William Mills Agency will be live blogging at FinovateSpring 2017. Check back for new updates throughout the day.

09:12 pm

FinovateSpring 2017 Day 1 Recap Video

06:32 pm

Well, folks, it’s time to do the video recap and visit the exhibit stands with all these cool technologies. Please check back later today and we will be live blogging tomorrow morning at 8:45am PST/11:45am EST.

William

06:29 pm

Onist

@onistplatform

www.onist.com

“Customer centric oriented financial solutions” “Why do we still have banking in silos? Only the very wealthy can afford a family office. We are the only consumer-centric solution for give these benefits to anyone.” Creating a virtual family office.

If you are not up on family offices as investment vehicles it’s a HOT area. The WALL STREET JOURNAL did a story recently about their growth. We have at least one, if not two that are funded by a handful of family offices. This is their official company launch.

Again, another great UI via Chrome browser. I think this company is fairly small (perhaps less than 12 employees) but I suspect they are primed for a round of Series A funding as their product looks pretty well built out. Good job.

^William

A virtual family office, for the rest of us. Onist asks: why shouldn’t all investors benefit from the collaboration and resources that are hallmarks of the family office? The platform seems to be a comprehensive platform. I do have some questions about who they are really targeting. Who is going to benefit, and will they invest the time and energy to pull the data together to fuel the analyses? ^SR

06:21 pm

Insto

@InstoUS

www.ins.to

I searched the web and found this from December: “Introducing @InstoUS – the first app that lets you buy or sell pretty much anything in installments https://tnw.to/2hybfkg via @thenextweb” I’m guessing it’s like letting folks buy stuff on eBay or Craigslist with a payment plan but we will see. Showing good, clean mobile interface. I swear, every demo seems to have a browser-based dashboard and a mobile phone user interface. I haven’t seen it here yet with Insto but I bet it’s coming.

Now showing screen for installment payments vs. recurring payments. Again, another awesome user interface. I’m really glad Insto and most of these companies are investing in the customer experience as a key component of their products. It wasn’t always this way.

I remember hearing my friend Richard Crone speaking about what consumers want: “Anything. Anytime. Anywhere.” I think with the power of mobile and SAAS we are almost at that point for whatever someone wants to buy, sell, pay or finance.
^William

Person-to-person installment payments. I think this is a very interesting idea for platforms like eBay. Curious to hear how they address the issue of creditworthiness. You can set up installment payments, and the transfer of funds is payment agnostic. Insto provides a guarantee of up to ,000. So that creates some peace of mind for sellers. Insto launched last December, and has first bank partnership launching in May 2017. ^SR

06:14 pm

RFM

“In business, corporate banking for more than 20 years.” It looks like they are getting ready to show their RFM Commercial Credit Interface. “Left the bank and started this company to solve the problems corporate bankers face.” Based in Australia with an office in Silicon Valley. Interesting browser-based UI, nice graphics, it looks pretty complex but functional. It really has a different “look” than other UI’s. Now showing how their AI recognizes an abnormally high credit utilization.

Portfolio management has alway been complex. I used to visit the offices of portfolio managers and they had so many screens it looked like a NASA moon shot control center.

From their web site: RFM is a joint subsidiary of two companies, Q-Risk Strategies and Quantellia, each of which is recognized as a leader in its respective field. Q-Risk is a highly respected provider of risk advisory services to financial institutions primarily in the Asia-Pacific region.

www.theriskframework.com  ^William

RFM provides tools to support commercial lending. The platform includes machine learning to surface alerts about the portfolio. For example, an alert in the demo showed that loan utilization was higher than normal for certain loans. ^SR

06:07 pm

HotDocs

@HotDocsGroup

www.hotdocs.com

9,000 customers world wide with 4 of the top 5 banks. Why don’t I know these folks? I suspect the big banks do NOT want to talk about how they are using HotDocs. This is one of the few companies here that have their own Wikipedia page.

“HotDocs – Automated Document Assembly” – showing a demo of an almost instant document creation function for a bank using templates. Faster client docs with less errors. Showing the MS Word document template and what a bank employee can edit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HotDocs

They have been in business a long time and I believe were started in Utah. Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s Utah was hotspot for consumer tech with Novell and WordPerfect among the “players” in the space. Very good demo.
^William

HotDocs has document assembly software. The benefits are error-free documents and shorter time to complete. However, what is totally missing for me, is how this content gets personalized, Seems to me a way to create generic documents that no one will ever want to read. Please, please, please can we think about the customer experience? Who wants to be on the receiving end of these documents? ^SR

06:00 pm

cyberProductivity

@cybProductivity

www.cyberproductivity.com

Showing browser-based dashboard of their technology. Boy, everything is SAAS now. I should have been a computer coder when I was in college.

These folks seem really sharp and comfortable about what they have to offer. This is a VERY international Finovate. I can’t remember a Finovate with so many demos from companies that originated from Europe and other places around the globe. It looks like they started in Poland and now have offices in Palo Alto, CA.

From their web site: Get real-time automated accounting in your bank – We enable real-time booking, fully automated reconciliations, semantic cost categorization backed with sophisticated AI accounting rules. We offer Small & Medium Businesses daily information for management, with a special focus on cashflow projections and management.

Good use of humor in the demo. Good job. ^William
CybProductivity is doing a joint demo with their customer, MBank. (In my opinion, MBank is one of the most innovative banks in the world.) This solution is geared toward making invoicing and payments simple for small business. The UI is simple, you could see that it would be effective on a mobile device, particularly a tablet. The platform analyzes banking and transaction data to alert the user to potential cash flow issues. This integration of accounting services and payments is a powerful combination. I see this as a better fit for small companies, and companies that have plain vanilla accounting needs and standard bookkeeping systems. ^SR

05:53 pm

AccountScore

@AccountScore

www.accountscore.com

I think these folks are based in London. I THINK they want to replace the traditional credit score in the U.S., and perhaps world wide. I’m interested in hearing how they want to try to do this; it would be a huge challenge. “We are here launching our business here in the U.S.” “The U.K. launch was very successful.” Now showing how a customer would log into their system. “Select your bank, enter your online banking credentials, Yodlee passes us the raw data and it is presented back to you via our dashboard (browser-based)” Showing TONS of transactions; looks like personal payments and debts. Very nice dashboard.

I’ve worked with the credit bureaus on and off for most of my career. I applaud what they are trying to do but if they want to try to replace the U.S. credit score it’s going to be a big challenge. If I were them I’d target SMB’s instead of consumers as often a small business’s credit is really the owner’s credit quality.

Great demo; great job. Congrats.

05:46 pm

CallVu –

“CallVU, offers an innovative Digital Engagement and BOT platform blending rich digital and interactive media with the web, voice and social channels. “

I’m having a hard time hearing the speakers; there seems to be static on the wireless mikes. They are showing the mobile end user view of the app. I think there are a lot of multichannel companies but it looks like CallVu might be further along with their product than other companies.

From Crunchbase: Total Equity Funding

M in 2 Rounds from 5 Investors

Most Recent Funding
M Venture on January 1, 2016
Headquarters: Ra’anana, HaMerkaz

Description:When calling customer-care, CallVU automatically opens a visual layer on the phone’s screen. Everything you hear, you now see.

Founders: Roee Halfon, Ziv Orr, Doron Rotsztein, Ori Faran

Categories:
Data Visualization, Customer Service

Website:  www.callvu.com  ^William

05:38 pm

Leondrino Exchange

www.leondrino.com

@LeondrinoNews

Currency management for their customers. Improve customer retention. Now showing their wallet. Now this is kind of interesting. It’s an AWESOME UI but what’s different is that while lots of companies have mobile wallets this seems to be a mobile wallet designed INTERNATIONAL FIRST.

The graphical interface is so good it’s hard to tell if it’s an app or browser based. I’m betting it’s browser-based. Really slick. While this is something I may never use I’m very impressed with their demo.

From their web site: Leondrino Exchange, Inc., located in New York, introduces a new type of branded virtual currencies, called Leondrino, that are related to the current and future business of global brands.

With its LEX Platform, Leondrino Exchange combines all tools and services necessary to manage the life cycle of both loyalty points and Leondrino Currencies and to meet the requirements of safety, privacy, security and regulation. The LEX Platform provides a valuable foundation for data-based business models in several industries, e.g. Financial Services, Entertainment, Energy, Transportation and Healthcare.

^William

Money isn’t what it used to be. Leondrino has created a whole new way of exchanging value. They are creating private virtual currencies. These are linked to well-known global brands. ^SR

05:31 pm

Getting ready to start more demos. WM

05:02 pm

Well, it’s time for a break before our last demo series for today, then the exhibit hall and our end of day video report. Check back in 30 minutes. See you then!

William

05:00 pm

Spacequant

@spacequant

www.spacequant.com

Sales pitch: Can underwrite a small property in minutes instead of weeks. Automatically extracts and sort data, analyzes the data to provide real-times assessment of property value and risk. Bank only needs to review and confirm. Comments on top of financials shows any inconsistencies found in the data. Along with highlighted in the document. Bank Analysts can review and instantly see the discrepancy and make an adjustment. Also provides alternative data and hyper local data like foot traffic, or number of job openings around the location. That’s pretty interesting. Alls data can export data into bank systems. ^KT

SpaceQuant describes their value as a solution that combines automation, data, and AI. They are part of the trend focused on extracting data from multiple sources, and trying to integrate it simply. The demo was about underwriting of a property loan in a local market. ^SR

04:53 pm

ThreatMetrix

• @ThreatMetrix
• www.threatmetrix.com

Authentication in a mobile first world. Able to authenticate by looking at device, location, environment, biometrics, integrity, behavior, etc. Demo: showing one phone that has been jailbroken but app integrity is okay. The system detects and blocks biometrics but allows for username and password to accommodate and secure the account.

From their site: ThreatMetrix®, The Digital Identity Company™, is the market-leading cloud solution for authenticating digital personas and transactions on the Internet. Verifying more than 20 billion annual transactions supporting 30,000 websites and 4,500 customers globally through the ThreatMetrix® Digital Identity Network, ThreatMetrix secures businesses and end users against account takeover, payment fraud and fraudulent account registrations resulting from malware and data breaches. Key benefits include an improved customer experience, reduced friction, revenue gain and lower fraud and operational costs. The ThreatMetrix solution is deployed across a variety of industries, including financial services, e-commerce, payments and lending, media, government and insurance.

^KT

Cyber security and threat detection is very popular at Finovate this year. ThreatMetrix is focused on security on a mobile device. What’s interesting is even if you successfully login, but you are flagged as high risk, they more closely monitor your activity in the session. Different levels of trust result in different levels of authentication. As more banking migrates to mobile, assessing the safety of the device is more important than ever. Cyber security, fraud, and authentication all integrated in one platform. ^SR

04:46 pm

Flybits

@FlybitsInc
www.flybits.com

Personalized experiences are certainly key to differentiation, particularly in wealth management and financial services. Flybits is a platform for creating these experiences, with a visual workbench that enables you to build these experiences on the fly, and without writing code.

SaaS for banks to provide personalized experience to customers. Device based activity to provide a personalized experience on customers.

Such as addressing needs of business traveler at the airport who does not have travel insurance. Can provide personalized insurance policies on their device. Or if someone is walking past a branch, invite them in via their device to discuss mortgages if you have a special going.

Can build these experiences visually without writing a line of code. Can build off modules like activity such as walking, tap into their calendar, account balance, etc.

I am sure this is industry standard technology but I am a little unnerved by the ability to capitalize on data like walking or location. However, it would be a VERY powerful marketing tool to Banks. ^KT

04:39 pm

Ellie Mae

• @EllieMaeInc
• www.elliemae.com

Ellie Mae now sees themselves as a fintech company. OK, but have they transformed their business model so that they operate that way? A strong step in the right direction is the fact that Ellie Mae has deployed numerous APIs to make their technology available to the industry. They have created an integration with Alexa voice platform, just as a demo of what they can do to enable customer experiences. This is one I’ll have to take a closer look at. Very good story, let’s look under the hood. ^SR

Demo: Streamlining application process for lending by pulling in information from their bank. Speeding up the process for the borrower and reducing errors. In the borrower portal, they can upload docs, check for status, and sign forms. Looks like they are integrated with DocuSign for the signature section. Ellie Mae provides 14 different products to help lenders improve the borrower experience. 
Demo using Alexa, the first of the show, we thought it may be coming soon. Using Alexa to login to lending platforms and find out current rates. Real language risk and responsive. ^KT

04:32 pm

Voleo

@MyVoleo

www.voleousa.com

Voleo bills itself as a social trading app. They’re perspective: Investing in public companies should be fun (and profitable). This brings the neighborhood investing club into the digital age. Investors have banded together in investment clubs for years. To my knowledge, this has always been pretty niche. Will a digital transformation make stock clubs more popular? Voleo says yes. I say, probably not. Investing is not about fun, it’s about building wealth for today and the long run. I think the pain of financial loss is real. In my humble opinion, investing shouldn’t be a game. One target audience they mention is Millennials. I’d like to see more advice in the process, not crowdsourcing or the blind leading the blind. ^SR

Voleo is a social trading app. Voleo breaks down barriers to “make investing fun.” Democratic majority sends the trades to market. Targeting a younger demographic so you can make buying decisions with peers. As a millennial, I am just entering the trading space now, this could be an interesting choice for me but I am not sold yet. As Steven references above, investing isn’t a game.

From the website: Voleo is a social trading app that provides a new, more convenient, and engaging way to invest -together.

– Form an investment club and invite partners
– Combine your funds and expertise
– Propose, discuss, and vote on trades
– Collaboratively manage your portfolio
– Follow and learn from other groups

^KT

04:24 pm

ID.me

• @IDme
• www.ID.me

Named the most disruptive company in payments. Identity gateway that solves the problem of remembering hundreds of username and passwords across all of your sites. The ID.me wallet allows login from a variety of accounts (Google, PayPal, etc.) which pulls the initial information, creates a profile to add additional information like uploading your license. Once you fill this out once, the user doesn’t need to fill out again whether they are logging into the VA or a financial services company.

ID.me can be used to outsource log-in and identity compliance. ^KT

ID.me has created a digital identity profile and it is live with various U.S. government agencies. They want to extend this identity to financial institions. ^SR

04:17 pm

GoodData

@gooddata

www.gooddata.com

Many data projects fail to deliver value and GoodData wants to do something about it. Our team at Beyond the Arc have first-hand expertise in using data in fintech and financial services, and we have helped clients with that challenge. Often the missing piece is linking insight to action. GoodData is trying to tie specific learnings to the workflow of specific employees. Their application integrates with Salesforce. (This kind of CRM integration is one of the trends starting to emerge from this year’s Finovate in San Jose.)^SR

Demo: Using salesforce. (A Lot of salesforce demos today.)

Demo, “Tom” is selling insurance products like user based auto insurance. Trying to convert people from a trial to full customers. So, he is looking in the campaign data in salesforce. When he goes to look at individual contact, GoodData provides insights about the contacts in salesforce. Data including profitability, churn risk, age, gender, driving score, etc.

Making powerful insights available to agents. – Actionable Analytics.

From their website: GoodData empowers your business to unleash the value of existing corporate data assets and investments by distributing high-impact targeted analytics to each member of your business network, such as remote locations, partners, and customers. With GoodData, each member of your business ecosystem can immediately begin making better-informed decisions that ultimately drive enhanced performance. ^KT

03:01 pm

Well, it’s time for lunch here in San Jose.  We will be back online at 1:00pm PST/4:00pm EST.  Be sure to check our end of day video recap. See you in less than an hour.

William

@williamemills

#finovate

02:57 pm

HEDG

• www.HEDG.fund

Their basic premise is that people don’t know much about the companies they invest in. As an investor, do you know the company’s policy on sustainability? Are you aware of upcoming changes to their business model? HEDG enables investors to create a personalized fund.

While this is certainly a convenient to create a portfolio, how does an investor assess if the portfolio is any good? For the level of risk, is the return acceptable? What about diversification? It is easy to lose money in the market, and to do it quickly. What protections, or support, is available to the users? ^SR

“HEDG built a digital investment platform that connects you with the best advisors in the world.”
Demo: new client, can customize their portfolio while also giving total control to remove sections. It’s a personalized fund. In the news feed, it becomes more personalized with news items about your portfolio as well as a social aspect with advisors. Can take a look at advisor profiles. Also built in messenger with the “HEDG assistant” to ask questions and learn more about advisors or products. ^KT

02:50 pm

SaleMove

• @SaleMove
• www.salemove.com

SaleMove wants to bring a human element to the online experience. OmniBrowse is one of their products, and it integrates with Salesforce. Very cool: actually see the co-browsing experience within the Salesforce CRM application. ^SR

I’ve seen these guys at Finovate before. “When it comes to financial services, the product is really the customer experience” Showing two platforms, omnibrowse and omniport.

Showing demo in Salesforce but can integrate with any CRM. When calling with a client you can see what the client is doing on the platform/site. Whoa. So without using something like gotomeeting to share the client’s screen. You can see his screen within salesforce and take over his screen and update it. Streamlines customer service. Nifty.

In Omniport, like Omnibrowse allows you to provide a skype like feature. Pop-up in screen without the user having to download something. Also, in the screen you can co-browse and walk through applications with your client.

Instead of “How May I Help You” Ask “Can I guide you through your application”

Great Job!!

^KT

02:43 pm

MapD

• @MapD
• www.mapd.com

MapD is focused on power computing, running big data queries on GPUs, computer chips originally created to meet the demands of processing graphics like full-motion video. It would be difficult to have an interactive visualization with 500 million rows of data. With MapD, this kind of dynamic, visual, interaction becomes possible.

This seems to be taking on Teradata, an IT powerhouse that has 20+ years of creating high-performance databases. MapD is offering a super fast SQL database. Interesting, as NoSQL and other data stores has led to a migration away from SQL. ^SR

MapD uses GPUs (previously used for video games) to provide “The world’s fastest SQL Database and Visual Analytics Platform.”

Can views records by merchant and seasonal revenue. Drag and drop functionality on the dashboard. Can view really granular by product/merchant/price, etc. For example, track the revenue for GoPro and we see that Amazon was a primary provider but now Best Buy is providing a higher amount of GoPro’s to consumers.

It also can forecast for the products. 
From Website: MapD is a next-generation database and visualization layer that harnesses the parallel power of GPUs to explore multi-billion row datasets in milliseconds.

By combining a purpose-built GPU database with a stunning visualization layer, MapD is able to deliver immersive, instantaneous analytics on data sets previously considered too large to explore interactively.

The speed and scope of MapD’s solutions enable organizations to compete more effectively, to solve more complex problems and to manage operational risk more comprehensively. ^KT

02:36 pm

Quantiacs

• @Quantiacs
• www.quantiacs.com

For many years, the quants have ruled Wall St. These folks, literally capable of being rocket scientists, have helped investment funds make billions. But, what if you’re an investor without an army of quantitative analysts? Quantiacs is creating a marketplace for investing algorithms. The creators of the algorithms can license their creations. Investors get access to the algorithms without paying hefty fees. But, are the buyers really able to vet the algorithm they are buying??? ^SR

Quantiacs demo – testing algorithm on 50 years of data on quants. Strategy can evaluate trading history and performance. Run all possible parameter combination for short or long periods in a 3D graph for the best possible outcome. If you are happy with an algorithm, you can submit it to quantiacs. If it does well, it can be made available to the marketplace.

Charges a 20% performance fee.

From their website: Quantiacs connects user generated quantitative trading algorithms to capital from institutional investors. We provide a free open source development platform in Matlab and Python and free historical stocks and futures data. ^KT

02:28 pm

MedPut

@mymedput

www.medput.com

MedPut offers an employee benefit related to the cost of unplanned medical expenses. Their offering provides 0% financing for major out of pocket expenses. As the recent news will tell you, the U.S. has some real issues in our healthcare system. MedPut has found a way to create a win-win for consumers, employers, and healthcare providers. ^SR

Oh a healthcare product, that’s different for Finovate. MedPut funds employee’s out-of-pocket medical expenses. Interest-free financing for employees. Demo: employee receives email to enroll which takes him to a dashboard to fill out the information.

From Website: MedPut™ provides immediate, low-cost financing for cash-based medical expenses. Employees get access to the care when they need it, and employers control their healthcare costs through a healthier workforce. Employers gain flexibility offering HDHPs to employees, potentially realizing thousands of dollars of health insurance premium savings per employee. ^KT

02:22 pm

Nanopay

@nano_Pay

www.nanopay.net

Cash made digital. That has my attention. Real-time transaction settlement in Canada, and part of the Fed’s Faster Payments initiative here in the U.S.. Today’s demo focuses on B2B and international payments. Nanopay enables the supplier to create an invoice online and send. On the recipient side, the invoice is received as a payment request. Payments can be made in a foreign currency, with automatic translation back into US Dollars. Payments are based on the “Good Funds” processing model. One key benefit is that you don’t have to exchange bank account information. This is faster and less costly than a wire transfer. ^SR

Digitizing cash itself. Demo in B2B and cross-border payments. Dashboard showing invoice from U.S. Based business to Canadian business where the latter can view expenses ledger. Not just a delivery of invoice but also a payment request. On the receiving side, it is as simple as clicking a Pay No button. Integrated into accounting system and moves in real-time. Can schedule payments for a later date as well. Alerts sent via email of payment notifications. DOn’t have to share your banking information between companies. Does not take 2-3 days to process but rather in results in real-time. ^KT

02:15 pm

DefenseStorm

• @DefenseStorm 
• www.defensestorm.com

Full disclosure, DefenseStorm is a client of William Mills Agency. Built a cloud data security solution for Financial Institutions. They find malicious activity and can prove to board and auditors that you are secure. Gathering intelligence around all the data to understand when something may need to be addressed.

Built in threat intelligence. Great dashboard for understanding alerts, threat intelligence sources, and more. Actively monitoring data, social media, while also providing reporting functionality.

Currently deployed on over 20+ banks and credit unions! Have already detected serious breaches that previous vendors did not.

From their site: DefenseStorm is a Security Data Platform that watches everything on your network and matches it to your policies, providing cybersecurity management that is safe, compliant and cost effective. Built from the ground up in the cloud, DefenseStorm unifies detection, investigation, reporting, and compliance into a single place to manage cybersecurity data. Formed by bankers and technology experts, DefenseStorm aggregates event data across all cybersecurity tools and links policies to real-time alerts, so that financial institutions can prove to regulators they are both secure and compliant with evolving FFIEC cybersecurity requirements.

#WMAClient

^KT

Your bank’s network is under constant attack from criminals all over the world. It isn’t always easy to know that you’ve been attacked. And perhaps more importantly, you can’t always say with certainty that you have NOT been breached. DefenseStorm provides important capabilities for cyber security. The platform is policy-based, which makes it easy to integrate within a broad bank compliance program. ^SR

02:08 pm

Eltropy

@eltropy_inc

www.eltropy.com

Content marketing has changed the nature of sales and marketing. “I want to be sold to”, said no one, ever. Clients want information to make good decisions. The Eltropy platform helps an FI to manage content as part of client relationship development. The content ties into a CRM sales system, with integration with Salesforce. The app makes a mobile device into a key link in the digital marketing process. Very compelling idea. I think this is a tool for the leaders in the space. ^SR

Demo: Marketing Manager at a bank, opens 2 folders with lines of business as the bank. Can put all content together in Eltropy and instead of e-mailing to sales team, they are automatically notified with all documents for their products marketing materials.

Now, demo where a Relationship Manager is discussing a new annuity product that they want to share with their client. Can use Eltropy to share info via email or text from the phone app.

Next, demo for the client and end user. They received the text about the new annuity product, what opens up on the link is content around the product including a video, brochure and they are also able to schedule a meeting with the relationship manager.

Relationship Manager can view all of the client’s activity.

Integrated with Salesforce where data populates. That is a good interface. This module in salesforce is very similar to HubSpot’s integration with Salesforce CRM. You Are able to see engagement status, urgency and next steps. ^KT

02:01 pm

Finicity

• @finicity
• www.finicity.com

Applying for a loan today is very similar to our parents. At Finicity, digitizing the lending process. Gathering data and insights to improve experience.

Demo is an online application through Acme lending. Acme Lending integrated with Finicty to gather data and documents. Created an institution certification program. Integration of data into existing LOS is in-band and can leverage the data in-line. Easy for consumer to add bank accounts to lending platform.

Finicity is a Consumer Reporting Agency.

Solution is live today. ^K.T.

01:54 pm

IBM Trusteer

• @IBMSecurity
• www.securityintelligence.com
• www.ibm.com/us-en/

IBM Trusteer help FI’s protect customers from fraud, but also provide a seamless experience to end-user. Using a cognitive approach. Detect and protect against phishing in real-time. Showing a phishing site as a test where the attacker is using an image to fool the user as well as a legitimate site where the audience can “spot the difference.”

Showing an email-phishing scam where IBM Trusteer can provide a pop-up security alert that tells the visitor that this is a false site. How are they providing this technology? What does the bank or customer need to do to put this in place?
Trusteer Dashboard can block an attacker in real time by the way they were interacting with the site and mouse movement across the pages. Trusteer is updating all logic of users in the back-end. ^K.T.

Nice to see IBM at Finovate. (Full disclosure, BTA is an IBM Business Partner). The Trusteer platform detects fraud with cognitive solutions. Their focus is on trying to help users with things like account phishing. Cognitive computing helps harness the power of machine learning to create smart algorithms that get better as they process more data. IBM has focused its attention on financial services and is bringing their multibillion investment in technology to this issue. ^SR

01:21 pm

I’m really surprised we have not seen more voice-based demos. We bought an Amazon Alexa to better understand it’s capabilities as SIRI is OK but not quite “there” yet.

It’s time for a short break so we are going to get some coffee.

^William

01:20 pm

Synapse Financial Technologies

@synapsepay

www.synapsepay.com

Sankaet Pathak (CEO & Founder) moved to the U.S. eight years ago. I’m having a little trouble understanding what they do and they are having some display technical issues. I’ll try to stop by their stand.

Showing how a user enters the unique personal data for new account enrollment. Now showing how the built-in computer camera to verify that a person is who they say they are.

From their web site: Banking for developers. Create FDIC insured accounts, send payments, manage compliance & mitigate risk all from one API.

From Crunchbase about the company:
SynapsePay builds banking software that includes developers that faces APIs for companies which builds financial products and banks that automates their back-end operations. It powers everything from rental and invoicing platforms to payment apps, crowdfunding sites, and currency exchanges. The products of the company are based on payments, risk mitigation, compliance, account creation and verification, and security. The banking partners of the company are Triumph and iBank.

SynapsePay is a U.S.-based company that was founded in 2014 by Bryan Keltner and Sankaet Pathak.
^William

Synapse helps to verify identity through a number of different means. Mobile app provides facial recognition, document confirmation, speech-to-text, and more. ^SR

01:15 pm

Capitalise

@CapitaliseTwitt
www.capitalise.ai

Starting with a good use of humor. “Virtual investment assistant” – is this personal robo advising? Showing a VERY clean, nice web UI on instructions on what an investor wants to invest in a very simple, easy to use way and making a “buy” instruction based on social media sentiment. Very interesting.

From their web site: Capitalise is the innovative and magical way that applies natural language to automate trade execution and portfolio management. Turn investment ideas into executable, back-tested and optimized strategies. Use any data source such as financial, social sentiment and even the weather to create your strategies. Based in Tel Aviv.

^William

Financial markets crave new sources of insights, information is arbitrage. Capitalise is helping investors to use social media analysis and sentiment analytics. You can identify trends, convert them into trading strategies, and execute. The largest hedge funds in the world have been using this tech for the last few years. Capitalise makes social analytics more widely available to investors, particularly retail investors. Now the functionality is there, I have to wonder if retail investors are ready for something like this. More importantly, should they employ these strategies based on social media? If social media can be manipulated in politics, are we enabling something that can lead to market manipulation? The company is offering their tech to banks, to help fuel robo-advisor offerings. ^SR

12:59 pm

Layer

@layer
www.layer.com

“People don’t want to use email or to talk on the phone, they want messaging for fast, instant communication via apps, on a mobile device, computer or any other device.” – I’m kind of paraphrasing here.

Now using an Apple MacBook-based Chrome browser for the demonstration of their platform. I visited their web site and it doesn’t look like they work with many FI’s (yet) http://layer.com/customers.

I agree messaging is going to become more and more important. What I’m interested in why this organization vs. Slack or something from Google or Microsoft?

From their web site: About Layer – Millions of messages are managed by Layer for businesses around the world every day.

Email is going the way of the dinosaur; slow, cumbersome, and due for extinction. Layer is focusing on mobile-based communications, a digital interaction platform. It combines SMS and digital messaging, across multiple message platforms, all brought together into one communication thread. A message doesn’t have to be a text, it could be something input in a mobile app. This is an innovative idea that can help provide an edge in customer relationship management. ^SR

12:53 pm

Tyro Payments

@tyro

www.tyro.com

“Smart growth funding” help businesses with their finances in order to grow. Showing mobile app with “smart account balance” with a balance due greater than the amount of money in the account to pay. Now a Loan offer comes up: “Congratulations, you have been approved to borrow up to ,000” – Fast, simple process for the loan. This is a great UI and looks very easy to use. My question is; what is the “back office” technology that makes this secure and correct. For example, you have read in the news about people falsifying loan information for quick loans for nefarious reasons. Now showing SIRI integration. This is our first voice demo of the day.

Folks, let me tell you voice integration is going to be BIG. If tech providers are not building it into their offerings they will be left behind.

Great job on the demo.

^William

Payments and banking for small business customers. Very nice integration and a strong value prop that emphasizes customer convenience. Take a closer look at this one! ^SR

12:45 pm

PayNearMe

@PayNearMe
www.prismmoney.com

I’m sure I’ve seen PayNearMe here before or at Finovate New York. If I remember they have pretty cool stuff. “Handle Financial” – good use of humor. They are changing their name to HANDLE? “We merged/acquired another company in the bill pay space (Prism Money) so we are taking the best of both companies and apps. Now showing their app on iPhone IOS. Showing simulated bank payment to a water utility. Clean simple UI, I’m going to have to check out their stand to get a better grasp of what makes “Handle” unique among the wide variety of players in this space.

These folks have a TON of VC for a FinTech company: Total Equity Funding .2M in 7 Rounds from 9 Investors.

^William

They have a new name, Handle, and business model focused around secure payments. The functionality is a result of last year’s merger with Prism Money. This is a really strong team, but they missed the mark on this demo. Too much about them, not enough about the value of their new offering. ^SR

12:36 pm

Lleida.net

@lleidanet
www.lleida.net 
@GrupoSatec
www.satecgroup.com

“Complete portfolio solutions” A WHITE LABEL BANK FOR MERCHANTS TELCOS AND FINTECHS AS A MARKETPLACE

I’m having a little trouble understanding the speakers but am trying to understand their value proposition from what I’m watching on their web-based platforms. I believe the company is based in Barcelona, Spain.

FROM THEIR WEB SITE: Currently the company is listed in the Spanish Alternative Stock Market and is a leading company in the field of electronic notification and electronic contracting. The company created in 1995 has two more business lines, namely SMS solutions and data validation. The telecom operator has signed agreements with more than 1000 companies in more than 150 countries managed from their 16 international headquarters. Its solutions and services are used in enterprises, public administration, and SME’s.

^William

The company is offering what they call a white label bank, for example for merchants or fintech companies. Their platform provides identity verification via a video offering. Details in the demo are a little sparse and hard to follow. This team needed a bit more prep time because the offering and its value prop is not clear. ^SR

12:29 pm

Jumio

@jumio
www.jumio.com

KYC solution for FinTech. “All customers are online customers first.”
I believe I’ve seen these folks at least once or twice before. Speaking about HOW they use data; ID verification, etc. “We are the global leader in KYC.” Good use of humor in their presentation, thank you. Showing how someone might try to hack their system. Good job. ^William

Jumio helps companies connect digital identity with real-world identity. Their offering includes: trusted identity as a service, identity verification (via selfie!), and document verification. They have conducted 50 million verifications of people, and 150,000 transactions per day. Jumio also uses machine learning to identify fraudsters. They have real humans in the process, to further strengthen the identity verification process. ^SR

12:23 pm

SuperMoney

@SuperMoney
www.supermoney.com

Three presenters from SuperMoney. This is LOOKING like a Prosper-like company but let’s find out. “We are bringing the KAYAK travel-like model to lending”. It looks ok and has a nice UI but their demo could be a little smoother.

Their press material is VERY old, the newest press release I found was at least four years old.

From their web site: About SuperMoney
SuperMoney is a financial resource that helps you save money.
We compare financial products and services, and give you the information you need to make better financial decisions.

Since SuperMoney was launched in 2012, we have helped millions of people get smarter about money. SuperMoney has published more than 2,000 expert reviews and over 9,000 consumer reviews. 2 million-plus visitors use SuperMoney as a tool to find answers to their financial questions. SuperMoney has generated more than 1 million clicks for its partners.

We are on your side.
Companies can’t influence how we rate them or whether we review their products. SuperMoney’s rating is based on a proprietary scoring algorithm that takes into account multiple variables such as price, consumer ratings, quality, and availability.

How do we make money?
SuperMoney uses a performance-based advertising model. Our incentives are aligned with both our readers and advertisers. In other words, we only make money when we offer useful recommendations that save you money.

^William

The customer experience in personal lending is often lacking, particularly for loan aggregators. They want to help find loan offers that are in the best interests of the borrower. The UI is simple and clean. The lending partners do a soft pull of the credit report, and then a personalized list of options are presented to the consumer. The site also has user reviews that borrowers can consider. They are looking to expand into auto loans as the next vertical. ^SR

12:16 pm

BancPass

@bancpass
www.ptoll.com
www.bancpass.com

John and Glenn with 40 years experience in the U.S. Toll market. Showing new solution for FI’s and others access to their API. I’m looking forward to this because I’m a big fan of Florida’s SunPass. We were able to drive from Universal Studios to our home in Atlanta in just a little over six hours a few weeks ago. By the way, our family has always been big Disney fans but I have to share with you that Universal Studios has really exceeded Disney in the attraction area. The Harry Potter Worlds were especially cool.

Showing payment sample on Android phone with integration with PayPal. Now showing adding new vehicle on platform (like a rental) by taking a photo of an auto tag. I could see this how could be very useful because most states are eliminating toll plaza workers. Good job. Congrats!
^William

Toll collection on toll roads is stuck in the dark ages. It is time to bring modern payment tech to the challenges of collecting money on a toll road. The founders have worked in this space for more than 40 years, very impressive experience. They have created an API and mobile app, pTolls, and they are seeking partners from both FIs and app developers. The functionality in their app allows you to create a universal form of payment for multiple toll roads. It also allows you to use something like PayPal, even if the toll road doesn’t typically accept that payment type. This is a B market opportunity. ^SR

12:10 pm

The first demo of the day is from  Ephesoft.

US Intelligence community is using their technology to catch “bad guys” using their machine learning. Categorizing document content using AI. Company founder is showing how a trade finance officer at a bank that wants to honor a real trade request vs. a fraudulent transaction. If they can take unstructured data and make it USABLE this could be big for FI’s. Showing a sample shipping transaction of a Tesla through an Asian country.

@Ephesoft

www.ephesoft.com

From their website: 
Ephesoft, Inc. delivers intelligent capture technology on a private or public cloud platform that extracts meaning from unstructured content. With a focus on efficiency and reliability, Ephesoft has crafted the next generation of intelligent document capture technology that allows organizations to automate and streamline mailroom processing and other document-based business processes. Ephesoft is headquartered in Laguna Hills, California, with regional offices throughout the US, EMEA and APAC. The company is undergoing rapid growth and has customers in over 30 countries. ^WM

Ephesoft is using machine learning to classify documents and extract meaning from unstructured text. Document analytics is being used to catch fraud and in international money laundering. The company notes that their tech is now in use by the intelligence community. This use case is excellent. Much of the data a company has is unstructured. Ephesoft does need to work on the UI, it is 80’s style Excel chart. With the state of data viz, this just won’t fly. The engine allows a bank to extract data from forms, for example shipping manifests, to better understand patterns related to fraud in international trade. ^SR

11:57 am

Good morning! This looks to be a terrific Finovate Spring. We are at a new convention site and are looking forward to all the great demos today. This is my 21st Finovate event and it should be awesome.

KT, Steven and I are on the front row if you would like to schedule a short meeting today so please stop by or text me at 678-694-7213. ^WM

Silicon Valley icon Marc Andreessen famously commented that software is eating the world. If that’s the case, I can safely argue that fintech is eating financial services. And insurance. And Wealth management. And more.

We’ll be live blogging for the next 2 days from the 2017 Finovate show in San Jose. Over 70 fintech companies will be presenting. They have just 7 minutes to show, not tell. No powerpoint. Just product demos; a showcase of the latest in technology affecting financial transactions, customer experience, analytics, security, and a range of related topics.

It really isn’t about banking anymore. Fintech is creating entirely new ways for people to accomplish important goals in their financial lives. And as we’ll see, they are creating entirely new product categories and customer experiences.

Stay tuned for our live report of over 70 companies. ^SR

11:25 am

Good Morning! William, Steven and I are at the FinovateSpring Conference getting ready for a great day of demos.

You can also stay update to date with Finovate with WMA friend, Steven Ramirez and the  Beyond the Arc blog.

Stay tuned!

^K.T.

10:13 am

Synapse Financial Technologies – Sankaet Pathak (CEO & Founder) moved to the U.S. eight years ago. I’m having a little trouble understanding what they do and they are having some display technical issues. I’ll try to stop by their stand.

Showing how a user enters the unique personal data for new account enrollment. Now showing how the built-in computer camera to verify that a person is who they say they are.

From their web site: Banking for developers. Create FDIC insured accounts, send payments, manage compliance & mitigate risk all from one API. @synapsepay www.synapsepay.com

From Crunchbase about the company:
SynapsePay builds banking software that includes developers that faces APIs for companies which builds financial products and banks that automates their back-end operations. It powers everything from rental and invoicing platforms to payment apps, crowdfunding sites, and currency exchanges. The products of the company are based on payments, risk mitigation, compliance, account creation and verification, and security. The banking partners of the company are Triumph and iBank.

SynapsePay is a U.S.-based company that was founded in 2014 by Bryan Keltner and Sankaet Pathak.
^William

10:13 am

Capitalise

Starting with a good use of humor. “Virtual investment assistant” – is this personalrobo advising? Showing a VERY clean, nice web UI on instructions on what an investor wants to invest in a very simple, easy to use way and making a “buy” instruction based on social media sentiment. Very interesting.

From their web site: Capitalise is the innovative and magical way that applies natural language to automate trade execution and portfolio management. Turn investment ideas into executable, back-tested and optimized strategies. Use any data source such as financial, social sentiment and even the weather to create your strategies. Based in Tel Aviv.

• @CapitaliseTwitt
• www.capitalise.ai

^William

Financial markets crave new sources of insights, information is arbitrage. Capitalise is helping investors to use social media analysis and sentiment analytics. You can identify trends, convert them into trading strategies, and execute. The largest hedge funds in the world have been using this tech for the last few years. Capitalise makes social analytics more widely available to investors, particularly retail investors. Now the functionality is there, I have to wonder if retail investors are ready for something like this. More importantly, should they employ these strategies based on social media? If social media can be manipulated in politics, are we enabling something that can lead to market manipulation? The company is offering their tech to banks, to help fuel robo-advisor offerings. ^SR

10:10 am

Capitalise

Starting with a good use of humor. “Virtual investment assistant” – is this personalrobo advising? Showing a VERY clean, nice web UI on instructions on what an investor wants to invest in a very simple, easy to use way and making a “buy” instruction based on social media sentiment. Very interesting.

From their web site: Capitalise is the innovative and magical way that applies natural language to automate trade execution and portfolio management. Turn investment ideas into executable, back-tested and optimized strategies. Use any data source such as financial, social sentiment and even the weather to create your strategies. Based in Tel Aviv.

• @CapitaliseTwitt
• www.capitalise.ai

^William

Financial markets crave new sources of insights, information is arbitrage. Capitalise is helping investors to use social media analysis and sentiment analytics. You can identify trends, convert them into trading strategies, and execute. The largest hedge funds in the world have been using this tech for the last few years. Capitalise makes social analytics more widely available to investors, particularly retail investors. Now the functionality is there, I have to wonder if retail investors are ready for something like this. More importantly, should they employ these strategies based on social media? If social media can be manipulated in politics, are we enabling something that can lead to market manipulation? The company is offering their tech to banks, to help fuel robo-advisor offerings. ^SR

10:08 am

Capitalise

Starting with a good use of humor. “Virtual investment assistant” – is this personalrobo advising? Showing a VERY clean, nice web UI on instructions on what an investor wants to invest in a very simple, easy to use way and making a “buy” instruction based on social media sentiment. Very interesting.
From their web site: Capitalise is the innovative and magical way that applies natural language to automate trade execution and portfolio management. Turn investment ideas into executable, back-tested and optimized strategies. Use any data source such as financial, social sentiment and even the weather to create your strategies. Based in Tel Aviv.
• @CapitaliseTwitt • www.capitalise.ai ^William

10:07 am

Capitalise

Starting with a good use of humor. “Virtual investment assistant” – is this personalrobo advising? Showing a VERY clean, nice web UI on instructions on what an investor wants to invest in a very simple, easy to use way and making a “buy” instruction based on social media sentiment. Very interesting.
From their web site: Capitalise is the innovative and magical way that applies natural language to automate trade execution and portfolio management. Turn investment ideas into executable, back-tested and optimized strategies. Use any data source such as financial, social sentiment and even the weather to create your strategies. Based in Tel Aviv.
• @CapitaliseTwitt • www.capitalise.ai ^William