In case you missed parts one, two, and three, I’m sharing my notes after seeing 40 start-up financial companies present their companies. Today, I’m rounding up the last of the four companies.
BlingNation – You’d think this name would have something to do about pushing luxury branding, but that’s not the case. It’s yet another mobile payment. It looked like they weren’t a consumer product, but instead plan to sell their product for private branding.
Zopa – Won the Best of Show, which I think shocked many. This is not a P2P company in the US like the UK version (and they went out of their way to stress that). Zopa evaluates each country’s culture and regulations to determine the business opportunity present. The most interesting about this demo is that you can actually take a loan and pay back negative interest – if you have help from others buying a CD. Expect to read more of this from me in the next week or two.
TrustedID – I went to the restroom during this presentation, but for completeness talked to them after their demo. They prevent identity theft so they’d be in the same space as Lifelock. Looking over the benefits of their $100/year plan, I imagine one could approximate the value by getting free annual credit reports, free services like CreditKarma, and freezing your credit report when you don’t need it (free in some states, $15 in others).
BusinessLogic – MoneyPools – Incredible graphs, they just need Tom Cruise waving his hands to control them and you’d have Minority Report. Overall the product helps you view your asset allocation in extensive detail. Once your data is loaded in, you can do things like look at your retirement accounts in aggregate and then “zoom in” on sector and style analysis.
Aradiom – Another that I’d have to put in the “best demos” category, but completely irrelevant for consumers. They create a platform that makes it easy for banks to build mobile banking applications. Sounds dry, but they built an application there in the five minute demo. You don’t need to be a programmer, so it reminded me a lot of Visual Basic. You add pre-defined high-level components like a login screen and you are up and running.
CheckingFinder – This was a standout of the show and when they launch in a month, I’ll likely be in great support of them. In short, it’s a search engine for high-interest yielding checking accounts. They showed some banks that were willing to pay you 5% or more on your checking account if you meet a few requirements (such as make 12 debit transactions a month). I don’t know about you, but that’s getting into Scarlett Johansson attractive territory.
Sparkroom – I didn’t fully understand their product. It seemed to help people analyze how their lead generation campaign is performing. This is something that’s apparently useful for those in the mortgage business.
TradeKing – They seem a lot like Zecco except that you pay commissions. They focus on the community aspect as well and have been around longer. In the end, it’s about stock trading and telling others about it.
ClairMail – Another mobile banking company. At this point in the day, I was pretty much asleep. I didn’t really see anything exciting for consumers here.
Vestopia – Allows you to view the transactions of a real industry professional in real time. I think it’s an excellent contrast to the crowd-sourcing that other companies are doing with their community. To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations of this company, but the presentation was decent and I got to speak with the CEO for a few minutes which really galvanized the idea for me.
Not sure that CheckingFinder is going to be anything new. You can already find these deals at HighYieldCheckingDeals.com. No need to settle for 5% either,there are several 6% deals available.
Hmm, I’ve never seen that site. Two ways it differs from CheckingFinder though…
1. CheckingFinder found 5% interest checking without a big deposit like $25,000. I think I saw a few for as little as $500 or $1000 dollars.
2. You can see the requirements of the bank right there on the site so it’s easier to compare.
Perhaps I’ll use CheckingFinder and decide that it’s crap, but from they demoed it’s useful.
I asked about this and found out ALL the accounts on CheckingFinder have NO minimum balance required, pay high rates, and refund ATM fees.
Thanks Susan, I thought that might be the case, but I wasn’t sure and want to err on the side of caution.
No problem Lazy Man…one thing I forgot. The other difference is you can open up the account online at CheckingFinder.com
REALLY enjoyed these short reviews!
The $25,000 amounts listed are the maximum deposit that can earn the high interest rate. I’ve only looked at a few account at HighYieldCheckingDeals.com but the ones I’ve seen don’t have a minimum balance requirement and refund ATM fees.