I woke up a lot earlier than I am used to in order to attend the Finovate Spring 2011 conference. Strangely enough, it was the first opportunity I had to attend this annual event; better late than never, I suppose, given that I run a financially oriented site and I hail from the technology mecca of the United States. As some background, the conference spans two days. There are 4 sessions scheduled for each day, with around 9 or 10 company speakers making timed presentations per session. There are 64 companies who are showing this year.
There were three of us financial bloggers who made the trek to San Francisco for this (me, Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money and Cap @ Stop Buying Crap). We started the day with a planned breakfast over at the Adobe headquarters in the city. Problem is, we came in a little late and walked into the middle of their presentation on Customer Experience Management Solutions for Banking. I’m thinking that some of the information they were referencing can be investigated in this page. There were a lot of buzz words here that seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day. Let’s just say that the words of the day are “social” and “mobile”. Couple that with iPhone and iPad and that was pretty much the vibe we had all day. 🙂 I’d like to thank Sandra Lo from Adobe for inviting us over for the breakfast!
After Adobe’s talk, we headed for Finovate proper, which was held in a massive auditorium. An important note: many of the products that were demoed are new and in the startup phase. Some companies may be more established and highly profitable, but are doing some R & D in newer technologies. Others are firms in incubation mode that are still trying to get funding. So some of these products appear to be vapor ware at this time while others have launched fairly recently. Here is what preoccupied us for the rest of the day.
Take note that I will be doing a much more organized review of these applications in future articles/posts. For now, this is a short summary and a taste of what it was like in the conference.
New Financial Applications at Finovate 2011: Day 1, Session 1
#1 Clovr Media (clovrmedia.com) – They attach shopping offers to your credit or debit card via online ads.
#2 Bundle (money.bundle.com) – They have come up with a much smarter way of providing you consumer reviews, based on data they collect from you!
#3 Intellaegis (intellaegis.com) – They bill themselves as Big Brother, and that’s because if you’ve got outstanding debt, they will be after you. How? Again, through data collection. More on this in a follow up article I’ll be writing about them.
#4. Xero (Xero.com) – They’re all about accounting, which I personally found boring. But hey, they cater to businesses, so my opinion won’t matter as much 😉 .
#5 Gold Bullion International (bullioninternational.com) – They have the platform to allow you to invest in gold bullion and bars. Woot!
#6 Kabbage (kabbage.com) – Get cash on hand quickly if you are an online merchant, thanks to them.
#7 CodeGreen.org – If you are a bank or other institution, you may want their product, which allows you to adjust your products’ rates easily.
#8 BancBox.com – They can suck in your data into systems built by financial startups ala Yodlee.
#9 Hoyos Group (hoyos.com) – They want to fight ID theft by changing the way authorization works. Try their eye scanning product!
This is just a quarter of the companies covered today, but I will continue to report on the other sessions in the following days or weeks.
It was a full day with lots of intriguing presentations, great Q & A and fine food and snacks. We’re doing it all over again on Day 2. I will actually be revisiting these companies and many others in subsequent articles on financial startups and products that I plan to do. Stay tuned for more!
Copyright © 2011 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.
{ 0 comments… add one now }