finovate

Blippy gets an API and a way to track groceries

SAN FRANCISCO--What a difference a few weeks can make.

At the Finovate conference, which is a biannual gathering of financial start-ups, Blippy co-founder Philip Kaplan put on a brave face, demoing new features and announcing that the service was launching an API for application developers. Kaplan's presentation came just a few weeks after it was discovered that the company had inadvertently leaked the credit card information of five of its users to Google's search engine.

However, privacy is still very much on the mind of the company, which posts details to its Web site about what purchases people … Read more

Mint to give its users long-term goals

Mint.com's CEO Aaron Patzer on Tuesday is giving attendees of the Finovate spring conference in San Francisco a sneak peek at its next major enhancement. The financial planning and tracking service, which was snapped up by Intuit back in September, is getting long-term goals--a feature its software cousin Quicken has had for years, but that could be overly complicated and disjointed.

Patzer, who spoke with CNET about the upcoming service update on Monday, said the new system has been designed with the same kind of simplicity as the rest of Mint.com, and the goals themselves were decided … Read more

Finovate: Privacy is dead, long live the PIN

What's something we often use for security in the real world but not online? PIN codes. We use them at stores, banks, and ATMs, so why not use them online? For one, a QWERTY keyboard lets you create a much stronger, and often easier-to-remember password than you could with numerical digits. But PINs are still a password and can be just as good with the right precautions.

Some companies are using PIN codes to add an extra layer of security on top of what sites already offers. Here are four companies at the FinovateStartup conference doing just that.

Aradiom's SolidPass … Read more

At Finovate, a bad economy means good start-ups

SAN FRANCISCO--At the FinovateStartup conference, one thing is clear: a lackluster economy can be the best time for financial start-ups to get new users.

Apps that help people track and manage funds outside of their bank or investment service's site are in high demand, and many of the services presenting at the conference are trying to get those financial companies on board.

Why? Because those companies are still the gate keepers of trust. People are more willing to hand over their account credentials and detailed personal information to larger institutions over some hot, new Silicon Valley start-up. That, and … Read more

Prosper CEO says P2P lending could reboot economy

In advance of the Finovate ("Financial Innovation") conference that kicks off on Tuesday in San Francisco, I talked with Chris Larsen about his peer-to-peer lending company, Prosper. The prospects for peer-to-peer lending dimmed last year when the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to regulate some of the P2P financial instruments as securities; this forced P2P lending companies to retrench as they'd previously been treated more like banks. Prosper itself shut down its lending platform six months ago.

However, California in particular is getting ahead of the game and has given Prosper the green light to start up … Read more

Thrive gives automated financial advice

There's yet another free online finance site to check out if you're interested in having a computer tell you what to do with your money. And, honestly, if you're like most people, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. This one is called Thrive. It's designed for young professionals (people in their 20s and 30s) and is differentiated by the level of advice it offers. CEO Avi Karnani wants this group of people to have access to the same level of insight and intelligence that financial planners provide for the affluent.

But first, a bit … Read more

Quicken Online is finally free

Intuit has finally dropped the subscription fee on Quicken Online, its Web-based financial software that competes with Mint, Geezeo, Buxfer, and Wesabe. The company is still selling, as completely separate products, software versions of Quicken.

When I last covered Quicken Online in December 2007, my biggest complaint was its price. In a market with free (and very good) competitors, there was just no reason to pay for Quicken Online. This is a smart move on Intuit's part. But while Intuit Online is a solid service, the online competitors keep getting better, too. It's unclear to me that Intuit'… Read more

Still believe in the stock market? Try Inner8

Inner8 is a recently launched social-stock picking service. CEO Doug Doyle says the company's mission is to provide an online alternative to the traditional investment advisor, who, he says, typically underperforms the market at large. Obviously, that's never been more true than in recent days, making Doyle's goal to, "steal share from the advice industry," quite modest. If, that is, there remains any industry to steal share from.

Inner8 is indeed a good source of investment ideas, but it's no replacement for an advisor. It's too technical and too involved. You can't … Read more