In past posts, I have focused on the challenges that financial technology innovation faces. But innovation appears to be forging ahead despite the odds and with the help of the FinTech Innovation Lab, an annual program of the New York City Investment Fund and Accenture. The Lab recently hosted a presentation of the new offerings of cutting edge financial technology entrepreneurs.
The FinTech Lab helps early stage financial IT companies develop new offerings for financial services customers. This past March, chief technology officers of A-List firms selected six proposals from 90 submissions. The finalists got $25,000 toward their next round of equity financing and access to participating venture capital firms, which also have rights to invest in future rounds of financing. The vendors also got workspace and time with mentors from Bank of America, Barclays Capital, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and UBS.
The six participating companies have been working on proposals that included offerings for market data analysis, risk management and data visualization.
On July 22, the six vendors presenting were:
- Aqumin, which presented its interactive 3D technology, AlphaVision, for visual analysis and interpretation of huge sources of public and proprietary market data. The tool is intended to uncover “patterns and extract information quickly,” according to Aqumin. More about their offering is at: www.aqumin.com
- CB Insights, which unveiled Mosaic, which can be used to determine the viability of private small businesses by scanning publicly available information sources for telling details. The likely audiences for Mosaic are end users in wealth management, investment banking, vendor procurement, and lending groups looking to bolster their marketing and due diligence efforts. The website is: www.cbinsights.com/mosaic
- Hanweck Associates, which provides real-time analytics and risk products for hedge funds, banks, broker/dealers and other firms. Hanweck exploits graphical processing units (GPUs) to boost the computational performance of its products such as Volera, a low-latency, real-time options analytics engine. More information can be found at www.hanweckassoc.com
- Lenddo.com, which analyzes online social networks to assess credit worthiness. The Lenddo community uses these networks to help those in emerging markets secure loans and upgrade their financial reputation. The website is at www.lenddo.com
- Syphr (www.syphronline.com), offering personalized credit management and financial optimization applications that help firms and online finance websites identify qualified and better-informed customers.
- And, Zipmark (www.zipmark.com), which is a mobile and online payments company that uses a mobile barcode to accept secure payments from banks, thrifts or credit unions.
It’s inspiring that new ideas and new products are surviving during a time when regulators and budget cuts are serving as the primary forces governing invention. It gives me hope that there may be a time when human ingenuity and not rigid conformity will again prevail.
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