zecco Archives - Lazy Man and Money

SF Beta: Financial Innovation at Its Best

January 14, 2011 by Lazy Man 4 Comments

On Tuesday there was a gathering of a number of financial start-ups in San Francisco. There are so many of them that industry’s leading conference, Finovate, has stretched to two days this year instead of the single day it has been in the past. Instead of being a big event like Finovate, this was more of an informal mixer. Lending Club and their main product guru Rob Garcia brought together a bunch of companies to create SF Beta: Financial Innovation.

With such an event in my backyard, how could I not go? Silicon Valley Blogger, her Digerati husband, and I carpooled up to the city to “mix.” I didn’t do much meeting with the attendees. There three main reasons why I didn’t. One, I’m quite shy. Two, I suspect Rob Garcia had some nefarious plan to intimidate me by hiring a bunch of runway models to pose as “attendees.” Three, I was really there to meet with companies and see what they were up to.

What did I learn? Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll go into more detail, but for now I’ll give a quick run-down:

Credit Karma – Credit Karma was there showing off its Vantage Score and its Auto Insurance Score. If you care about your credit (which you should) and haven’t signed up for Credit Karma, get to it!
Credit Sesame – After yesterday’s extensive review of Credit Sesame, I don’t need to go much more into it, except to say that Irene Shubladze is quite possibly the most friendly person in the world… seriously.
Zecco – It’s been awhile since I wrote about Zecco as I haven’t been trading with brokers much these days. Still, I think their ten free trades a month (for accounts with $25,000 or more) is one of the best deals in the industry. They showed off a Zap Trade feature, which is essentially a glorified GreeseMonkey userscript built into a Firefox plugin. For those who don’t speak geek, it edits other pages like CNN Money so that when you see a stock symbol on a story that you are reading, one click opens up a trading window. Zap, you’re investing! (They claim its patent pending, but this kind of stuff is built into products like Skype, and I demoed it for my start-up in 2004, so we’ll see how that goes).

And, of course, Silicon Valley Blogger covered SF Beta as well.

Finovate Demos – Part 2

August 1, 2011 by Lazy Man 6 Comments

Buxfer – Demo had numerous technical difficulties… website was down. Maybe we’ll see their demo later in the day.

Guardian Analytics – FraudMAP product watches for suspicious activity banking activity. Banks can use this tool to monitor login times, login IPs and other information and get alerted to possible fraud.

Jwaala – Thus far it is the star of the show in my opinion. MoneyTracker is a personal finance management system, much like Mint, Geezeo, Expensr, or Wesabe. Widgets are similar to iGoogle o NetVibes. Has a great natural language search so you ask questions like, “Show me Costco purchases around $100.”

Zecco – You probably already know these guys. They allow commission free stock trading which I think is fantastic. Their presentation focused on the community aspect of the service. You can follow other people’s trades and investment returns and communicate with them.

Guard ID – Their ID Vault USB device has a smart chip in it. Allows you to use one pin to control all your accounts. Before executing a transaction it will check the financial institution’s IP address to prevent phishing scams. Has a SecureView browser which seems very similar to previously mentioned Authentium’s.

Cake Financial – Allows you to link all your brokerage accounts to see 10 years of investing history. Has a community component similar to Zecco’s (or Zecco’s is similar to it depending on your point of view).

VaultStreet – Docuthentic aims to make paperless documents easier. It authenticates them so they can’t be altered. You can easily securely share documents with a financial advisor or a tax representative.

Mint – You should know these guys by now. They categorize your spending and allow you to compare against others in a geographic region (for instance, your coffee shop spending vs. someone from Seattle’s). The big news from them is that they are supporting investments now. You can link your brokerage account with them.

Green Note – P2P lending application where students can panhandle friends and families for loans. It’s a bit like Prosper, but less emphasis on credit since students are unlikely to have a reputable credit score.

Smart Hippo – Users contribute mortgage data for others to use… seems little like a Gas Buddy. No sponsored ads or mortgage lenders here, just people. Allows loan officers to have a blog if any of them care to do that.

Motley Fool CAPS – Community-rated stocks like Zecco and Cake Financial. Five-star CAPS returned 30% in the last year vs. 9% for S&P 500 and -1% one-star CAPS. Has a personalized Stock of the Day tip.

Finovate Start-up: What Would You Ask Vestopia, SmartHippo and other companies?

August 1, 2011 by Lazy Man 7 Comments

This Tuesday, I’m heading to Finovate Start-up hosted by Jim Bruene of NetBanker fame. There are a ton of companies presenting there. Some of the highlights that I’m looking forward to are Buxfer, Loanio (are they ever going to launch), Mint, Prosper, SmartyPig, Wesabe, Zecco, Zopa. I’m disappointed that Geezeo isn’t going to be there. Lending Club bowed out, which is reasonable considering their quiet period.

I’d like to single out Vestopia and SmartHippo (not to be confused with SmartyPig or my upcoming start-up SmarterBoar). These companies have contacted me for one-on-one interviews. I’ve been able to secure a time with Vestopia, but I’m still waiting to hear back from SmartHippo. Other companies have tried to set up meetings with me, but since I don’t know what to expect, I’m trying not to over-extend myself.

I could really use your help coming up with questions for Vestopia and SmartHippo. I’m not very familiar with them, other than what I read on their websites, so you can figure out what I can. As best I can tell, Vestopia let’s you follow what Investment Directors are buying and selling – alerting you about the trade right away within 15 seconds of them doing it. There is a whole community aspect to the site as well. SmartHippo seems to be a community reporting mortgage rates from community members. I look forward to finding the value that this community provides, I found that I did extremely well doing a search for mortgages on Bank Rate. Maybe I got a lucky though.

So if you have questions that you want me to ask these companies – or any others, leave a comment or contact me. If there’s a company that you’d like to know more about, let me know and I’ll try to attend their product demo.