Recently in FiLife Category

Here are the news headlines we posted this week on Twitter (follow it here).

Bling Nation provides mobile payments to Community State Bank - Community State Bank in Lamar, CO, is offering the Bling Nation mobile payments service. The bank's program includes more than 40 merchants accepting Bling Tag payments. http://bit.ly/bzAIDn

Dow Jones and IAC shut down FiLife - Dow Jones and IAC closed their financial information site FiLife.com. The site allowed visitors to discuss financial issues and concerns. The FiLife iPhone app is no longer available in the iTunes app store. http://bit.ly/cSjsPk

Geezeo partners with Unitus Community Credit Union - Geezeo has entered a partnership with Unitus Community Credit Union. Geezeo will provide financial tools to the credit union's members, including its PFM, community, and integrated marketing platforms. http://bit.ly/9FeyaJ

Mint switches to Intuit for data aggregation - Mint is now using aggregation software from its parent company Intuit. The PFM can now pull data from 16,000 financial institutions. Previously, Mint partnered with Yodlee for back-end account aggregation. http://bit.ly/9BTJwV

Mortgagebot reports increase in loan applications - Mortgagebot's online mortgage shopping service, Mortgage Marvel, reported an increase of consumer visits of 140% from 2008 to 2009, resulting in a 66% increase in overall loan applications taken by participating lenders. http://bit.ly/b4DP7S

Online Resources names interim CEO - Online Resources has named John Dorman as interim chief executive officer, replacing former interim CEO Raymond T. Crosier who resigned from the company. Dorman will also continue to serve as co-chairman of the company's board. Online Resources continues to search for a permanent CEO. http://bit.ly/cpiLJZ

Prosper Raises $14.7 Million - Prosper has raised $14.7 million in a Series D round. The funding came from Prosper's previous investors as well as two new ones, TomorrowVentures and CompuCredit Holdings. Prosper has raised a total of $57.7 million to date. TomorrowVentures is the investment vehicle for Google CEO Eric Schmidt. http://tcrn.ch/bXjOGp

SmartyPig raises its interest rates -SmartyPig announced plans to raise the interest on certain accounts. Beginning May 19, APY will be increased to 2.15% for accounts with balances of less $50,000. http://bit.ly/dpCq5g

ThreatMetrix provides fraud detection to BigCrumbs.com - ThreatMetrix is providing fraud-detection services to BigCrumbs.com, a company that provides consumers loyalty rewards for shopping online. ThreatMetrix will help identify purchases made with stolen or suspect credit cards. http://bit.ly/aaZZBn

Vidoop's assets used to launch Confident Technologies - Security software company Vidoop, whose assets were acquired in January, is being relaunched as Confident Technologies. The company uses image-recognition technology to allow graphics to be used for password authentication. http://bit.ly/9xWOz3

WorkLight's new development platform - Worklight launched the Worklight Solution for E-Commerce, a development system for cross-platform applications. The solution allows companies to design applications for mobile devices, desktops, social networks and personalized homepages as part of a single development project. http://bit.ly/9Qesn3

Fiserv, Jack Henry, FIS and ClairMail Provide 86% of Mobile Banking to Community Banks - Banc Investment Group conducted a survey of 687 community bankers. Of the institutions already offering mobile services, 36% use a technology platform from Fiserv, 24% from Jack Henry, 16% from FIS/Metavante and 10% from Clairmail. http://bit.ly/aZTAut

And news from our newest soon-to-be alumni presenting at FinovateSpring 2010:

Continuity Control launches ComplianceTax.com - Continuity Control launched ComplianceTax.com, a website that helps educate banks and credit unions about the expenses involved in complying with government regulation. http://bit.ly/9CNOFk

TSYS processes payment cards for Japanese bank - TSYS was selected by SBI Sumishin Net Bank to process its payment card portfolio. TSYS will handle the issuance of retail membership cards, private-label credit cards, and association-branded cards. SBU Sumishin is a Japanese Internet-based bank with more than 750,000 accounts. http://bit.ly/8YrjcT

Visa to acquire CyberSource - Visa has agreed to acquire CyberSource for $26 per share, or about $2 billion. CyberSource provides electronic payment and security services. The deal is expected to close in Visa's fourth fiscal quarter. http://bit.ly/ams1Y9

Each month we survey the Web-traffic performance of our alums, using data from Web-analytics company Compete to review the 132 sites they operate. (Our review for the previous month is available here.)

Out of 105 sites with data available (see note 1), 44 (42%) had more than 10,000 unique U.S. visitors in March 2010 (see table #1, below), up from 42 last month. Of the 105, only seven (7%) had fewer visitors than in the previous month and 25 (24%) saw a decline year-over-year.

Notable successes:

• Mint saw the most unique U.S. visitors in March, with more than 1.6 million hits.
• Expensify saw impressive month-over-month growth, with more than three times as many visitors.
• BillShrink and Credit Karma (including its Sears site) both saw traffic double year over year.

While the top six positions remained unchanged between January and February, March brought several changes. Previous monthly leader FiLife has dropped to number five, being replaced at the top by Mint. BillShrink joined the top five for the first time this year, rising from seventh to fourth. Motley Fool CAPS and Digital Insight both rose on the list, while Credit.com and Credit Karma fell one place.

#1. Finovate alumni with more than 10,000 unique U.S. visitors in March 2010

Source: Compete.com, April 15, 2010

#2. Finovate alumni with year-over-year growth of at least 5,000 U.S. visitors

Source: Compete.com, April 15, 2010

Notes:

1. We reviewed 132 unique sites. Data was unavailable for 27 sites because they had been acquired, were no longer available online, or had active sites that were not covered by Compete for various reasons, including some that were not U.S. domestic companies.

2. At larger companies we tried to measure traffic to the sub-domain most closely aligned with the Finovate demo, e.g., www.checkfree.fiserv.com. Also, searscreditscore.com, a private-label site supported by Credit Karma, and Money Island, a new BancVue site, have been added to the list.

3. Numbers have been rounded to three significant digits.

4. The charts include companies that did not have measurable traffic in February 2009, indicated by a N/A.

5. Compete draws its information from the online activity of a panel of more than 2 million U.S. Internet users. It is only an estimate of traffic, and may undercount at-work usage.

Here are the news headlines we posted this week on Twitter (follow it here).

DebtGoal raises first round of VC funding - In its first round of institutional funding, DebtGoal raised $2 million. The round was led by Tugboat Ventures, with participation from seed investor New Cycle Capital. To date, DebtGoal has raised a total of $3.1 million. http://bit.ly/bZxzq4

Diversinet awarded two patents - Diversinet was awarded two patents for mobile technology. One patent was awarded for a system that detects and classifies mobile devices, allowing apps to be matched with handsets. The other is for security technology for mobile digital data delivery. http://bit.ly/cDkHOU

Finovate Alums Among Webby Award Honorees - Finovate alumni FiLife, Kapitall, Lending Club, and SimpliFi are among the 12 honorees in the Financial Services category of the 14^th annual Webby Awards. Fifteen percent of Webby nominees received honoree status. The actual Webby awards, presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, will be announced June 14^th. http://bit.ly/cqC9Fa

GreenSherpa holds contest for savings tips - GreenSherpa is hosting a contest for reader-submitted money-saving tips. On April 21, two winning tips will be randomly selected. Winners receive annual subscriptions to GreenSherpa. http://bit.ly/cDakPl

Lending Club raises $24.5 million - Lending Club received $24.5 million in investment funds from Foundation Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and Canaan Partners. The company says it will use the capital for new loan products, new investment tools, and website improvements. http://bit.ly/9zU4lO

Lending Club also recently announced its fourth Twitter contest, in which daily winners will be rewarded for tweeting about the company's ongoing photography contest. Twitter winners will receive shirts, messenger bags, and other products. http://bit.ly/d19g5g

Mint adds new feature to track cash spending - Mint added a new feature that allows users to manually enter spending data. Previously, all transactions had to be automatically uploaded from financial accounts. http://bit.ly/a3EtRb

Monitise reports more than 2 million registered users - Monitise has passed the 2 million registered user mark. The company stated that the increase in users was driven by increased uptake of its smartphone apps. Monitise serves more than 240 banks and financial institutions in the U.S. and U.K. http://bit.ly/cjMh7R

SecondMarket launches asset-backed securities market - SecondMarket, which provides a marketplace for trading in illiquid assets, announced that it launched a market for asset-backed securities. The move adds a ninth asset class to SecondMarket's platform. http://bit.ly/b2GHFc

The company also announced $70 million in private company stock transactions this March, the highest amount that SecondMarket has ever traded in one month. In contrast, the company traded $44 million in private stocks in February. The company reported that 41% of the transactions were Facebook stock trades. http://tcrn.ch/bpcXpQ

SeerGate announces new COO - Jim Fancher has joined SeerGate as its new chief operating officer. Fancher was previously general manager at FIS subsidiary Endpoint Exchange Network and has also served as senior vice president of marketing at VECTORsgi and CEO of Gilson & Associates. http://bit.ly/9FilPo

SmartyPig recognized at Prometheus Awards - SmartyPig was honored Breakout Company of the Year by the Technology Association of Iowa in its fifth annual Prometheus Awards presentation. http://bit.ly/bUi0Hf

ThreatMetrix provides fraud detection for OnlineLabels.com - ThreatMetrix is providing fraud detection for OnlineLabels.com, which produces laser and inkjet-printable labels. The company's online ordering system is automated, making it an easier target for credit card fraud. ThreatMetrix helps the company analyze transactions to detect suspect orders. http://bit.ly/bGRFMl

Transparent Financial Services adds business verification system - Transparent Financial Services, also known as TransFS, added a business-verification system that speeds up the company's submission process. The new system identifies businesses based on their name and ZIP code. http://bit.ly/amDwqf

Zopa honored for innovation - Zopa was recognized by the U.K.'s Nesta, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, in its Open 100 competition, which honors firms for open innovation. Peer-to-peer lender Zopa was awarded in the open business category. http://bit.ly/bs82cL

As part of our regular monthly tracking of Finovate alums, we examined the U.S. website traffic for the 134 sites they operate, using data from web-analytics company Compete. (Our review for the previous month is available here.)

Out of 109 sites with data available (see note 1), 42 (38%) had more than 10,000 unique U.S. visitors in February 2010 (see table #1, below). Of those, 32 (76%) had fewer visitors than in the previous month and 22 (52%) saw a decline year-over-year.

Notable successes:

• Expensify was up nearly 9-fold over its count for the previous year.
• FiLife, with an increase of more than 1.3 million visitors, scored more than eight times as many visitors in February 2010 than in February 2009. ThreatMetrix followed with nearly eight times as many.
• Mint.com saw more than one million visitors for the ninth month in a row.
• TradeKing is up nearly 9-fold over the previous month.

Of the alumni with more than 10,000 visitors, January's traffic leader FiLife is still topping the chart, despite a 44% decrease in visitors from the previous month. In fact, the top six from last month all retained their positions on the list, despite seeing fewer visitors than in January. BillShrink rose to displace CashEdge in the seventh spot.

#1. Finovate alumni with more than 10,000 unique U.S. visitors in Feb. 2010

Source: Compete.com, March 16, 2010

#2. Finovate alumni with year-over-year growth of at least 5,000 U.S. visitors

Source: Compete.com, March 16, 2010

Notes:

1. We reviewed 134 unique sites. Data was unavailable for 25 sites because they had been acquired, were no longer available online, or had active sites that were not covered by Compete for various reasons, including some that were not U.S. domestic companies.

2. At larger companies we tried to measure traffic to the sub-domain most closely aligned with the Finovate demo, e.g. www.checkfree.fiserv.com. Also, searscreditscore.com, a private-label site supported by Credit Karma, has been added to the list.

3. Numbers have been rounded to three significant digits.

4. The charts include companies that did not have measurable traffic in February 2009, indicated by a N/A.

5. Compete draws its information from the online activity of a panel of more than 2 million US Internet users. It is only an estimate of traffic, and may undercount at-work usage. 

Fast Company Magazine released its annual list of the 50 most innovative companies for the year. In addition to the top 50, the most innovative firms in a wide range of categories, including the financial sector, were named. We are happy to see that five Finovate alumni made the cut.

1. FiLife. Not only was it the first on the finance category list, FiLife was the only finance company to make it on the overall Top 50, joining Facebook, Amazon, Google, and IBM. FiLife was ranked #27, placing it above Microsoft and Twitter. FiLife provides a social site for financial advice and discussion (Finovate2008 video here).

2. Intuit. Runner-up Intuit, with a rich portfolio of products including Quicken, Quickbooks, TurboTax and now Mint.com, was described as "the new leader in online money management." (Finovate2009 video here.)

3. Yodlee. The leading provider of aggregation services to banks and PFMs was cited for its   FinAppStore, announced at Finovate2009 (Finovate2009 video here).

4. Triodos. A Dutch bank that backs organizations that create social, environmental, or cultural value.

5. Enterprise Community Partners. An investment company working to fund affordable housing.

6. Itaú Unibanco. This Brazilian bank is the largest financial conglomerate in the southern hemisphere.

7. Credit.com. Provider of free credit information and advice. The article notes that Credit.com won Finovate2009's Best of Show (Finovate2009 video here).

8. Vancity. Canada's largest credit union and funder of community-benefit initiatives.

9. Simplifi. A personal finance and investment advice website. The article mentions Simplifi scoring Best of Show at FinovateStartup 2009 (FinovateStartup 2009 video here).

10. Vittana. An education-funding startup financed by small donors in the US, Germany, and Sweden, providing the first student loans ever to Peru, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Mongolia, and Vietnam.

Fast Company Lists Ten Most Innovative Financial Companies.

(Note: The article uses a screenshot from Credit.com)

Since many Finovate alums compete in the online space, one measure of their success is the number of unique website visitors. Using traffic data from web-analytics company Compete, we reviewed visitor numbers for the 100+ companies that have demoed at Finovate.

Out of 104 sites, 44 (42%) had more than 10,000 unique visitors last month (see chart #1, below). Of those, 25 (57%) had more visitors than a year ago. Overall, 51 (49%) had traffic increases, with 37 (36%) more than doubling. There were 27 (26%) company sites that gained more than 5,000 visitors over the year (chart #2).

Notable traffic increases:

• FiLife, which has been running full-page ads in its sister company, The Wall Street Journal, moved to the top of the alumni chart, with more than 2.7 million U.S. unique visitors in January, up 16-fold over a year ago.
• Mint, now owned by Intuit, saw a record number of visitors in January, nearly 1.7 million. The company does no outside advertising, so the totals are completely from word of mouth and links on other Intuit sites (see Netbanker post here).
• ThreatMetrix and Home-Account, both went from zero to nearly 200,000 unique visitors, a phenomenal amount of traffic for a financial company in their first year of operation.

1. Finovate Alumni with More than 10,000 Unique US Visitors in Jan. 2010

Source: Compete, Feb. 18, 2010

2. Finovate Alumni with Year-over-Year Growth of at Least 5,000 US Visitors

Source: Compete, February 18, 2010

Notes:

1. We reviewed 133 unique sites. Data was unavailable for 28 sites because they had been acquired, were no longer available online, or had active sites that were not covered by Compete for various reasons, including some that were not US domestic companies.

2. At larger companies we tried to measure traffic to the sub-domain most closely aligned with the Finovate demo, e.g. www.checkfree.fiserv.com.

3. Numbers have been rounded to three significant digits.

4. The charts include companies that did not have measurable traffic in January 2009, indicated by a N/A.

5. Compete draws its information from the online activity of a panel of more than 2 million US Internet users. It is only an estimate of traffic, and may undercount at-work usage.

Here are the news headlines we posted recently on our Finovate Twitter feed (follow it here).

ClairMail Joins Jack Henry Program -- Mobile banking and payment services company ClairMail has joined the Jack Henry Vendor Integration Program. Joining the program extends ClairMail's mobile banking reach by integrating its mobile platform with Jack Henry's core processing system. http://bit.ly/aIkEoK

FiLife On Most Innovate Companies List -- Personal finance networking company FiLife has made this year's 50 Most Innovate Companies list, published by Fast Company magazine. FiLife was #27 on the list and #1 in the finance category. Other notable finance companies listed include Intuit, Yodlee, Simplifi, and Credit.com. http://bit.ly/9JMtCR

Guardian Analytics Releases New Online Security Tool -- Security software company Guardian Analytics announced on February 18 that it has released FraudMAP for Business Banking. The new software assists the detection and investigation of security problems in the multi-user business-banking environment. http://bit.ly/9tGVuk

HomeATM Promotes New Portable Card Reader -- HomeATM, a provider of mobile hardware for electronic payments, has developed a new portable card reader called CircleSwipe. The device, targeted to merchants, can be inserted into the audio jack of mobile phones. Home ATM expects to ship 30 beta units of the product in March. http://bit.ly/bjbIh3

Lending Club to Unveil New Look -- Lending Club announced a redesign of its website to make it more engaging and easier to use. The company is also revamping its logo and other aspects of its visual identity. In a move to promote its new looks, Lending Club sent an email to existing members offering a $150 bonus for loan applications submitted before the end of February. http://bit.ly/aDgvvy

Mint.Com Web Traffic Reaches Record Mark -- In January 2010, the Mint.com website reached 1.7 million unique visitors, a record high for the company and 600,000 more than a year earlier. This gives the online PFM about as much traffic as BB&T, the tenth largest retail bank in the United States. http://bit.ly/9cVjsj

TradeKing Reaches Account Milestone - On February 18, online brokerage TradeKing announced that it has crossed the 200,000-account threshold. TradeKing has seen account openings increase more than 50% since December 2008. http://bit.ly/bNYvlP

WorkLight Announces Development Platform for Android -- WorkLight has announced the release of The WorkLight Solution for Android, a new platform supporting the development of mobile apps for the Android phone. The platform provides built-in security features, development tools, and easy publication to the Android Market. http://bit.ly/9mpuT8

In other news, the company was named as a finalist for Red Herring's Global 100 award, which lists the year's most promising technology ventures. Red Herring selected the potential winners from out of 1,200 companies. http://bit.ly/5w9jKZ