Forte Financial Blog

Demo Videos from FinnovateStartup Posted Online - Very Cool

Back in April I attended Finnovate Startup here in San Francisco and live blogged the event. It was a whirlwind of 40 startup/young financial technology companies presenting 5 min demos (no scripted PowerPoint!) of their products/new features. Lots of energy, great people, and some really cool stuff.

This week the videos were posted online, so now you can watch from the comfort of your office, cafe, or sofa. Check 'em out here.

Vendors represented include:

Bad Leadership is at Fault when IT Projects Fail

A recent guest post by Mike Kavis at the IT Project Failures blog underscores that the reason IT projects fail has little to do with IT and everything to do with change management and leadership.

Most large business transformation projects fail because IT leaders don't acknowledge, or at least underestimate, the impact of change on the workforce. These managers focus entirely on technical issues while failing to address the human side of change.

Driving change successfully requires creating a sense of urgency, communicating a clear vision, and addressing WIIFM (what's in it for me) at all levels. Leaders must identify change agents throughout the company to battle resistance, while remembering success is about the people and not the technology.

You can read the rest of the post here.

And my advice on fostering better project leadership can be found here.

Friday Humor: An ERP Implementation is Like...

via IT Project Failures...

Analogies for ERP Implementation:

1. The implementation will be like open heart surgery while the patient is still alive and working.

2. An ERP implementation is like the corporate equivalent of a brain transplant.

5 more here

Cutting IT Costs and Conserving Energy (CFO Magazine)

The June issue of CFO Magazine explores IT spending trends (anticipating a slight decrease) and efforts to better understand total cost of ownership for IT. The article also features a sidebar on cutting IT costs and energy costs simultaneously, thus doing good for both the bottom line and the environment:

Standardize on products wherever possible. According to The Hackett Group, companies with less-complex IT infrastructures are more effective and efficient, and spend less on IT as a percent of revenue. Often, complexity breeds more complexity: a vast applications portfolio, for example, typically requires a more complex infrastructure. Companies that standardize desktop computers, pool application-development efforts, and consolidate vendors have cut their IT operating costs by as much as 50 percent over four to five years, Hackett says.

IT asset-management software can help companies get a better handle on how much hardware and software they have and whether they are overbuying software licenses or hardware upgrades. The software creates an inventory of software and hardware assets and measures which applications are actually being used. Asset-management tools can help eliminate expensive licenses and maintenance contracts.

For a time, the ever-lower cost of computer servers prompted companies to buy them in droves, but that resulted in overcapacity and attendant management problems. Now, many companies are using fewer, more-powerful servers to tackle multiple tasks, a feat made possible by virtualization software that allows one server to do the work of many. Delaware Electric Cooperative, a Greenwood, Delaware, electric utility that provides electricity in southern Delaware, launched a virtualization project last year and reduced the number of servers it needed from 20 to 6, says CFO Gary Cripps. In the process it reduced server power usage by 80 percent and disk-maintenance time by 90 percent.

Virtualization is a key part of broader efforts to make computer data centers, which consume huge amounts of electricity, more efficient. Eaton, a diversified industrial manufacturer in Cleveland, deployed energy-efficient blade servers and virtualization software and now saves more than $1.5 million annually in power and lease costs, according to CIO Bill Blausey. The company also developed programs to automate its data centers, so it can better manage capacity and shut off idle servers. The company also benefits by meeting the criteria of a "demand response program" sponsored by a local utility, saving it another $40,000 per year in one facility alone. CFO Rick Fearon credits a close partnership between finance, IT, and facilities with helping the company develop a greener data-center strategy.

Read more:

Less Bleeding, More Edge
Runaway IT spending is out, creative cost control is in.
Bob Violino
CFO Magazine
June 2008

SWIFT Rulebook for ISO 20022 Corporate-to-Bank Standards

The SWIFT Rulebook for ISO 20022 Corporate to Bank standards has been available since mid-May and is published here. The Rulebook is step 3 of a four step process to facilitate standards implementation in order to support banks and corporates attempts to automate payment initiation and tracking.

Step 1: Common Development (details here)

Step 2: Common Interpretation (details here)

Step 3: Common Implementation

A standard only becomes a  standard when it is implemented and used.

In order to help the industry achieve standardised adoption, SWIFT launched its Early Adopters Programme for ISO 20022 Payment Initiation, bringing corporates, banks, application providers and consultants together to share implementation experiences. Their cooperation resulted in a SWIFT for Corporates – ISO 20022 Rulebook for Payment Initiation (Customer Credit Transfer Initiation and Payment Status Report),  which will/should be the foundation for any party implementing these standards  in a global environment.

This rulebook contains a set of best practices and recommendations focusing on technical, operational and business rules and guidelines, which are valid for any payment type. Links to community defined ‘implementation profiles’ for specific payment types, such as the harmonized set of implementation guidelines for SEPA which are currently under development by EPC, will be provided as soon as these profiles are available.

In order to foster standardised usage on SWIFT, parties using the standards on FileAct should adhere to the rules and guidelines described in the Rulebook (as of 15 November 2008). SWIFT is also working closely together with third-party application vendors to ensure Rulebook implementation. Adherence to the Payment Initiation Rulebook is one of the 2008 Partner Labelling Criteria for Cash Management in the customer-to-bank space. By summer, SWIFT will deliver a set of SMART test messages, reflecting the rules and guidelines of the Rulebook, geared at facilitating implementation and testing by all stakeholders.

Step 4: Common Usage (details here)

Wells Fargo Enhances Corporate Mobile Offering to Include Wires and Positive Pay

My previous post on Wells Fargo's mobile banking for corporates was very popular, so I imagine Forte Blog readers will be interested in these recent updates to WF's CEO Mobile service:

Wires: CEO Mobile users now can initiate and approve wires from wherever they are and are no longer tied to their PC in the office. Corporate treasurers rejoice!

Positive Pay: Image positive pay gives mobile customers the ability to view exceptions, including the check image -- an important protection against fraud -- when deciding to pay or reject check exceptions.

In addition, a number of other features are being piloted:

• Manage and decision potentially fraudulent ACH transactions
• View even more balance and reporting information
• and company administrators can perform tasks such as resetting user's passwords.

Evaluating the Fraud Risk of Remote Deposit Capture

At the Bank Lawyer's Blog there is a thoughtful discussion of remote deposit capture fraud risk and whether banks (particularly community banks) are playing it too safe. Well worth reading.

(via PaymentsN ews)

Managing Cash in Tough Times / Receivables Strategies

The June CFO Magazine advises corporate treasurers on how to manage cash during difficult times. One specific suggestion is to keep a close eye on receivables:

Encourage quicker payment of accounts receivables by (1) not compensating salespeople until an order is paid for, (2) calling overdue customers when a bill is one day overdue rather than seven days overdue, and (3) using stop shipments with customers who haven't paid.

Yet most A/R departments are struggling to identify what their customers are paying for (because most payments and remittance information remain stubbornly paper based, e.g. checks and printed lists of invoices, deductions, etc.) and have arduous, manual processes to apply payments to their customers accounts. Thus the availability of A/R data is often delayed, making the data difficult to act upon in a timely manner. Many of the companies I know would gladly take the steps recommended in the article, if they could be certain that they had applied their customers payments in a timely manner and weren't calling  to seek payment or cutting off shipments while payment was stacked on an A/R clerk's desk. (Tying sales compensation to paid orders is one surefire way to get funding to revamp AR technology!)

The economic downturn will make these shortcomings painfully clear as corporate finance grapples with the painfully slow receivables process (and the data trapped within it). Perhaps the liquidity crisis is just what is needed to motivate more companies to consider electronic payment.

Rescuing a Failed IT Project

The Twitter debacle prompts this post on project turnarounds by Michael Krigsman at IT Project Failures. Among other things, he advises that project management and communications will be key to ensuring success in the end (but it will be painful along the way).

 You don’t have to fix every problem. Get the basic system working and worry about the rest later. I’m sure you’re already thinking this way.

Users will be patient, but only if you make them love you. Everyone wants Twitter fixed, but communication is everything right now.

Learn project management. Wings and prayers won’t work. Bring in experienced managers with excellent judgment who have fought these battles before. You need more than tech folks, even though the problems are deeply technical in nature.

Forrester Research offers this road map for turning around a failed project. I hope you don't have to use it (but you might bookmark it just in case):

Remittance Standards for Wire Payments [NACHA Payments]

[This is just one of my series of posts from the NACHA Payments 2008 conference in Las Vegas.]

Remittance Standards for Wire Payments [NACHA Payments]

Hank Farrar
Senior Vice President, CHIPS
Lauren Hargraves
Senior Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
James Wills
Business Manager, Standards, SWIFT

Synopsis from Conference Program

Three payments industry utilities have teamed up to foster discussion and action among financial institutions to help manage the migration of checks to electronic payments and ensure that the payment channels are ready. Join representatives from the Federal Reserve, The Clearing House and SWIFT in a lively and provocative discussion about corporate trends in wire payments, remittance standards initiatives, and steps financial institutions can take to influence the payments landscape. This includes initiatives to ensure that payments systems can carry remittance invoice information in a standard format to make it easier for corporations to reconcile and post electronic payments.

My Observations & Comments

There were a remarkable number of people in attendance for this session late in the day; I suspect many were curious given the recent announcement from the Fed on remittance standards for wires. 

The effort to add remittance to wires is a great example of project leadership - hats off to Hargraves, Farrar, and Wills for their tenacity in making this come about.

Global Efforts to Promote eInvoicing and ePayment:

International Payments Framework (IPF) - Phase II of IPF is just commencing and will improve the cross-border payments process through operating rules that will enable interoperability between domestic and international ACH systems. The idea is for each country to retain its local ACH infrastructure and use a central translation model (potentially ISO 20022).

European Electronic Invoicing (EEI) - An informal task force of industry experts has been established to create a common European Electronic Invoicing (EEI) Framework. Representatives include stakeholders with relevant national experience and the commercial incentive to participate. Estimated benefits exceed 243 Euros/year.

International ACH Transactions (IATs) - As of March 2009 all international payments made via the ACH Network must be identified as International ACH Transactions using a new Standard Entry Class (SEC) Code called IAT. This will enable financial institutions to easily identify all international payments flowing through the ACH Network and all parties involved in the transactions, making it easier to comply with U.S. law (OFAC). NACHA intends to map the IAT format to ISO 20022 in order to facilitate payments to/from SEPA.

NACHA is already having conversations with the EU to explore global standards for electronic invoicing and on a domestic level is exploring opportunities to support small and medium sized businesses (see notes from NACHA B2B Strategy session).

Collaborative Effort

The Federal Reserve worked in close collaboration with SWIFT and CHIPS in order to make remittance data for wires a reality. They recognized the need for structure to enable automation of payments and cash application. From the outset they sought feedback and input from large value networks around the world and realized that many were simultaneously looking for guidance on global standards.

The approach is to map existing proprietary standards to emerging standards in order to increase interoperability on an International basis and between STP 820 and ISO 20022. Mapping for STP 820 to ISO 20022 is on the FedWire web site here.  In addition, guidelines for mapping for NACHA's IAT format to ISO 20022 will be developed.

Took advantage of the need to support cover payments - a regulatory compliance requirement - to get funding to modify the fed wire format for wire remittance as well (clever!).

Specifications for wire remittance will be available later this year. The Federal Reserve anticipates six months of testing.

The Q&A for this session was informative, too:

Audience members commented that the IAT format would be less viable once wire remittances are available since IAT only allows 160 characters of remittance data.

Another person suggested that UPIC (a substitute bank account and routing number that can be used to mask the sender or receivers true bank details) should be available for wires as well as ACH.

Comments also emphasized the value of XML in harmonizing the various payment messages so that structured invoice data can in turn be adapted for remittance messages and in turn loaded into business' AR systems for automated posting.

And, last but not least, the Federal Reserve urges financial institutions to start thinking strategically about how they will incorporate remittance data into their services for businesses.

>> Return to index of my posts from NACHA Payments 2008

The Return of The XML All-Star Team [NACHA Payments]

[This is just one of my series of posts from the NACHA Payments 2008 conference in Las Vegas.]

The Return of The XML All-Star Team [NACHA Payments]

Susan Colles CPA, CBA
Senior Vice President, Bank of America
Robert Blair CCM
Vice President, JPMorgan Chase
Susan Boeri
Manager, Treasury Services, GE Corporate Treasury
Fred Laing, II AAP, CCM
President, Upper Midwest ACH Association
Leonard Schwartz
Director, ABN AMRO Bank

Synopsis from Conference Program

ISO 20022 XML messages for corporations and banks are now beginning to be exchanged on B2B interfaces on a daily basis. Corporations continue to seek automated solutions in order to increase their efficiencies and transparency of transaction processing. Banks have collaborated so that a consistent usage is applied to the message content, and they have worked with ERP vendors to validate the data support within the business applications. Discover the initiatives being advocated by corporations and the benefits they have realized with their ISO XML integration. Hear how U.S. clearing systems, including the ACH Network, are incorporating these standards into their processing environment.

My Observations & Comments

A survey by GTNews and ABN AMRO reveals that the needs of Accounts Receivable are still inadequately addressed by today's payments environment. Eighty-five percent of respondents feel that legacy EDI standards are not helping enough. 44% believe that XML is a promising solution for delivering dollars and data together. Standards are the only means to achieve straight-through-processing (STP) of payments and remittance data. 

The goal of ISO 20022 ("twenty-oh-twenty-two") is to facilitate transactions, not become the business process. It is syntax neutral (doesn't have to be XML, can adapt as technology evolves) and addresses a wide variety of financial business processes including payments, FX, trade, invoicing (under development), and securities. Thus far the payments transactions address credit, debit, and bank to corporate reporting. 

Will NACHA adopt XML for ACH remittance data? There is a great opportunity to leverage XML to include remittance data with ACH transactions. XML is less expensive to develop, easier to use, and easier to understand. NACHA has developed a business case for incorporating XML and formed a rules workgroup. A request for comment will be distributed this summer and all interested parties are encouraged to comment. The idea is not to replace the existing ACH formats, but rather to incorporate XML in the addenda records (there was much discussion on this point during the session). It doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel, so NACHA is looking at the ISO 20022 version of XML, particularly as it is gaining traction as a global standard. 

Other uses of ISO 20022 In March 2009 NACHA will implement the International ACH Transaction (IAT Standard Entry Class Code) in order to address OFAC screening of transactions that involve parties outside the United States. The format of this transaction is based on ISO 20022. The Federal Reserve just announced that remittance data will be added to wires in either STP 820 (simplified EDI) or ISO 20022 format starting in late 2010. In addition, many banks are utilizing XML to drive the middleware layer between their various front end channels and back end legacy transaction processing systems.

File Mapping - SWIFT has published mapping guidelines to translate SWIFT FIN messages to XML and will shortly publish mapping guidelines for XML to IAT. NACHA committed to to the same.

Banks and Vendors Supporting ISO 20022 XML

Banks

Vendors

>> Return to index of my posts from NACHA Payments 2008

WAUSAU's Evolving Remittance Solutions [NACHA Payments]

[This is just one of my series of posts from the NACHA Payments 2008 conference in Las Vegas.]

WAUSAU's Evolving Remittance Solutions [NACHA Payments]
 
Kathy Strasser and I discussed the ways that WAUSAU is continuously evolving in order to meet the growing demand for paper to electronic payment solutions via remote capture, remittance, image/item processing and enterprise content management. Strasser is responsible for WAUSAU's remittance products, so naturally our conversation was focused on lockbox solutions.

WAUSAU has 48% market share across the retail, wholesale and "wholetail" (blend of one-to-one scanable retail-like items and more complex, non-scanable wholesale-like items) segments and is the leading source of ARC transactions (paper checks received at the lockbox and converted to ACH payments for settlement). With a long history of retail lockbox expertise, WAUSAU acquired DMP Payment Systems a year ago in order to expand its wholesale services. And, in its effort to meet the ever-evolving needs of its customers it announced a partnership with ClairMail to offer lockbox services via the mobile channel (more on that here).

The emphasis at WAUSAU is on providing solutions that act as an integrated, value-add extension to the corporate customer's receivables system, with workflow, exception processing, and document imaging to support core lockbox payment processing features. I cannot emphasize enough the value of offering a single platform for exception processing regardless of how the transaction is received for processing or settled.

WAUSAU offers remittance solutions via banks but also sells directly to corporations with volumes great enough to justify in-house or outsourced lockbox services. WAUSAU has optimized its solutions to meet the needs of industry verticals such as insurance, property management, utilities and is redoubling its efforts to support healthcare. The company will continue to build out industry specific capabilities through partnerships.

>> Return to index of my posts from NACHA Payments 2008

OB10 is Middleware for the Financial Supply Chain [NACHA Payments]

[This is just one of my series of posts from the NACHA Payments 2008 conference in Las Vegas.]

OB10 - ERP and FI Agnostic Global eInvoicing [NACHA Payments]

OB10 is a well established buyer-centric eInvoicing solution, but they are in the process of reaching out to AR as well as AP to offer ERP agnostic, electronic payment and remittance solutions for buyers and suppliers alike. OB10 supports any file "any-to-any data formatting" and supports client workflow solutions to route payment data for approval and dispute resolution as well as messaging between trading partners to help resolve problems with exception invoices. The company is developing more robust AR support that will provide electronic remittance files for posting to AR, as well as PO delivery and validation, and supplier financing support. These features will be rolled first in Europe.

I was struck by the openness of OB10's platform and how it is positioning itself as the middleware of supply chain finance. In order for B2B payments to transition to electronic in meaningful numbers, there has to be a way to seamlessly connect the proprietary formats utilized by banks, ERPs, and payment processors.

It is not surprising that OB10 perceives paper scanning and OCR as its biggest competitor. Recognizing that businesses have to manage a mix of paper and electronic transactions for the foreseeable future, OB10 partners with a document processing firm to handle paper. Yet the persistence of paper, and the introduction of data entry errors, only exacerbates the B2B payment challenge.

OB1o offers its brand name buyer customers supplier enrollment expertise, the "infantry" necessary to facilitate supplier implementation on a multinational basis.

>> Return to index of my posts from NACHA Payments 2008

ClairMail - Secure, Efficient, 2-way Mobile Banking & Payments [NACHA Payments]

[This is just one of my series of posts from the NACHA Payments 2008 conference in Las Vegas.]

ClairMail - Secure, Efficient, 2-way Mobile Banking & Payments [NACHA Payments]

ClairMail enables two-way customer interaction via mobile phones, regardless of the type of phone and the wireless network, using the phones existing software and standard features, including email and SMS messaging, mobile web and native client applications. No new mobile phone software is required.

The big news from ClairMail at the NACHA Payments is that it is partnering with WAUSAU to extend the WAUSAU remittance platform to the mobile channel. ClairMail Mobile Lockbox technology enables an alet message sent to the payer's mobile phone with details such as payee name, dollar amount, and due date. The payer replies to message to instantly pay the bill from their mobile phone. If the biller is fortunate (and the consumer not particularly adept at cash management) the payee may respond immediately to the alert, rather than paying on the due date.

Regardless of the desire or need for consumers to pay their bills from their mobile phone, I do think that mobile alerts for corporate payments make a lot of sense. Because the payment amounts are larger and the stakes of missing a payment are often higher, corporate payments are particularly suited for mobile transactions - they have the added benefit of being discrete, enabling corporate finance managers to quickly and quietly respond to urgent payment matters from meetings, on the road, and off hours. In particular, positive pay confirmations, wire payment confirmations, and lockbox exception handling are well suited to the ClairMail solution.

One particularly cool feature overcomes the awkwardness of entering a URL and username + password combination into a mobile browser. Using the ClairMail solution the customer can send a text message "go" to their financial institution and receive in reply a dynamic link. Upon loading the dynamic URL the mobile user enters an encrypted session and only has to enter a PIN rather than their username/pw pair.

>> Return to index of my posts from NACHA Payments 2008

ChoicePay's New Multichannel Electronic Payment Platform that Extends Remittance Solutions for Small & Mid-sized Billers [NACHA Payments]

[This is just one of my series of posts from the NACHA Payments 2008 conference in Las Vegas.]

ChoicePay Offers a Powerful, new Multichannel Electronic Payment Platform that Extends Remittance Solutions for Small & Mid-sized Billers [NACHA Payments]

I am really excited about a new service from ChoicePay that will allow remittance vendors and financial institutions selling to small and mid-sized billers to quickly and easily add electronic payments to their lockbox offering. Elspeth Bloodgood, demo'd for me how ChoicePay has taken its multi-channel payment platform (kiosk, call center, walk-up retail, IVR, and online) and repackaged it for quick deployment via white-label solutions. The biller customer will receive a single stream of payment data (either via their remittance provider, or via ChoicePay) combining all payment channels and supported with Business Objects reporting capability.

The rapid provisioning of this tool blew me away. The solution is not only completely modular, but the onboarding process is a series of workflow-driven screes with validation alerts built in. The biller enters preferences to match its business process and adding a new payment method is remarkably simple. In the background, the parameterized ChoicePay engine drives the necessary web services. The ease of implementation means that small and mid-sized banks can offer a comprehensive payment solution to businesses with as few as 1000 transactions a month. ChoicePay will train the resellers implementation and product teams to deploy and support the solution.

The online interface can be customized to match the branding of the biller (adding a logo, modifying colors, etc. is as easy as formatting this blog - even easier). The solution is multi-lingual and the interface for a one-time payment is the same as for a recurring payment (you simply check a box to make the one-time payment recurring and can elect to turn off paper billing).

It's very cool. I'll be monitoring the uptake of this solution over the coming months and will post follow ups.

>> Return to index of my posts from NACHA Payments 2008

NACHA Payments 2008 - Forte Blog Index

I took a slight detour en route home from Las Vegas (via Death Valley and Yosemite - spectacular!) and just finished writing up my observations.

This year is the largest NACHA Payments conference to date (they get bigger and bigger each year) with nearly three thousand attendees. There were sessions devoted to ACH, check electronification, card solutions, global payments, corporate payment solutions and the payments industry over all. Over the course of the conference I attended eight sessions and had one-on-one conversations with seven vendors. I also participated in a press conference with the NACHA Leadership.

General Sessions & Overall Observations

Summary & NACHA Leadership Interview

Keynote/Peter Raskind, National City (general session)

Break Out Sessions

International Payments
ACI Worldwide & BofA

Global Remote Deposit Capture
Goldleaf Financial and Global Concepts/McKinsey

Corporate Mobile Banking
Celent & Wells Fargo

XML All Stars
BofA, JPMorgan Chase, GE Corporate Treasury, Upper Midwest ACH Association, ABN AMRO Bank

B2B Outlook
Federal Reserve, AFP, Cal State AAA, Costco

Remittance for Wires
Federal Reserve, CHIPS, SWIFT

NACHA's B2B Strategy
NACHA, Celent

How To Turn Your Online Bill Pay Expense into a Revenue Stream
eCom Advisors

Vendors

Bob Lund/eGistics

Elspeth Bloodgood/ChoicePay

Joe Salesky/ClairMail

Rob Peyton/OB10

Kathy Strasser/Wausau

Danne Buchanan/NetDeposit

David Peterson/Goldleaf

Internet Security, Regulation, and the Rise of Closed, Proprietary Platforms

This recent segment on Charlie Rose with Jonathan Zittrain is fascinating. Zittrain is a professor of internet law at Harvard and Oxford and the author of a book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It and discusses the tension between internet security risks (enabled by open, non-proprietary systems) and the potential for a backlash of centralized internet regulation and the potential flight to closed, proprietary platforms (with inherent data privacy risks).

It’s a great segment (and only 30 mins) – well worth checking out.

More:

• This segment on the Charlie Rose site
• More about Jonathan Zittrain
• Book: The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It

Benchmarking DOs and DON'Ts

Benchmarking is a critical first step in identifying opportunities for process improvement. Used correctly, benchmarking allows companies to compare their processes versus the best practices in their industry and develop a road map of how to adopt best practices within their own organization.

Mark Brousseau at the TAWPI Blog compiled a list of Benchmarking DOs and DON"Ts based on discussions at the recent TAWPI Payments Conference (I live blogged the event - coverage here) and the Supply Chain Leadership Forum:

The Top 5 DOs:

1. Do align with key stakeholders.
2. Do succinctly summarize benefits for top management.
3. Do reduce your scope to actionable items.
4. Do maintain perspective of both your business and cultural model.
5. Do test multiple options before drawing conclusions.

The Top 5 DON'Ts:

1. Don’t use competitors that match up poorly with your processes.
2. Don’t ignore your competition.
3. Don’t use the “boil the ocean” approach (focus, focus, focus).
4. Don’t use benchmarking and data analysis tools without understanding how they work.
5. Don’t work in a vacuum and think your organization knows it all.

Live Blogging from Finnovate - Best of Show

I am live blogging from Finnovate Startup in San Francisco. Jim Bruene and his team at NetBanker gathered 40 startups, rebrandings, and company debuts in online banking and finance. Each participant had a brief 5 minutes to demo their product.

We're back from the networking and eagerly anticipating the best of show announcement (based on audience votes)...

BEST OF SHOW

• 3rd Place (tie) - Zecco and First ROI/BancVue 
• 2nd Place - Jwaala 
• 1st Place - Zopa

More coverage here:

• Intro
• Morning Session 
• Afternoon Session 
• Observations & Trends [coming soon]

Live Blogging from Finnovate Startup - Afternoon Session

I am live blogging from Finnovate Startup in San Francisco. Jim Bruene and his team at NetBanker have gathered 40 startups, rebrandings, and company debuts in online banking and finance. Each participant has a brief 5 minutes to demo their product so I’ll be typing as fast as I can. (Please forgive typos!)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Expensr / MoneyStrands 

Just acquired by Strands - rebranded as MoneyStrands. Redesigned user interface. Stronger focus on widgets because users felt online managers were too simple and desktop managers were too complex. Use widgets to customize to make as complex as you want; drag and drop, etc. Automatically sync bank accounts. New analysis widgets, including incomes & expenses.

Analyze your money and compare against people like you (career, age, location, etc.) by category. Parse your transactional data and suggest improvements. Suggest products or small day to day behavior.

SmartyPig 

SmartyPig is for everyone. Social banking application "20th century piggy bank." Reverse buy now, pay later trend. Help people save for very specific goals in your life. Possible to add minors (kids) to your account and teach them to save. 

Make goals public. Family and friends can track your progress toward your goal and make gifts. 

Advertisers, sponsors can make special offers based on your goals. 

Do not have to change your bank. Every goal must have a monthly recurring contribution from your bank. All funds at SmartyPig are FDIC insured. 

Facebook widget is linked to your public SmartyPig page that shows your goals and progress. Link to your friends and family via SmartyPig and gift them. Can also buy giftcards for someone who is not using SmartyPig (they can then create their own account). 

Stop goal at any time. Two choices to access funds: a) create SmartyPig MasterCard or b) create a SmartyPig gift card with a major retailer (often with incentive). 

Invesra 

Online personal investment manager that can be private labeled or co-branded by financial interfaces. Consolidate retirement accounts (stocks, mutual plans, ETFs, etc.)Wizard walks user thru creating a profile. Demographic data, retirement goals, load account data, determine risk profile. Risk discovery tool to anticipate best case/worse case scenarios based on historical data and future projections. 

Personalizes advice that is rendered on the site based on data entered in wizard. Generate Target Profile and compare to current plan. Demonstrate changes to allocations necessary to achieve target. Evaluate both value and cost of current and target. Can take action 

1) Open a fully managed account or 2) if self-managed provide buy/sell list to reallocate account by account. Report can be emailed, printed, branded with FI logo. Education can  be customers to partner. 

Delivering sophisticated investment tools previously only available via financial planner to mass affluent online. 

Wesabe 

Leading personal finance community on the web. Community, financial management, insight based on community's collective data. Up until now, mostly advice and support. But now, with value engine, offering insight based on aggregated anonymous community data - not sponsor generated offers. Show community statistics vs. your own spending patterns. Average dollar amount, frequency, percentage of other Wesabe users that recommendations. Using tags that are created by users themselves to parse data. Can drill down by tag to find merchant comparisons based on your transactions. 

Trader Joes vs. Safeway vs. Whole Foods. Can 'cheer' the tip, add your own comment, or hide it the tip. 

Possible to search. For example, want to buy a kids bike (birthday gift for daughter). Search for merchants in your area that sell bikes. See community data by 

Provides link to Yelp for additional location data and more reviews. 

Make better financial decisions based on the "Wesabe value engine" 

Tyfone 

Mobile banking and payments. Build technology to secure transactions via your mobile phone. Mobile banking, contactless payments via mobile, identity management, remote payments, retail services. Enable independence between choice of bank and wireless carrier. 

Utilizing memory card slot on phone (not SIM card). Has security built in with smart card controller for contactless payments. Demo with Palm (not NFC enabled) memory card enables near filed communications. Bank does not have to have relationship with wireless carrier. Third chip that enables security. 

12 patents applied for (one issued so far). 

Can also support software only mobile banking. Demo with iPhone. Integrate with GPS to find enabled retail locations nearby. Works with different software on handsets. 

Wonga 

From UK, live 5 months thus far. Addressing small, short term loans to consumers via web or mobile. Quick. Example. Booking flight on EasyJet to go to Barcelona. But low on cash. Link from merchant to Wonga. How much do you want, for how long? Real time calculation of what it will cost (amount borrowed + fee). Enter basic info. Real time evaluation of risk, receive verification code on mobile phone. Enter verification code on web site, enter banking info to receive funds, enter banking account to repay (not necessarily the same). Money available within minutes.   

Preview of mobile solution not available yet. Out and about. Need to make a purchase. No laptop, so no Internet capability. Send text message to Wonga address indicating amount of money you want. Enter PIN. Money is funded to bank account. Now can use debit account to make purchase. 

Not running up long term debt. 

Loanio 

Product is about to launch. This is the first public unveiling. New peer lending to facilitate borrowing and lending via an auction platform. Challenges with peer lending today: lots of traffic, but many consumers wanting funding cannot get funds. Poor or low credit or less than compelling profile. 

Loanio offers co-borrowing. Even if you have good credit you may want to enlist a co-borrower to enhance credit. 

Normal and Platinum (additional qualifying info entered up front) listing services. Enter Loanio request, dollars, term, interest rate willing to pay. Why you want it and how you will pay it back. Co-borrower and borrower provide more detailed information later (paycheck stubs, etc.) 

Potential loaners can view credit information on both borrower and co-borrower. Nice comic relief after lunch: demo featured pictures of Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Hilary Clinton as potential borrowers and co-borrowers. 

ConfIdent Technologies 

Next generation security for online financial transactions. Used today with Live at Charles Schwab retirement. Distributed to 80 other FIs, passes muster regulators. Eliminates passwords but is more secure than other forms of authentication. 

Instead of username, choose images. You create categories (e.g dogs, airplanes). Then when you login each time you choose the pictures of the dog and the airplanes by entering the digit code in the corner of each image (in the right order) into the box below the images. Each time the images change, the digits change, and the order of the image categories changes. 

Withholds image display from unauthorized computers - authorized computers have soft token. Effective against phishing. Highly configurable. Change size of display, number of categories user needs to enter.   

Easier for user because images are easier to process than text (many years of research to support this theory). 

Very cool. 

IP Commerce 

Denver based. Address need to payment enable any application, provision payment services, address security requirements. Unlike other presenters today, not a bank, not a payment company. Partners have reach to thousands of banks - partners include [missed name], Chase Paymentech, and many software developers. 

Does not own relationship with small business. Bank does. 

Rapid receipts developed by a user using IP Commerce tools to payment-enable QuickBooks. 

Per BAI small businesses will change banks to get better services. Often make payment decisions based on guidance from IT service provider. 

Login and and have access to different services 

• service agreements 
• service bundles 
• sell services across product silos that exist in my bank

For example, business with merchant services and remote deposit at bank obtains verification code from bank. Most small business people don't know anything about payments. But they do know about software activation. So makes sense when bank provides an activation code. Enter with password. Talk via platform to determine services available to each merchant. 

Encrypting data on machine as authentication code is entered. 

Services/products supported: 

• Credit 
• Remote deposit capture 
• store value 
• gift flows 
• e-commerce (PayPal, Google Checkout) 
• ACH

Brand payment solutions, capture incremental revenue. 

SimpleTuition 

Student loans are not sexy. 

Simple solution for students to determine what their options are for student loans. Limited liquidity out there. Modeled after online travel space  in terms of interface. Enter basic info. Consolidate options. View, compare, and once select click out to go to the vendor themselves. 

Work with colleges and universities and partner with LendingTree and LowerMyBills.com etc. 

Been in existence two years; 40,000 leads to lenders this month. Looking to other verticals to expand offerings. 

Record = presentation was less than 3 minutes! 

BlingNation 

Open payment network enabling FIs to offer financial services to their customers via mobile. Both mobile banking and mobile payments. Cell phones or single purpose device (just for mobile payment). Branded software on cell phone. Push technology - receiving data from the bank real time as transactions occur. Can initiate payment, using your bank account, to send data to anyone using email address or their phone number. Enables proximity payments (catching on internationally, eventually) 

Demo'd sending amount from one phone to another. Using bank account (ACH) and PIN. 

Link phone to bank account or a prepaid card so you can access funds transferred to you via an ATM. 

Flexible platform. Balance on home screen so you know funds available. Interface can be customized, suits various handsets. Multiple technologies available e.g. blue tooth or NFC or finger recognition. Enable  interface with other applications that bank is offering. 

Zopa 

Worlds' first social finance community - started in 2005. 225K users worldwide (Italy, US, UK, adding Japan later this year). Adopt model to suit culture of each company. Not a peer to peer lender in the US - based on regulatory environment and security concerns partnered with Credit Unions. People who deposit money at Zopa are not lending money to borrowers. They are helping with cash payment. 

Borrower rates vary from 8.99 to 16.99. Immediate response and get loan funded within days. Borrower can reduce interest rate... 

How? Create profile to tell people about yourself. Investors deposit money in a Zopa CD. Original loan payment each month is augmented by help from members of the Zopa community. Example, $5000 loan, pay back just $2000. Getting help. 

Federally insured CD of up to $100,000. Buy CD at 3.75% but you are helping someone else at a rate of 83 cents per month. I can reduce the amount of return on my CD (to national average 2.90%) and designate borrowers to receive the other 85 basis points. 

TrustedID 

Allows hundreds of thousands of consumers protection vs. Identity Theft. Proactive protection, not credit monitoring (simply notifies you after your ID has already been stolen). Lock on front door vs. alarm to notify that intruder is in your home. 

Launched new service "ID Freeze" 

Family package of identity protection (unlimited number of adults and children in household). $15 per month. Vs. individual plan priced at approx. $100 a month. 

Monitor buying and selling of ss#, bank account data, credit card data, health insurance data online. 

Additional services: 

Require bank to contact you before creating account. 

Reduce junk mail. Anti-spyware or software for home computers. 

Easy to re-brand and co-market (private label with Suze Orman, 100,000 sold in a single day on QVC). 

MoneyPools

Help investors organize and analyze their investment. Example Harold with $2.4 million at Schwab and T.Rowe. Benchmark securities against appropriate assets. 

Drag and drop interface, sophisticated adjustment of graphs as click on various elements. 

My pools and public pools. Drill down by asset class to see detailed information. Auto pools generated and maintained by system. Can also create own pools. Track goals and view asset allocation of funds tied to specific goals. 

Strategies - how have they fared (eg. sovereign, Buffet, etc.) 

Aradiom 

Mobile strategies and mobile deployments do not always mesh. Many devices, issues related to deployment to multiple handsets. In 4 minutes, build mobile banking platform. Login, go to home screen, and 

Client wizard - goes on phone. Start with home page with about/login/about buttons. WYSIWYG interface. Output is a Java application that can be utilized on nearly any handset. Create foundation and then generate pages: home, login, about. 

Rich user experience without really knowing code. Interfaces to all backends: webservices, SQL Server, etc. 

Build mobile banking application easily from modular components. 

First ROI / CheckingFinder.com 

Community banks and credit unions are losing business. Offer checking account with CD style interest rate and free ATM nationwide but need marketing reach. First ROI and BancVue partner to offer online service to find, open, fund reward checking accounts online. Supported by National Advertising starting June 8th. 

Enter zip code to find banks close to you. Sort by geographic proximity or rate. Calculator to determine value: $ amt funded plus number of ATM visits per month. Choose based on your parameters. Online account opening provided by Andera (demo'd earlier).   

Big banks we are coming after you! 

Sparkroom 

B2B product. Help Financial Institutions that are big buyers of leads on the Internet to monitor their marketing investments. Track gross margin generated by source and by dimension. Eg. in Mortgage industry which states are most valuable, which dollar amounts are most successful. 

Use dashboards to measure 4-5 key metrics each day. For example leads by source (LendingTree, LowerMyBills, Bills.com, NexTag. etc.) - measures leads, number closed, and cost per closed loan. Determine ROI. 

Understand what is working and what is not. Stop activities that aren't delivering. 

120% ROI increase on marketing spin (on average across customer base) 

Scalable to eery FI product. Built out Mortgage vertical first. 

TradeKing 

Innovated online options and stock brokerage for cutting edge options and equity traders. Pioneering social community in brokerage industry. First to allow traders to share their actual trades. Naturally network around investments, remove barriers between clients and traders - wall street meets main street. 

Do not sell data or advertising. Just share data among the community members. 

Trade notes, blogs, forums, and trading activity. See trades, trade notes provided by trader, portfolio if he shares, blog if he has one, and whether or not TradeKing knows who the investor is. 

Provides expert advice and education based on trading. 

Forums are monitored for compliance reasons. Therefore trusted environment to interact safely and securely. 

ClairMail 

Mobile banking infrastructure at 5 of top 10 banks today, moving down market to community banks. two way triple pay - rec'd bill via SMS, send text message to determine balance, open mobile web browser, send text to server to request dynamic link to website. Simply enter pw rather than username and pw. Initiate transfer from one account to another. Return to SMS and pay bill by replying with "Y" 

Single registration. Onboard at ATM. wbe, IVR, 

Open platform. SMS works on all phones. Mobile web works on many phones. Also native mobile application (in this case mfoundry). Works in retail, works in treasury, too. 

Facilitate ability for bank to ask consumer questions. Allow consumer to initiate 

Mobile lockbox. 

SMS offers "you have a $25 credit on your credit card account if you visit Home Depot this weekend." Generating new value rather than having bank pay for rewards, rather than get paid for offering rewards. 

Not dependent on back-end systems to engage with customers. 

Vestopia 

Service, platform that connects self-directed investors to wall street pros. See what they are doing in their personal investment accounts with real money, real time. Two constituencies: 1) wall street pros, and 2) self-directed investors. 

Grown member base ten fold since January. Venture backed. 

Free enrollment. Public beta is free, so feel free to check it out. 

Investment pros - recruited like an asset manager or hedge fund would. Lots of inbound inquiries, review track records, conduct in person interviews. select investment directors for community. Individuals are not investing anonymously - have name, photo, brief strategy snap shot, performance, 

IF you are interested you can connect to investment directors. 

Look at my dashboard - view investment directors you follow (are connected to) and benchmark against appropriate indices. View holdings (by sector) and can view individual holdings (in detail). 

Entertain questions from community members. 

Okay, off to the exhibit hall to talk to the startups and hopefully find a snack. 

More coverage: 

• Intro 
• Morning Session 
• Best of Show 
• Observations & Trends [coming soon]

Live Blogging from Finnovate Startup - Morning Session

I am live blogging from Finnovate Startup in San Francisco. Jim Bruene and his team at NetBanker have gathered 40 startups, rebrandings, and company debuts in online banking and finance. Each participant has a brief 5 minutes to demo their product so I’ll be typing as fast as I can. (Please forgive typos!)

MORNING SESSION

Authentium

Demo'ing SafeCentral. Prevention of online identify theft. Patent-pending desktop software, engage with networking security component to prevent phishing

First demo'd login to PayPal with a PC infected with a key logging software - show that keylogger captured screen images and all text entered into PayPal's site.

Then, launch secured browser session with SafeCentral which blocks keylogger. Dedicated browser session with no URL address, user can only connect to sites they have setup in advance. We were able to view Ray's personal accounts at BofA.

Afterwards, opened keylogger software and demonstrated that it was blind to transactions conducted via SafeCentral.

Everything can be private labeled.

Credit Karma

Completely free credit score - with no hidden fees - and provide consumers to monitor and improve their credit score over time. Allow consumers to monetize credit score by offering them discounted prices based on the consumers profile.

Fewer than 20 questions - takes 2 minutes to setup. Over 56% of site visitors start sign in process; 86% get free credit score. All queries against score are "soft" so they do not impact score. Provide consumer education about credit scores, how their score ranks in a national distribution - e.g. 712 credit score is in the 45 percentile over all, 38% in Credit Karma.

Karma Offers are customized discounts based on profile (geography, credit score). For each offer, show user approval (how compelling), how exclusive the offer is, and the percentage of users are taking advantage of the offer (subscribing, or using). Consumers must explicitly submit their own info to the sponsors. Credit Karma does not provide data to advertisers.

WorkLight

Server behind financial institution firewall that allows secure interaction with bank and investment firm via RSS, personalized home pages (iGoogle, Netvibes), widgets, and instant messages, etc. Enable consumer to access banking information from within page where they spend their time, rather than open a separate browser session or tab. Enables personalized messages, advertising, etc. 

In addition, enables social networking with customers - via Facebook. WorkLight secure overlay via Facebook allows discussion board where customers can interact with one another. Opt-in customer channel.

Prosper

$136 million in transactions, 670K members thus far. Allow borrowers to make a loan listing and allow anyone to bid on the loan. Similar to a bank loan application, but - like eBay - you can post pictures and personalize your listing to attract investors. Feature demo'd today - you can also create social capital by inviting people to endorse you as a borrower. Lenders can do an advance search to see only those borrowers with social capital. Borrows on Prosper are 35% less likely to default if they have a social endorsement.

Andera

All the way from Rhode Island "a suburb of Boston" - online account opening and funding is a top priority for banks but is notoriously hard to get right due to complexity and risk. Implemented by over 200 banks so far. Demo fictional bank, ABC Bank, but is typically branded. Electronically sign disclosure and application to start, then complete application data. Select account types/features that you want. Variety of 3rd party checks, confirm ID, credit check, - meanwhile, validation questions. Then based on 3rd party evaluation,offer additional products. Once approved, prompt consumer to fund new account. For example, with ACH debit from existing checking account. Validate that you own that account by entering user name, pw, multifactor ID as appropriate (enabled by Yodlee). Then allowed to enter amount to be transfer. Account created on bank's core system, account numbers generated, accounts funded.

Boulevard R.

Providing personalized financial advice and insight into financial planning. Online, 3 step process, to provide online actionable, unbiased financial advice. Allow banks and brokerages to position products in front of highly qualified consumers.

Goals, Plan, Support - developed in conjunction with a leading behavioral economist at MIT. Determine goals, outline vision for retirement (or whatever the goal is), and then outline steps necessary too archive the goal. Work with certified financial planners to create unique actionable plan for each user. Key next steps, high level advice, how much they should be savings. Detailed next steps - with links to products that are appropriate for the user. Specific advice, simulations for portfolios. Finally, dashboard to track progress, monitor next steps, and provide access to advice videos that address specific situations. Highly personalized based on questions.

Clear path to financial security - painless and affordable.

Diversinet

Today's first demo on a mobile phone. Secure mobile financial applications, secure access to healthcare, and secure authentication. Today demo remote remittance (send and receive) as well as remote access to "personal vault"

Sending funds: Enter PIN and view account balance. Decide to send currency to another account (demo sending to himself, in order to show receipt as well). Send 100 Euros - application provides US - Euro exchange rate, service charge, and ability to add note to recipient - with invoice number or any other notification. Technology used to secure the application is same technology used on desktop for bond trader. 

Receiving funds: Upon receipt, accept fund and choose to 1) pick up cash at branch, 2) deposit into Euro account (a couple other options I missed).

Next demo'd secure vault of personal healthcare information. Doctor name, allergies, emergency contacts, immunization status, as well as any other critical documents. For example, passport numbers and scanned image of passport or other document. Ability to email documents from

Secure authentication on phone - rather than separate token that must be carried.

SocialPicks

Not available today due to development delays.

FindABetterBank (Facilitas)

Helps banks and credit unions find customers, helps consumer switch banks fast, and provides feedback to banks and credit unions on why consumers are switching.

Enter location, features you want (online bill pay, overdraft protection, etc.) and save this information in order to provide to banks. FindABetterBank estimates for consumer fees for each account based on questions regarding behavior/usage. Once again information is made available to banks. Then site lists potential bank options, including breakdown of estimated fees, percentage of requested features offered, etc. Once consumer has made their selection, FindABetterBank provides everything they need to open an account - address of local branch, phone number, etc. Banks can customize interface to interact with customer when they've chosen them as their new bank.

Enabling switching - demo leaving Citibank. Upload to FindABetterBank a standard Quicken or MSMoney file downloaded from Citibank website. Bankswitcher analyzed transcation activity file to determine which trx need to be switched and which can be ignored. Cleans up payee data as necessary. Distinguish between online bill pay and automatic withdrawal transactions. Where a form is necessary to change withdrawal, form is included in PDF for consumer to submit to Biller.

This is going to make the bankers crazy!

Buxfer

Track online accounts, transfer money between your accounts, send money to other people (e.g. roommates). Attempted to demo using Google account to sign into Buxfer but technical difficulties. Can store pw on Buxfer, or download Google Gears or Firefox extension that allows one to save pw securely. Support connection to 300 banks and FI (although possible to use with others).

Guardian Analytics

Concerns about fraud are the main concern about online financial services. FraudMAP solution allows financial institutions to protect and ensure trust via online channels. Real time monitoring of transaction activity, both real time and after the fact. Allow risk manager to view suspect transactions, see full timeline of user activity (sites, ISP, how often they log in, what time of day, what they do online) and decides whether or not the activity is suspicious. Non-suspect activity is color coded green. Risky activities are color coded red. Shows that fraudster has taken over consumer account and is attempting to create fraudulent transactions.

FraudMatch feature allows linkage between suspicious transactions. Financial institutions can identify as potential fraud and stop transactions before they occur.

Impressive user interface, immediately scan a lot of data and pin-point issues.

Jwaala

What is most important factor in determining which 1) rates and fees, 2) Online banking capabilities, 3) customer service, 4/5) branch & ATM locations. Most FIs only offer real time statement and  bill pay. Very few innovations over the last few years. Small handful of banks are using Jwaala money tracker. Either extension to existing online banking/bill pay cabilities or replace them.

Web 2.0 features - dashboard, with multiple widgits (like iGoogle, Netvibes). Customize widgit to show transaction history by vendor, dollar amount, etc. (e.g. Costco transactions over threshold). Once you've created a specific snapshot view in a widgit, you can put that widget anywhere - your homepage, your blog, your iGoogle page, your Netvibes page, etc.

Important to be able to find things. Online banking search is cumbersome - if it exists at all. Jwaala provides native language search, for example "costco around 100 last quarter" or "date to date"

Transaction list features logos of vendors, categorizes, etc.

Bank of Credit Union website looks a lot more like Quicken.

Zecco

Free stock trading coupled with Web 2.0 community.

Demo'd buying one share of VISA. Fast execution (less than 1 second). $2500 limit, 10 trades a month. After that $4.50. There has always been a strong financial community online. But how do you know about community members own investment success? Users can share their  Zecco portfolio performance (e.g. up 30%) so that you know how much you want to value their opinion. For instance, lets say you question your recent VISA transaction. Look on Zecco to see who else is trading VISA. You can view their profiles - showing holdings, performance, trade history, etc. Users can annotate trades and share their notes with others. Zecco integrates Motley Fool ratings. Like other Web 2.0 sties you can make "friends" so you can track activity of other investors. You can also communicate directly with other members via email or via real time chat. Can post on their wall (e.g. Facebook). Join a group, etc.

Zecco community sentiment metric: Bear vs. Bull based on amount of buying and selling. Most held vs. leas held, worse performing portfolios, better performing. See sentiment trend over time.

Guard ID 

Product is called ID Vault. It is a small device with smart chip that securely stores login credentials for financial institutions, e-commerce sites, online news services, etc. Select financial institution and enter IDVault PIN. Utilize GuardID network to track financial institution websites and determine that consumer is connecting to actual IP address associated with the bank.

Once logged into bank website, not using Internet Explorer. Instead using private browser "SecureView" without any plug-ins. No need to enter URL. Also protects from Phishing by preventing login to bogus sites. But what if you lose your IDVault and it comes into the wrong hands. If guest PIN wrong three times IDVault is locked.

Sold via BestBuy and other consumer outlets - 150K units sold so far.

VaultStreet

Allow FI to save money by eliminating printing and mailing of paper statements, bills, and other documents. Why are so many financial documents still being printed in mailed when banks are trying so hard to truncate paper. For consumers, electronic is more time consuming and frustrating than current paper process.

Automatically collect and organize documents. No scanning. No need for consumer to click and download from multiple sites. Securely share documents with trusted advisors; ability to revoke sharing at a future date as necessary.

Secure login, then collects historical documents from consumer's financial institution.

File cabinet to manage documents. List by financial institution and account. User never has to enter data - VaultStreet downloads from financial institution and automatically tags with metadata (FI, account, time period, document type, etc.). User can modify metadata if necessary to correct.

Authenticates documents (easy to modify electronic documents).

Cake Financial

Consumer investment - help nearly 90 million American investors who currently spend #150 billion to have someone else manage their investments. 3 key take aways:

1) See everything in one place. Proprietary aggregation platform. Link unlimited number of investment accounts, including up to 10 years of transactional history. Calculate daily. monthly, YTD, and average annual return. Takes minutes, is free, and you don't have to move your assets. See your gain/risk on individual holdings, plus over all aggregate. Get ranked vis a vis other people to see your ranking.

2) Community with credibility. See overview of all activity in my network (friends, family, people I trust). Facebook news feed on your investment. You don't have to visit site. Email them to you or available on Facebook. View someone else's profile. See graph of how your performance is doing against his (graphed over time). See his metrics vs. ours.See all his positions - when purchased, how much, how it fits in his portfolios. Can see his recent journal postings. And can tie transaction history to his opinions posted in community. Look up VISA - see who is buying, activity metrics.

3) Cake Take - one consolidated metric to show

SmartHippo

Let's you leverage power of community to save money and make better decisions when shopping for financial services. First vertical: mortgages.

No adds, no sponsored links. Does not sell your personal data. Rate database based on information from banks on a daily basis. Consumers can post the rates they have received on their loans. As a user you can sort by rate, consumer rating, pricing, mortgage term, etc.

Show rate data that matches your specific financial profile - not just teaser rates. See rates based on your info and what people like you have received in the past.

Consumers can rate banks, based on user experience and other

Banks would like to post local rates. Loan officers would like to have a blog (but would take months to get thru bank legal and marketing departments). Bank can monitor user comments/reactions on their brand (get alerts). Can reply to specific comments.

Mint

Mint was launched 7 months ago. Leader in online personal financial applications. 2  min to setup, alert via email or SMS if their are any issues with your account. Looks cool compared to bank sites and other personal financial software.

Updates since Mint was last demo'd at Finnovate (October 2007)

World's easiest budgeting system. Compare average spend vs. national average.

Patent-pending categorization has been improved.

SpendSpace - see spending across time, compare against people in your community, other locations. For example, in San Francisco, people spend an average of $30 a month on coffee. $35 in Seattle.

Business model is to help users spend less and save more. Recommend financial products and services. For example, move money in checking account to and eTrade account and earn up to $ per year.

12% click thru rate for Mint advertisers

Moving into mortgages and student loans, offering coupons based on spend.

Mint now supports not just balances but investment portfolio across various brokerage accounts. See whole portfolio. See individual accounts and holdings. Expose all the fees that your brokerage is charging you (Not just commissions - account closings, etc.)

GreenNote

Preview of a new service that will be launching in June.

Student loan service. Tuition fees rapidly increasing. Credit turmoil is making it harder for students, with limited credit history. Help students get low cost loans from friends and family. Formalize the loan and get funds to the school.

Social networking component - Pledge Process - to reach out to friends and family and request loans. Register and build your profile. Share activities, why worthy of a loan. Then enter email addresses and contact info for potential lenders to send link to web page. Student can use template or customize look and feel. Borrower dashboard to see status of loan, who has committed, who has funded.

Potential lender receives email, can click to view profile, three choices pledge, remind me, cannot help. Lender registers to create a GreenNote account. Sees progress against students goal.

Later, provide confidential info to formalize loan. GreenNote creates documentation and facilitates loan process. [Unclear whether GreenNote facilitates the subsequent payback of the loans or not.]

Closed pilot working with a number of schools. Not evaluating student's credit. Only helping them to connect with people they already know. Saving 500, 600 basis points vs. private loans available in the industry. Encourage students to first get grants and federal student loans, then use GreenNote to access funding from friends and family.

Motley Fool CAPS

CAPS is first and foremost about community generated stock ratings. Includes analyst data from 200 brokerage and portfolio managers. 6000 rated stocks. Average 5 star CAPS have rated stocks returned 30% over the last 6 years.

Similar to CAKE you can track friends and their portfolio, track specific stocks, etc.

CAPS makes daily stock recommendations personalized for you based on your preferences, your portfolio,

Drill down by company to see detailed financial data and recommendations.

Stock Screener that enables combination of community sentiment and fundamental financial research metrics.

Find new stocks, validate stocks you already hold. Integrate with website, etc.

That concludes the morning session... off to the exhibit hall to learn more.

More coverage:

• Intro
• Afternoon Session
• Best of Show
• Observations & Trends [coming soon]

Live Blogging from Finnovate Startup

I am live blogging from Finnovate Startup in San Francisco. Jim Bruene and his team at NetBanker have gathered 40 startups, rebrandings, and company debuts in online banking and finance. Each participant has a brief 5 minutes to demo their product so I’ll be typing as fast as I can.

• Morning Session
• Afternoon Session
• Best of Show
• Observations & Trends [coming soon]

VENDORS REPRESENTED

The 40 leading startups that will present are as follows (grouped by industry niche):

Checking/savings:

• Andera
• First ROI
• SmartyPig

Financial shopping/comparison:

• Credit Karma
• FindABetterBank
• SmartHippo
• SimpleTuition

Investing/asset management:

• Boulevard R.
• Cake Financial
• CAPS (Motley Fool)
• SocialPicks
• TradeKing
• Vestopia
• Zecco

Lending/credit:

• Lending Club
• Loanio
• Prosper
• Wonga

Mobile banking/payments:

• Aradiom
• ClairMail
• Diversinet
• Tyfone

Personal financial management:

• Buxfer
• Expensr
• Jwaala
• Mint
• Wesabe

Security:

• Authentium