There is no question that the Finovate series is one of the best financial technology innovation showcases out there. If you have any interest in seeing first-hand what's new and interesting in financial technology, you need to get to one of their shows (they have 3 a year: one in SF, one in NYC, and one in London).
The most recent Finovate showcase took place last week in San Francisco, and as usual, it was a solid event. Lots of interesting demos, from both big and small companies, and while the presentations were diverse, overall it was heavy on demos featuring mobile payments and merchant-funded rewards.
Which is all fine and good--if you believe mobile payments and merchant-funded rewards are the critical areas of need for financial consumers (consumers in this case can mean retail or business consumers). I happen to believe this are not particularly critical areas of need, so as I sat drinking from the information firehose that is Finovate, I couldn't help but think about the issues and problems that I do think are critical, but got little to no play onstage. Here's my list:
1) Wealthbuilding Tools - There were hardly any demos focused on helping consumers build wealth. And of the presentations that touched on it, HelloWallet was the only presenter that even tried to present data to demonstrate that their application actually helps people build wealth. This is a critical area of need for consumers, so if Finovate is an indicator, there needs to be a lot more innovation going on in this area--and not just by non-profits like CFSI that are focused on the underserved.
2) Personal Financial Management 2.0 - Up until last year, it was a running joke that you couldn't present at Finovate if you didn't work "PFM" into your demo. Boy, what a difference a year can make. PFM was barely even mentioned last week. Even the granddaddy of PFM's, Mint, focused their presentation on their advertising platform. And while the early rush into PFM was overdone, there is no doubt that consumer need better tools for understanding and managing their day-to-day finances. So here's the problem: where is PFM 2.0? The first generation of PFM tools all help consumers do basically the same thing: aggregate account and tag transactions. You're telling me that's all we can do with PFM? What about robust predictive analytics, bundled advice, pay-yourself-first programs, escalated savings modules, automated spending controls, etc. etc... Consumers need more PFM innovation, especially within online banking; unfortunately, there was precious little to be found last week.
3) Mortgage Lending - You're telling me that after the worst housing crisis the world has ever seen, there isn't at least some innovation going on around mortgage lending? And if there is, was nothing good enough to demo at Finovate? I was absolutely shocked by the complete lack of demos around mortgage lending. The point was driven home earlier this week, when a colleague of mine, who had just closed on the purchase of her first home, complained to me about how onerous, slow and expensive it was to complete the process. She wondered aloud why it had to be this way. Mortgage lending is crying out for innovation--where are the intra/entrepreneurs?
So that's my list of what was missing from Finovate San Francisco. Hopefully we'll see more action in these areas at FinovateFall in NYC in September.
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