Finovate Day 1 Afternoon Recap and Ratings

Bank Innovation attended Finovate Spring 2013 in San Francisco and rated all the presenters. Here’s the second half of Day 1’s presenters.

SESSION 3
Corduro

Corduro introduced a cloud-based multichannel transaction engine called PayMobile. The mobile wallet solution works with cards but is designed for the smartphone. On the other end of the transaction, Corduro Register allows individuals or businesses to accept payments for multiple vendors. The point-of-sale software allows for commerce on the go.

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 4

Banno  

Banno, known for its sharp-dressed team and the powerful predictive tools of its flagship software Grip, launched Kernel, a marketing engine that shows customers contextual offers across channels and provides analytics for FIs to track campaigns and users. Kernel uses rich data for lead generation, cross-selling and revenue building in an environment where most users are just checking balances and paying bills.

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 4
Revenue Potential: 4

Virtual Piggy     

Virtual Piggy showcased a mobile wallet for safe online purchases for minors. It is a family wallet that parents can control and monitor. Over 70% of American high schoolers carry a smartphone, CEO JO Webber told crowd. The updated app allows for pre-loading purchases, scanning barcodes at the point-of-sale, and offers delivered in real time based on location. Relatives can contribute to the funds in the account. The software integrates with existing payment rails.

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 4
Revenue Potential: 3

Internet Biometric Security Systems     

Forget two-factor authentication, an three-factor as well. IBSS introduced four-factor authentication. Its software uses biometric data — facial and voice recognition, or a combination of the two — for login. The company also introduced IBSSmail, a biometrically secure email channel for FIs to use for sensitive communications such as loan applications. The presentation was not as polished as it might have been.

Cool Factor: 3
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 3

Moven

Moven is solving for Gen Y money anxiety, according to president Alex Sion. Aiming to eliminate overdraft fees and preclude the need for budgeting tools, which mostly go unused, Moven offers a simple path to financial wellness: MoneyPulse, MoneyPath and Spending Assistant.  Simplifying customers’ relationship to money is Moven’s goal. The company gets major props for stepping up and presenting early after another presenter experienced technical difficulties.

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 5
Revenue Potential: 2

TSYS     

TSYS presented a system for managing multiple deployed cards, either to employees or family members. Cards are misused and lost by both groups, unfortunately, so what happens then? TSYS demonstrated replacing deployed cards for a child via the mobile device, and used live FaceTime during the presentation: nice!

Cool Factor: 3
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 3

Better ATM Services     

Linking the growing prepaid market ($700 billion) with the world’s huge ATM network, Better ATM Services is issuing prepaid card straight from the ATM machine. The only added hardware is a small piece of plastic smaller than a card itself that presumably writes to the mag stripe. The service is live now with Discover. Use a card to get a card instead of cash? Intriguing.

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 2
Revenue Potential: 3

Realty Mogul    

Crowdfunding for the purchase of real estate  is RealthyMogul’s game. The service launched 2 months ago for accredited investors – meaning people who can verify income at a certain level. While the company and all crowdsourcing businesses are waiting for JOBS Act to be finalized to learn what implications it holds, RealtyMogul is charging ahead and providing rich data info on properties to investors. It allows for in-app document signing, an underappreciated feature.

Cool Factor: 3
I Want It: 2
Revenue Potential: 4

GoBank (by Green Dot)               

Scheduled to open its doors on July 4, Independence Day, GoBank aims to give back financial independence to customers. It uses the cute but gimmicky Fortune Teller to provide guidance eon purchases, allows users to pay what they like, P2P, and slide for balance. The company announced an ambitious marketing plan, partnering with retailers and even TV shows to spread the word. GoBank has a laser-like focus on perfecting the checking account, and is holding off on mobile wallets, but can a direct bank afford to wait on mobile wallet? Well, we’ve waited this long.

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 5
Revenue Potential: 2

SESSION 4

Expensify

Expensify makes expense reports that don’t suck, the company says. Did you know that receipts, itineraries and expense reports are the same thing? Invoices and expense reports are also the same thing. And bills and invoices are the same thing. In other words, Expensify is moving horizontally into invoicing and bill payment. Expensify already counts 1.5 million users and 200,000 companies.

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 4

Escardgot

More hardware hit the stage with Escardgot, who promised a solution to mobile wallet woes. Escardgot uses Bluetooth to pair cards with mobile devices to move data. Its HelixS physical card can be loaded with multiple cards, reminiscent of Wallaby. But will its HelixS app turn into a mobile wallet when the time comes, or is Escardgot tied to the physical card?

Cool Factor: 2
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 4

MoneyDesktop               

Perennial Finovate winners MoneyDesktop showed off another impressive offering with its updated app. Insight and Target are analytics and marketing tools to provide a complete view of the customer and present him with contextual offers. As always, MoneyDesktop’s design is beautiful to see. But will users suffer banner blindness even in a beautiful online banking experience?

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 4
Revenue Potential: 4

Trusted Knight 

Trusted Knight highlighted the problem first – crimeware – then offered the solution. The software protects against browser-based attacks such as keylogging. It was hard to get a sense of how effective it is without more in-depth knowledge, but it was easy to install and was done in real time. But are FIs going to ask customers to install software on their personal machines? Hard to see that happening. The company got gonged, or rather, gently chimed. This is California, after all.

Cool Factor: 2
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 3

Braintree/Venmo          

Venmo co-founder Andre Cortina launched into a Glengarry Glen Ross homage, then gave a very brief presentation of Venmo Touch, a service that remembers card details across all Braintree-powered apps, such as Uber and Airbnb. Venmo’s social P2P app is known and loved across the industry. Now the company wants to reduce friction for all purchases on your phone. Kortina offered $5 for Best in Show votes – to be delivered via Venmo, of course.

Cool Factor: 4
I Want It: 4
Revenue Potential: 3

Jemstep

Jemstep provides 401K tools for the average investor at what it says is 1/10 the cost of a live advisor. The software offers an action plan – buy this, sell that — and an explanation of why these moves are necessary to optimize your portfolio. The Portfolio Manager platform tracks the portfolio’s performance and offers guidance along the way. Portfolio Manager launched in early 2013.

Cool Factor: 2
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 3

CardFlight

CardFlight is another payment dongle company. No, it’s not another payment dongle company. Its open platform provides developers with a dongle and a few lines of code for the easy creation of mobile payment acceptance packages for merchants. The software supports most major payment processors and incorporates card-present payment handling into the mobile app environment. After all, most transactions still happen offline.

Cool Factor: 3
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 3

FamZoo               

Justin Bieber music opened the presentation, but despite the Bieb’s much-panned prepaid card, FamZoo is about teaching kids good money habits. Its prepaid card for teens is part of a family of prepaid cards on the Transcard platform. Parents can send money to kids’s cards from their own cards, and create incentives like paying interest to kids. The kids’ card can get dinged for failing to do chores. Financial disincentive – nice touch. But are the fees better than the Bieb’s?

Cool Factor: 3
I Want It: 4
Revenue Potential: 3

InvoiceASAP

InvoiceASAP closed the day with its cloud-based mobile invoicing system. It also syncs with Intuit’s QuickBooks, which was mentioned on stage five or six times by various presenters. Merchants can attach photos, signatures and richer info than paper invoices allow. Merchants can accept credit cards, checks and cash with InvoiceASAP, which announced its partnership with capital One’s SparkPay and Zebra Printers, which prints receipts off the mobile device – a super-printing dongle.

Cool Factor: 3
I Want It: 3
Revenue Potential: 3

Afternoon Winners: MoneyDesktop, Banno