How they describe themselves: Controlabill is the only true set and forget payment service in the world. It uniquely addresses customers’ need for budgeting, discipline, organization and convenience.
Market research predicts Controlabill take up rates of up to 65% appealing to household, investor and small business segments. It leverages existing payment, billing and banking systems, minimizing cost, operational complexity and risk. Controlabill is an authority management service between customers, billers and banks, and it aggregates and manages “authorities” ensuring on-time payments. Controlabill is compatible with payment systems around the world, and has multiple paths to market through banks, billers and new media companies.
What they think makes them better: Controlabill changes how authorities are managed between customers, billers and banks. With Controlabill’s easy-to-use widget, customers capture and manage all their payment relationships with billers and banks in one place. Previously customers had to set up authorities with each biller individually – often still using paper and stamps. Controlabill improves usability of the direct payment system. Billers pull payments electronically on-time without customer involvement. Direct payment is the most cost efficient payment system for billers and banks. Without Controlabill, customers push payments, manually by checks and online bill payment services. Even with technology: onerous, manual, repetitive and time consuming.
Contacts:
Bus. Dev., Sales, & Press: Stephen Coulter, Founder, +61-40-333-8888, [email protected]
How they describe themselves: Cortera is an online source for commercial credit information and financial intelligence on over 20 million businesses of every size. The company has a 15-year track record of providing comprehensive data and innovative tools to credit and finance professionals at the most affordable prices in the industry. In 2009, Cortera created the first online community enabling everyone – from both small businesses to large organizations – to monitor, rate and exchange comments on the payment performance of virtually any business in real time.
What they think makes them better: In 2009, Cortera launched a community-based alternative to business credit reporting, combining credit data with social reviews and ratings. Building on this foundation, Cortera is now introducing hyper-local, industry or project based networks – groups with shared suppliers and trading partners – where people can share payment experiences. Cortera Circles brings the tried-and-true concept of local or industry-based credit groups to the web and to businesses historically excluded from network-based financial transparency. This introduces a focused wealth of information not available through current social networking groups or message boards, while delivering dynamic, real-time information not available through today’s credit bureaus.
Contacts:
Sales: Jeff Braunstein, VP of Sales, 561-226-9032, [email protected]
Press: Alex Coté, VP of Marketing, 857-403-1370, [email protected],
Patrick Rafter, Valuecasters, 617-901-2697, [email protected]
How they describe themselves: DebtGoal is like “Weight Watchers for debt,” a subscription service that helps consumers get out of debt faster by simply paying smarter. DebtGoal provides its members with a personalized SmartPay™ Plan to get out of debt quickly as possible. DebtGoal does this by helping members allocate interest payments more efficiently and stay on track with their plan. DebtGoal members are paying off over $1 billion in debt, and a typical member can get out of debt 16 years sooner and save $35,000 in interest.
What they think makes them better: Stress from debt affects almost half of American
households, yet remarkably there hasn’t been a healthy, consumer-friendly solution to that problem. Our research has found that for most Americans, getting out of debt isn’t about an inability to pay, but rather an inability to organize. So, we employed principles of behavioral psychology to build an online application that lets consumers organize their debt accounts and optimize their interest payments – letting them avoid debt settlement, debt consolidation, and credit counseling.
Executives: Scott Crawford, CEO (former head of Product R&D and Subscription Product
Marketing at HSBC); Igor Vaks, COO (former CIO of FreeCreditReport.com), Chris Kelly, Business Development and Marketing
Board Members: Ed Ojdana (Founder of FreeCreditReport.com), Dave Whorton (Managing
Director of Tugboat Ventures)
Contacts:
Bus. Dev. and Partnerships: Chris Kelly, [email protected]
Press: Katherine Madariaga, [email protected]
How they describe themselves: There is no One-Size-Fits-All solution for enterprise financial services applications. Different customers have diverse financial needs. Yet today, most financial services organizations are unable to translate valuable customer data into personalized user experiences. The Backbase Next-Generation Portal for Financial Services provides highly-personalized online experiences to delight customers and achieve eBusiness goals. Organizations can target branding, content, applications, and financial tools to customers based upon
How they describe themselves: BancVue is the leading provider of innovative products, marketing, and consulting solutions to community financial institutions nationwide. Kasasa is a national brand of superior products that gives community financial institutions the marketing scale they need to compete with the megabanks.
Kasasa is designed to unite community financial institutions around a powerful brand of products that give consumers something they actually want combined with the personal service of the finest neighborhood institutions. Kasasa also delivers marketing presence and scale by aggregating the marketing dollars from participating community financial institutions, and creating comprehensive, integrated, and entirely localized marketing plans for each institution.
What they think makes them better: Kasasa is the first national brand of deposit accounts for community financial institutions, delivering a powerful and unified message to consumers. Through intensive consumer research, BancVue learned that consumers believed they could only get good products and indifferent service from megabanks or good service and average products from community financial institutions. Kasasa gives consumers a reason to believe they can get both superior products and personal service. By aggregating marketing dollars and creating an integrated marketing campaign, Kasasa offers marketing support that exceeds the typical megabank’s high-budget program and truly empowers community financial institutions to compete with a national brand.
Contacts:
Biz Dev: Gabriel Krajicek, 512-418-9590, [email protected]
Sales: Jim Quinn, EVP Chief Sales Officer, 512-349-4123, [email protected]
Press: Dan Mahoney, CSG PR, 970-405-8060, [email protected]
How they describe themselves: Billeo streamlines the online transaction process by giving consumers complete control over when and how they manage, organize, pay bills and shop online. Billeo offers a one-step password log-on and one-click completion of online shopping checkout and bill payment forms. Payments and credits are instantaneous, and electronic receipts are automatically captured, categorized, saved and filed. Billeo users have shopped at over 11,000 ecommerce sites and paid bills at more than 9,200 company websites across 26 categories, including utility, wireless, insurance, cable and credit card companies.
What they think makes them better: Today, consumers have to take considerable effort to find online shopping discounts via search, bank and financial institution hosted offer malls, coupon sites or merchant e-mails. Now, Billeo’s Offer Assistant presents consumers with the latest retailer and financial institution offers within their Google, Yahoo! and Bing search results. This gives financial institutions, card issuers and online retailers the ability to market directly to the consumer in real-time, influencing both the purchase and the payment type used. In turn, Billeo gives consumers the latest available offers and discounts just when you need them and assists them from search to purchase. No other service provides this. The toolbar is free and is available at billeo.com.
Contacts:
Biz Dev & Sales: Robin O’Connell, [email protected]
Press: Julie Karbo, Partner, K/F Communications, [email protected]
How they describe themselves: BillShrink is the free online money-saving service designed to help people lower their bills. In an era when eight in 10 Americans overpay for expenses like credit cards and wireless bills, BillShrink empowers and inspires people to become savvy shoppers by simplifying all the complex pricing structures to show what true cost of ownership means.
As one of the most sophisticated decision engines, BillShrink analyzes customers’ spending behavior and usage to reveal savings recommendations tailored to their unique needs. The company is on track to find $1 billion in savings for Americans by the end of 2009.
What they think makes them better: We believe transparency is the future of marketing. BillShrink is building an ongoing relationship with people by empowering them with personalized analysis to help them save real money. We put people’s interests first and present unbiased recommendations that are best for the user and not those that may result in lead generation for us. Sending alerts and notifications when our system finds a better deal for a user is an important part of the service.
Contacts:
Biz Dev & Sales: Peter Pham, CEO, [email protected]
Press: Taryn Langer, Group SJR, [email protected], 646-495-9721
How they describe themselves: Bling Nation provides tap and go payments at the physical point of purchase. The company enables consumers to pay merchants by tapping their mobile phone at the point of sale instead of using a credit card or cash. Financial institutions sponsor the service in their respective markets. Bling Nation offers lower costs, increased efficiency, better marketing and rewards services and improved security compared to credit cards, debit cards, checks and cash.
What they think makes them better: Bling Nation was founded in 2007 by the team that created the largest microfinance institution in Brazil and the largest alternative payment network in Brazil. Bling Nation enables consumers to use any mobile phone to pay for purchases at the point of sale. In addition to consumer convenience and instant access to coupon redemptions, merchants reduce their acceptance and banks increase income.
Contacts:
Biz Dev: Dan Rogers, CFO, [email protected]
Sales: Shannon Goldman, Head of Sales, [email protected]
Press: Joy Harper, Account Agent and Elizabeth Salter McMillan, Account Supervisor, [email protected]
How they describe themselves: BrightScope™, Inc. is an independent provider of 401k ratings and financial intelligence to plan sponsors, advisors, and participants in all 50 states. Our mission is to increase the retirement security of America’s workforce by bringing transparency and efficiency to the 401k plan market. We maintain a comprehensive database of information on the 401k plan market and add additional value and insight by quantitatively rating each 401k plan across critical metrics.
What they think makes them better: BrightScope has the largest private database of 401k data and analytics in the country. BrightScope is the only 401k analytics firm that is truly independent and does not accept compensation in the form of revenue sharing from mutual fund companies or plan providers. BrightScope is aligned with plan sponsors and seeks to avoid conflicts that will jeopardize its ability to give its clients unbiased advice.
Contacts:
Biz Dev, Sales and Press: Mike Alfred, CEO, [email protected]
How they describe themselves: Canopy Financial provides innovative technology solutions that power the Consumer Directed Healthcare (CDH) programs of some of the world’s largest healthcare and financial institutions.
Ranked #12 on the 2009 Inc. 500 list, Canopy powers millions of HSAs, HRAs and FSAs—enabling millions of consumers to take greater control of their healthcare dollars, providing price transparency for routine medical services, and increasing the speed in which healthcare providers are paid.
What they think makes them better: Canopy’s leading-edge Mobile CDH Application is the first and only offering of its kind in the marketplace. With millions of consumers currently using high deductible health plans (HDHPs) and health-related spending accounts, the Mobile CDH Application for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch allows consumers real-time access to information on which medical procedures are eligible for payment using tax-advantaged CDH spending accounts and the customary cost of those procedures in a local market. The Mobile CDH Application revolutionizes the healthcare industry by making healthcare and its associated costs significantly more transparent.
Contacts:
Sales: Laura Podraza, Director, Sales, [email protected], 312-288-0776
Press: Mark Hall, VP Marketing, [email protected], 609-477-3475
How they describe themselves: CashEdge is the leader in Intelligent Money Movement™ services, enabling financial institutions to provide a single point of access for multiple consumer and small business transfer capabilities including me-to-me transfers, third-party transfers, person-to-person payments and small business payments and invoicing. These transfer routes are supported by industry-leading risk management capabilities that leverage comprehensive, proprietary technology and the insights gathered from managing risk for the world’s largest financial institutions. CashEdge’s services are unmatched in depth, breadth and scalability. The company processed nearly $50 billion in online funds transfers in 2008 for its clients, which include a majority of the nation’s top banks.
What they think makes them better: POPmoney is the first and only person-to-person (P2P) payment solution for banks. POPmoney allows consumers to “Pay Other People” (POP) anywhere, at any time, requiring only a recipient’s email address, cell phone number or bank account information. This revolutionary new service is completely built around a customer’s current banking relationship and is offered directly from within the bank’s online and mobile banking applications. POPmoney enables bank customers to send and receive money directly
from their primary banking accounts – without the need to establish accounts with an independent service or manage balances outside their existing banking relationships.
Contacts:
Biz Dev & Sales: Neil Platt, [email protected]
How they describe themselves: Founded by consumer advocates and credit experts, Credit.com helps people make smarter financial decisions by providing free interactive tools, education, and unbiased comparisons of quality financial products and services. Credit affects many fundamental aspects of our lives. However, an estimated 125 million Americans can’t accurately estimate their credit scores within 50 points – often the difference between getting approved or denied for a loan or apartment. Credit.com’s mission is to change that by providing consumers with valuable tools and information that allow them to effectively manage their credit portfolio with as much attention and care as their investment portfolio.
What they think makes them better: Credit.com’s team of experts built the Credit Report Card to give consumers a completely free, unbiased, and actionable view of their credit reports, and to illustrate how their scores map to the leading credit scoring models used by lenders. It clearly shows consumers how creditors, landlords and others view them according to the five main areas that make up their credit profiles. As part of our mission to increase financial literacy, we syndicate custom versions of our credit and finance tools, widgets, news, and products to select partners who share our vision that an educated consumer is the best customer.
Contacts:
Biz Dev: Rory Holland, CMO, 415-901-1559, [email protected] or Ian Cohen, COO, 415-901-1566, [email protected]
Press: Tony Berlin, Director of Media Relations, 212-317-9179, [email protected]
