We're live at Finovate 2009, coming from the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York. Looks like we have a big audience here today, too, which no doubt will please organisers Jim Bruene and Eric Mattson of Netbanker.
The first session consisting of 8 live demos is due to kick off in just under 15 minutes; first up will be Ryan Alfred of Brightscope, a 40k data analytics company. Will we start to see propositions like this in the UK if Personal Accounts ever get out of the door?
Hall is filling up now, with just 5 minutes to go...
And here we go. Jim's onstage introducing the event, and plugging the live twitter stream. Plenty of twitter users already in action...
Ryan Alfred's up to demo BrightScope. Nice looking UI, gets to the meta very quickly, showing a 401k participant how their plan rates against the best & worst in the peer group, quantifying this in terms of dollars potentially lost or extra years needed to work before retirement
They've rated around 50% of all 401k plans, and have a userupload facility for the five documents needed to create a rating. Ratings take around 2 weeks to produce, and it's all free! BrightScope makes money from plan sponsors by providing them with tools to assess their 401k offering.
Sponsors & Advisers can use a Plan Management Dashboard, with TERs and revenue sharing analysis, and a Plan Cost Comparison against the 401k market. Sponsors can build custom peer groups for benchmarking purposes, and create reports for quarterly investment meetings.
Today, BrightScope launches a new module for Plan Advisors. Advisors can search through over 700,00 plans for prospecting purposes, identifying the sponsors who need specialist help.
Next up is Michael Ferraris of SmartyPig, based in Iowa. Smartypigs is a leader in web 2.0 banking, and is "like an online piggybank" which allows you to save for everyday financial goals.
SmartyPig launched at Finovate 2008, and has become popular due to competitive interest rates and goal sharing with friends & family.
Now demoing redemption options, essentially gift and debit cards from SmartyPig's partners. SmartyPig can be shared via Twitter & Facebook, so that any time funds are saved towards a goal, a note is posted to your social media accounts!
There's also a Public Page where people can review how you're doing against goals and contribute themselves! I like that, but wonder who amongst my friends wants to help me pay for next year's holiday?! Any volunteers?
SmartyPig now launching customised widgets, with great "Feed Me" buttons! Very clickable!
Well done, SmartyPig, but now it's Thomas Shelton's turn...
People Capital - "the way education finance should work". It measures the value of an education in pure financial terms for its inbuilt lending platform.
Looks like a peer-to-peer lending platform for lending to students, with lending criteria being based on future income projections. Interesting concept.
Thomas is demonstrating "autobid", essentially filtering search criteria to find the type of student you want to lend to, based not just on credit risk, but which college a student is attending, expected graduation date, courses being taken etc.
Once a student matches a set of criteria, People Capital automatically bids for the loan business.
Human Capital Score looks very clever, showing 1o year income projections based on different undergraduate scenarios.
MShift are next onstage. Scott & Jeff's product is the "grandfather" of the mobile banking platform world, having been around since 2000. But, Jeff's not here to talk mobile banking...
...instead we're going to see deposit-making via mobile phone. All you need is 2 megapixel camera on your phone and a dataplan to access a secure email application which sends images of checks to your bank. Once sent, MShift validates the cheque using a 3rd party service.
Two-stage process is a bit clunky, but kudos to the guys for live demoing on a Palm Pre.
Field research indicates people would be happy to pay for this service: it's a "compelling" service which is driving take-up of mobile banking for MShift's clients.
MShift also offer a mobile gift card, and airline ticketing/ boarding pass presentation.
Backbase, from San Francisco, are on next. Jouk and David "help customers in financial services to optimise channels". Backbase "revolutionises" the way consumers interact with their providers online; the "next generation portal"
Feels like Jouk is playing buzzword bingo with us.
Banking platform is widgetised, a bit like iGoogle. Reminds me of iThryv's product from Finovate Startup 2009; but I think iThryv looked slicker!
Not exactly bowled over by Backbase. Allowing users to personalise their banking experience doesn't feel ground-breaking any more.
Firethorn are up next; hope they are a bit more exciting! Cullen & Fred are here to present their mobile banking application.
Today, they are announcing three new mobile banking products to drive consumer adoption. Mobile enrolment is first...
Demoing an iPhone app that can be customised on a provider to provider basis.
User don't have to be enrolled for internet banking to use the mobile enrolment service; like that. Whoops, having trouble entering a PIN - damn iPhone keyboard!
Second new product: peer-to-peer payments, the next key driver for user adoption according to Firethorn's research.
Third capability, provider payments - a consolidated view of payments due and the ability to make the payments from one place.
Very slick demo, Firethorn
Home Account are next. Mark & Missy want to create the kayak.com of mortgages.
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