NEW YORK—A highlight of each Finovate technology showcase has been the Best of Show Award, determined by audience ballot and announced as the event closes. Best of Show winners are not put into order of importance by Finovate, and this year was no exception: Seven were chosen, with none designated as the best of the best.

Some Best of Show winners had no immediate pertinence to credit unions, but some did. And, based on informal discussion with credit union attendees during breaks, some of the presentations that did not necessarily wow the full audience did make an impression on them.

Loud applause went to MX (aka MoneyDesktop) which won a Best of Show from Finovate for its new personal financial management tools that aim to deliver a cross-platform experience with an app that looks similar as users move from device to device. MX also, in a big innovation, gives a credit union the ability to let non-members download and use its branded version of the MX app, thus providing a new member recruitment hook.

Many credit union executives said they were wowed by MX, which developed its new tools with the $12.5 billion BECU in Tukwila, Wash., and the $6.2 billion America First in Riverdale, Utah.

Another Finovate Best of Show winner was NICE Systems, the Israeli company that launched tools that let financial institutions passively collect voice prints from customers who call in, and later use them to authenticate the customer's identity within a few seconds.

The plus to NICE Systems' tools is there is no need for a member to enroll in the program. Enrollment happens on the fly, as members call in.

Multiple credit union executives said they intended to consider implementing the new technology.

One expressed skepticism that the voice print would always work.

“Over a cellphone? When the member has a bad cold?” the credit union leader questioned.

A NICE Systems executive also conceded in an information interview that calls into phone centers usually trigger an announcement that “this call may be recorded for training purposes,” which paves the way legally for recording a customer's voice. However, training purposes do not cover biometric authentication, and at some financial institutions, lawyers are investigating those distinctions before moving forward adopting the technology.

A third “Best of Show” winner was Anchor ID, a tiny, five employee start-up in Kingston, N.Y. that has envisioned a world with no passwords or user IDs. With Anchor ID, a user gets a universal ID, good at all participating sites, and the user's smartphone becomes, in Anchor ID's words, “the anchor for authentication.”

Further explained, a smartphone has multiple unique features that serve as a kind of fingerprint.

Anchor ID also applies its own recipe for authentication, and additionally, the company said its tools are flexible enough to add in biometric measures (such as voice or fingerprint) if needed.

Yet another Best of Show winner that also won praise from credit union executives was the Austin, Texas-based Toopher, another two-factor authentication company whose platform builds on smartphone location awareness.

“Toopher will allow clients to provide their customers with invisible authentication for logins and critical actions. Toopher incorporates biometrics into the authentication process,” the company said.

Toopher is also smart enough to identify locations, such as home and work, where a user is known to feel safe. It can also recognize locations that are not necessarily safe, like public spaces such as airports and hotels.

One company that was not named a Best of Show but elicited praise from multiple credit union executives was Austin, Texas-based mobile app developer Malauzai. The credit union mobile banking favorite debuted tools that aim to free financial institutions from separate online and mobile banking contracts, and their associated costs. The Malauzai tool runs mobile apps inside a browser on a desktop or laptop, allowing institutions to offer both mobile and online banking with only one product.

Co-founder Robb Gaynor said at the event that online banking is marginalized. He further explained his statement, saying that means online banking's days are numbered.

Next Spring, another 70 or so companies will hit the Finovate stage in San Jose and the fintech innovation beat will go on.

Instant Insights /

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