Welcome to Finovate Spring Day 2!

Day 1 Blog: FINOVATE SPRING 2018: DRINKING FROM THE FIREHOSE OF FINTECH INNOVATION

Day 1 Video: FINOVATE SPRING 2018: DAY 1 VIDEO RECAP

Fintech Innovation Company Commentaries

Dynamics

Jeff is not here today. They have a cool card. Showing a new version? of the power card today. Six cards in one: credit, debit, rewards, etc. These folks have gone really International. Showing an all digital card; imagine pressing buttons and sing six cards on one with a cell phone chip integrated. These folks have raised more than 0 million in funding ( 1/2 from MasterCard). ^WM

  • dynamicsinc.com
    • Twitter @dynamicsinc
  • Presenters:
    • Jeff Mullen

Dynamics’ interactive powered card platform offers computerized technology and existing payment infrastructures to issuing banks & merchants.

Sperse 

“One concept that will never change for businesses is cash flow. Most businesses are using spreadsheets and other older tech to manage cashflow; we’ve built a new platform intended to make the lives of our customers easier.” From Crunchbase: SperseSperse offers a business management and financial software platform. Its flagship product is called CFO – Cash Flow Outlook.

I can’t find info on funding, might be early stage. Looks like they are based in Phoenix. ^WM

  • sperse.com
  • Presenters:
    • Omar Sayed

Sperse’s Cash Flow Outlook, a cloud based software solves cash management challenges for businesses of any size.

Averon 

Two factor authentication solution. Most users are not using the two factor authentication even when offered. Showing mobile verification. These folks are based in San Francisco and have received more than million in funding.

From their web site: We started by seeking better ways to bring authenticity to security and soon found our expertise gave rise to a revolutionary new solution: Direct Autonomous Authentication™ (DAA™), the world’s only fully automated mobile security platform. Our DAA™ technology requires zero effort by users and is live today on all US carriers. Join us in our mission to help the digital world
Be Authentic.™

^WM

  • averon.com
  • Presenters:
    • Tom Green
    • Christian Kendall

Averon’s form fill, a conversion product, uses proprietary and patented authentication technology with real-time mobile carrier signaling to improve the lengthy, difficult and oftentimes frustrating registration/check out/transaction process.

FeeNimble 

I have not seen these folks before. “Invest smarter by timing your fees, not the market.” Interesting concept. Showing a searchable database for investing from EDGAR data. I’m not sure but they might be from Idaho. I could not find venture funding information.
From Finovate:
How they describe themselves: Our product adds the most value to personal individual investors. We are looking to form strategic partnerships with on-line investing companies who want to distinguish themselves by offering fee minimization strategies to new customers.
How they describe their product/innovation: FeeNimble minimizes fees by timing transaction schedules. More specifically, it pulls fees from the SEC’s EDGAR database and finds the optimum investment schedule for each customer’s unique situation so as to minimize fees for products they’re interested in.
Product distribution strategy: Direct to Consumer (B2C), Direct to Business (B2B), through financial institutions, through other fintech companies and platforms, licensed

  • https://feenimble.com/
  • Presenters:
    • Ian McDaniel
    • Todd Plum

FeeNimble minimizes investment fees by timing transaction schedules.

Digital Onboarding

Based in Boston, it looks like they have less than 20 employees, I’m not sure. “We’ve put the relationship manager front and center for the SMB”. I like what these folks are doing. SMB new account opening and engagement is WAY behind consumer banking tools. They are showing what I THINK is a demo of their “Somerset Trust Company”. Now showing web based platform. Nice job.

Finovate Profile
How they describe themselves: Banks focus on the most profitable 20% of their small business customer portfolios leaving 80% ignored and underserved. The Digital Onboarding platform provides a fully automated onboarding experience that motivates small businesses to adopt fee-based services and make the bank their primary financial institution. SMS and email reminders, a custom microsite, and gamification components help SMBs take advantage of all the banking services needed to grow and manage their businesses.

How they describe their product/innovation: Digital Onboarding is there for your small business banking customers when your staff can’t be. Time-starved small business owners receive SMS and email reminders and a custom microsite that helps them take advantage of the services that will make their lives easier and their businesses more profitable such as receiving payments, managing payroll, and making automatic payments.

Product distribution strategy: Through financial institutions, through other fintech companies and platforms, licensed

  • digitalonboarding.com
    • Twitter @DigiOnboarding
  • Presenters:
    • Ted Brown
    • Jonathan Crossman

Digital Onboarding’s SaaS platform uses guided digital journeys, SMS reminders, and machine learning algorithms to improve customer/member activation rates for banks and credit unions.

Wealthucate

I think these folks are based in San Jose, California. I couldn’t find funding information for the company yet. Showing their own “Financial Wellness Score” Boy, Financial Wellness is HOT here this year at Finovate. I’m seeing a ton of companies addressing this very important issue. Now showing employer dashboard of employee financial user engagement. Good job.

From Finovate: How they describe themselves: Wealthucate is a completely automated and affordable enterprise software that is changing the look of financial wellness programs. It can improve the participation rate of benefits, help employees to solve financial challenges and personalize your company’s benefit offerings. Explainer video: https://youtu.be/2wcrIIJCTy0

Wealthucate, Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, CA. It’s core team brings experience in FinTech and financial wellness from Google, Edward Jones, Intuit, GE Digital, MB Financial, LendKey, TuneCore, AmericanExpress, and LearnVest.

How they describe their product/innovation: Wealthucate software offers a do-it-anywhere planning experience. Users just create an account and set up a profile – no human interaction involved. The app’s smart algorithm will use the profile to come up with personalized tasks that boost a person’s financial health.

Wealthucate makes it easy for employers to improve upon existing financial wellness programs. The software offers a configurable, scalable and secure answer to personalize the experience. In the past, employees were unsure if the benefits were relevant to them. Today, they understand why something is important and what action to take using company resources.

^WM

  • wealthucate.com
    • Twitter @Wealthucate
  • Presenters:
    • Faruk Jaffer
    • Hafeez Jaffer

Wealthucate is a financial wellness solution for the workplace, powered by an algorithm that automates financial planning for the employee so they get unbiased and affordable advice. The employer can personalize the experience, track progress, and receive valuable insights.

Synapse Financial Technologies

“We are providing a banking platform for FinTech companies.” I like their concept. A LOT of FINTECH companies really don’t understand how hard it is to set up their technology that meet all banking regulatory requirements. These folks are based in California and have raised at least million in funding. Good job.

How they describe themselves: SynapseFI exists to simplify banking. We believe every person should have access to best-in-class financial products, regardless of their bank balance. For that purpose, we constantly strive to build accessible state-of-the-art financial banking products.

Our APIs enable you to power transactions (ACH, Credit, Debit, WIRES), KYC users, open bank accounts (Deposit, Interest Bearing, FBO/Custodial, Clearing), issue Debit Cards – virtually anything that would otherwise require a bank agreement. We also manage BSA/AML compliance, instant authentication of bank accounts and data aggregation.

Our mission is to build an intuitively designed bank with automated back office and automated servicing to reduce costs and increase access.

How they describe their product/innovation: White Label Loan Issuance: Our loan products can originate and service unsecured consumer or business loans to customers. Features include customizable decisioning, automated compliance, smart notifications, and an origination and servicing UI.

Product distribution strategy: Through financial institutions, through other fintech companies and platforms

  • https://synapsefi.com/
    • Twitter @synapsefi
  • Presenters:
    • Sankaet Pathak

Synapsefi enables companies to provide best-in-class finance products to their customers for a fraction of the cost of traditional banks.

ProxToMe

Mobile access to smart things (IOT), they make it simple and safe. Use your smartphone at the ATM, kiosks, and other points of sale. This is an authentication method, not an app. It uses bluetooth tech to connect to a variety of hardware. The value prop is that this is more secure than other alternatives, and 100% cross-platform.

ProxToMe’s proximity-based authentication technology uses a proprietary algorithm that combines proximity certification with identity assurance to combat user-to-machine interactions vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks for mission-critical IoT devices.

Status Money

How well are you managing your money compared to other people like you? Status Money helps you to make this comparison to an anonymous peer group. This peer-based benchmarking is how people think about their financial standing, really like the detailed comparison.  Curious to me that personal financial management (PFM) solutions have come roaring back this year at Finovate. Based on the benchmarking with peers, you can create and update a personal budget. From the FI perspective, there are opportunities to help people find products to meet their needs.

Status Money’s personal finance platform helps people manage their money by letting them anonymously compare their finances with peers, national averages, and more than a million custom groups.

Covered Security

This is a personal assistant for simplified digital security and preventing online identity theft. The app is based on a thorough security quiz and they apply AI to personalize the recommendations. A popup alerts you to risky websites, delivered by your personal assistant. For consumers, they gain peace of mind. I wonder if a mass audience is ready to focus the attention necessary to assess their online security risk. Isn’t this something most people think about only after it is too late?

  • Covered Security, coveredsecurity.com
    • Twitter @CoveredSecurity
  • Presenters:
    • Chris Zannetos
    • Brian Milas

Covered Security acts as a personal security assistant looking out for your online life. They help consumers avoid digital identify theft.

Fiserv & Samsung

I like to see some of the biggest names in technology and financial services participating in this showcase of innovation. Innovation isn’t just for startups! They are demoing a collaboration platform that enables a customer to complete an online application, while chatting in real-time with a banker. It is also easy to switch to a video conference, with screen sharing. This kind of collaboration is commonplace in the office, nice to see it come to banking. This helps to move away from paper to digital, without completely losing the personal connection. Authentication is also a strong element of the offering.

  • Fiserv & Samsung, fiserv.com
    • Twitter @Fiserv
    • Twitter @Samsung
  • Presenters:
    • Scott Graf
    • Richard Lobovsky

Fiserv is a leading global leader in financial services technology solutions. They help more than 12,000 clients worldwide create and deliver experiences for a digital world that’s always on.

Conversation One

The easy way to develop your conversational interface for Alexa, Siri, Google, etc. Build, test, and deploy voice solutions. They have an initial list of queries that the system has been trained on. The voice interface connects to bank info via the bank’s API. The Alexa demo showed how easy it could be to transfer money between accounts.

One solves the low accuracy level of automated conversational applications with its Conversational Data Management Platform.

AI Foundry

They use AI processing to make the mortgage app process simpler. Seems to be based on extracting the data from key documents, and using that to populate the rest of the required documentation. The AI can also identify inconsistencies in the data provided. This includes a workflow tool for processing. In that area, it can analyze bank statements and transactions.

  • AI Foundry
    • Twitter @AIFoundry
  • Presenters:
    • Sid Probstein
    • Alla Eizenberg

AI Foundry’s Agile Mortgages uses AI and machine learning to combat the frustrating, time-consuming and paper-laden process of applying for a mortgage.

ProjectFinance

This is a PFM solution for Millennials.   While it is very comprehensive, I’m not sure what makes this unique. Do users really want to create custom budgets? Do they feel like they don’t have access to current tools to do this?

Project Finance helps people in their mid-30s navigate the uncertainty around personal finance decision-making.

Amaryllis

They offer a payment solution for marketplaces and a range of ecommerce use cases. In the demo, the platform enables a ridesharing service to setup new drivers, with each driver deciding which payment options they will accept. A marketplace provider can have a plug-and-play payment solution.

  • Amaryllis, amaryllispay.com
    • Twitter @AmaryllisPay
  • Presenters:
    • Mark Bishopp
    • Ori Hay

The Amaryllis SaaS Payment Platform built specifically for Acquirers, Payment Facilitators, Marketplaces, ISOs, ISVs, VARs and other models is simplifying the world of 3rd party payments.

NuData Security

It isn’t enough to trust a device as part of a secure transaction. What if it isn’t the user, but someone with access to the device trying to access the account? This is another biometric play, based on the behavioral data of the user, or users. NuData can detect that there is more than 1 human interacting with the account. I can see that with anomaly detection, they can detect which behaviors are not following the pattern of the authenticated user. They’ve been recently acquired by Mastercard.

NuData Security’s NuDevice ID uses behavioral biometrics with aggregated data to create less friction and more security across different devices for financial institutions.

Mr. Cooper

They promote “intelligent homeownership”, the ability to use data to understand your home’s value, value in your neighborhood, and opportunities to maximize the value of your home. They are a home loan company, offering first mortgages as well as home equity loans. While the app is robust, people are assigned a loan specialist to answer questions. They can interact in many ways, including FaceTime. They are active investors, and also interested in working with startups.

  • Mr Cooper, www.mrcooper.com
    • Twitter @mrcooper
  • Presenters:
    • Kevin Dahlstrom
    • Ryan LaMountain

Cooper promotes intelligent homeownership and a simplified home loan process.

GeniAI Technology

Financial audits are cumbersome and time consuming with massive amounts of documents, and lots of Excel spreadsheets. This is an online audit software tool, powered by AI. The dashboard allows an auditor to import transactions and review them automatically for fraud and errors. For example, identifying that an employee expense item was put on a corp credit card, and also on an expense report. There is a rules engine as well as standards for data cleanup.

GeniAI Technology’s audit and accounting data management platform uses proprietary ML/NLP/OCRtechnology to eliminate labor-intensive and time-consuming procedures for internal and external auditors and accounting managers.

Teno

It looks like Teno has some core capabilities, but they don’t have a well articulated value proposition. It is more about the technical infrastructure (ie, a good mobile app), but really not clear what they can offer.

Caribe Developers’ Teno supplies collaborative mobile applications for the insurance world.

Exagens

Your personal banker, powered by AI. There’s a nice dashboard to review how customers are interacting with the digital assistant. Is the digital agent driving the desired behaviors? How does conversion rate look? Machine learning is used to boost performance.

  • exagens Twitter @exagens
  • Presenters:
    • Michael Stojda
    • Jorge Campos

exagens Personal Banker: autonomous digital banking assistant with proven results increasing conversion rates & retention while lowering costs.

VRAY

Payment solutions for merchants, both online and via voice interfaces. This is offered as a white-label solution with a Software Development Kit (SDK).

  • VRAY, vrayinc.com
  • Presenters:
    • Elan Mevasse
    • Jack Shauh

VRAY believes online shopping should be a simple and secure experience. They operate a secure, heterogeneous, omni-channel technology platform to deliver payment solutions to merchants. The platform reduces fraud with a password-free simple integration into existing merchant and processor infrastructure.

Horizn

They help companies boost digital adoption. The employee platform helps your staff become digital advocates. The customer platform provides support via your website. The employee experience is gamified. On the customer side, their functionality is built directly into your website. Essentially a web tour that explains key functions. There is a case study written by Celent on work with RBC.

  • Horizn, horizn.com
    • Twitter @horiznplatform
  • Presenters:
    • Steve Frook

The Horizn Knowledge Platform helps financial institutions dramatically accelerate digital adoption of innovation and new products at lighting speed.

Roostify

Roostify first presented at Finovate back in 2014, here’s what we had to say about them. A few short years later, they are demoing their CRM-like capabilities that offer more targeted marketing. This also enables banks to digitize existing customer interactions.

  • Roostify, roostify.com
    • Twitter @roostify
  • Presenters:
    • Rajesh Bhat
    • Travis Kniffen

Roostify uses an easily-configurable, API-based software solution to improve the mortgage process for consumers, lenders, and real estate professionals.

CU Collaborate

This is an offering for credit unions, and helps CUs address the issue of membership eligibility.  According to CU Collaborate, this issue of eligibility is a huge obstacle and results in incomplete applications and app abandonment.

  • CU Collaborate, cucollaborate.com
    • Twitter @cucollaborate
  • Presenters:
    • Sam Brownell
    • Jason Hishmeh

CUCollaborate’s eligibility validation solution, JoinCU, makes it easier for consumers to find, join and borrow from credit unions. Marketplaces can use it to include credit unions’ offerings and credit unions can use it to simplify their online applications. It establishes a referral network of and between credit unions.

Trusona

Trusona has a no-password login, taking advantage of QR code technology. Simple to use. So fast, the demo was done in 20 seconds.

  • Trusona, trusona.com
    • Twitter @trusona_inc
  • Presenters:
    • Ori Eisen

Trusona Executive uses patented anti-replay technologies with a frictionless #NoPasswords experience to solve insecure and inconvenient static credential-based multi-factor authentication for financial institutions and banks.

Currencycloud

Global payments platform, web-enabled and supported by an API. As business becomes more global, particularly small business, this type of capability is absolutely essential. Particularly if it can be accomplished without hefty fees.

  • Currencycloud, currencycloud.com
    • Twitter @Currencycloud
  • Presenters:
    • Richard Arundel
    • Arshi Singh

Currentlcloud is helping merchants collect funds internationally through its Global Collections platform.

##

Steven J. Ramirez is CEO of Beyond the Arc, Inc. Harnessing data science and deep marketing expertise, he and his team deliver analytics-driven Customer Experience solutions. Their work includes strategic initiatives at a Top 5 US bank where they directly improved Customer Experience through communications. Helping financial service clients create rapid wins through intensive data strategy and improved customer engagement is their specialty.
William Mills III, Chief Executive Officer of William Mills Agency is live blogging today at FinovateSpring 2018. He has more than 34 years of experience in financial technology and is a recognized leader in financial and technology marketing. He has personally advised more than 300 chief executives on marketing strategy, business development, mergers and acquisitions, company branding and public relations.