater access to capital. Small and mid-sized companies (Sellers) can easily monetize their receivables by posting them to be bid on in real-time by a network of accredited capital providers (Buyers). By selling their receivables in an open and competitive marketplace, Sellers can drive down cash conversion cycles, reduce their cost of capital and increase their working capital and liquidity.

What they think makes them better: The Receivables Exchange is the world’s first centralized electronic marketplace for the buying and selling of accounts receivables. There is no other electronic exchange.

Contacts:

Bus. Dev.: Barbara Brandfass, 504-708-4171, [email protected]
Sales: Dana Stetson, 504-708-4156, [email protected]
Press: Laurie Azzano, 415-786-3317, [email protected]