Who impressed the crowds at FinovateSpring?
It’s always interesting to dive into the Best of Show roster more deeply. Not only does each individual winner have a compelling story to tell, the overall group of winners says a lot about the ecosystem as a whole. As a reminder, Finovate’s Best of Show awards are 100% decided by our audience, and the winning companies not only have amazing technology in their own right, but they also tell us a lot about what types of solutions are resonating among the industry. Let's take a look at the Best of Show from the recent FinovateSpring 2019.
In alphabetical order, the Best of Show winners at FinovateSpring 2019 were:
On its face, this is a pretty diverse group of Best of Show winners, but there are some common threads among them that are noteworthy.
First off, the personalization of financial services continues to be a major theme. BlueRush’s Individeo platform allows financial services companies to provide personalized, interactive videos to customers to get people more engaged with their finances and provide a powerful sales tool for financial institutions. Everplans goes a step further, helping advisors create personalized plans not just for their current clients, but for their clients’ children and families as well.
Neener Analytics looks at personalization from a different angle, using an advanced analytical engine to answer a question that all banks wish they could ask every borrower that they do business with: “Are you REALLY going to pay us back?” With a greater understanding of who borrowers really are, banks can lend with confidence and ultimately do business with more customers. The same could be said of Invest Sou Sou, which gives customers the ability to create a “sou sou” (a cooperative savings system), customize it to their unique group, and ultimately save, build stronger credit, and invest together. Both of these solutions use personalization to help banks engage with thin-file and no-file customers in a safe and productive way, and grow their customer base.
The second common thread among the BoS winners was creating a seamless customer experience. Customer expectations are growing exponentially, and it’s never been more vital to ensure a smooth, clear customer experience. Glia (formerly SaleMove) won their sixth all-time Finovate trophy for their continued strong work in providing a truly seamless cross-platform customer journey. They enable effortless switching between chat, video/voice calls, co-browsing, and (of course) a basic online portal in a way that lets each customer choose the experience they want to have.
Blytzpay also delivers a smooth customer experience around billing and payments, facilitating the flexibility for users to pay via text whether they’re using a card, check, or cash. Voca.ai (who, incidentally, just won their third BoS trophy in a row on three different continents), uses AI to improve the call-center experience, with a smart, human, and empathetic virtual assistant. Their demo has to be seen to be believed, but once you watch it, you’ll see why their technology resonated with our audiences in Hong Kong, London, and San Francisco.
There’s one company among our BoS winners who is on their own little island, and that is Arkose Labs. Their technology tackles the multi-million dollar fraud problems faced by companies all over the world through it’s system that invisibly recognizes the context, behavior, and past reputation of an inbound request to classify it as authentic or inauthentic. While Arkose was the lone fraud-prevention tool among the Best of Show winners, security and fraud prevention/response was a major theme of the event. Alissa Knight from Aite delivered a devastating 15 minute presentation that shined a light on how vulnerable APIs and mobile devices are, and several other demoing companies also presented solutions designed to keep customers and banks secure.
Based on how the audience voted, it’s clear that rising customer expectations, the benefits of personalized financial services, and the ever-present threat of fraud are top-of-mind right now for those driving fintech forward. And honestly, it’s not hard to understand why.
Finovate events are much more than the handful of companies who win Best of Show. Not all of our previous winners have had the impact they would have liked, and many of the companies that slip under the radar go on to do great things. I’d recommend that you look at as many demo videos from FinovateSpring as you can to get a true sense of where fintech is heading.
Watch all the demo videos from FinovateSpring 2019
