3 Startups to Watch: FrankMoney, Text a Loan, TravelersBox

This week’s Startups to Watch help solve three consumer problems: seeing how donations get used, getting loans fast, and ditching pesky foreign currency right at the airport.

• Frank Money  – Frank Money is a public-facing transparent ledger that plugs in to charities’ bank accounts in order to provide donors and contributors with the ability to see in real time how exactly a project is spending their money, and therefore be able to measure their participation. What with all the recent scrutiny of nonprofit organizations’ spending habits in the press, we think that the implementation of this service nationwide would be a great thing. We’re anxiously awaiting Frank Money for Governments.
• Text a Loan  – This service gives consumers exactly what it says on the tin. By texting the company, based in the UK, the consumer can take out a small, short-term loan, usually of 100-500 pounds, in minutes. Text a Loan’s website points out that their loans are ideal to “cover small and often unexpected expenses like car breakdown or household repairs…[or]  times when you have spent all of your salary and still have few days to get your paycheck.” We all know how many young people live paycheck to paycheck these days worldwide, so Text a Loan is filling a huge need across the pond.
• TravelersBox  – Let’s face it: no one wants to deal with foreign currency leftovers after a trip. The founders of TravelersBox hope to solve the problem by simplifying the complex transaction of money changing. TravelersBoxes, which resemble ATM machines, reside at airports. You dump your foreign currency in, and choose either convert it back to dollars, put it into PayPal or Skype accounts, or Starbucks cards, or donate to charity. The company is based in Turkey, and already has 45 airport kiosks in the Middle East, growing to more than 200 by the end of this year. Keep an eye out for these!