BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On October 30, 2014 at PayPal’s Town Hall in San Jose, CA, 10 FinCapDev (http://fincapdev.com) Finalist Teams will unveil mobile apps that harness the power of technology to improve Americans’ financial health and access to financial products. A panel of expert judges hailing from fields including financial services, technology, and media will hear the demos and evaluate the apps based on their innovation, impact, business model, market viability and ease of use. At the conclusion of the event, the judges will award $100,000 in cash prizes, including the $50,000 grand prize.
Media interested in attending the FinCapDev $100K Demo Day can make such request to the media contact listed below.
The FinCapDev $100K Demo Day will be broadcast via live webstream at fincapdev.com starting at 6:00 p.m. PT on Thursday, October 30.
"Demo Day is a tremendous opportunity to experience and participate in leveraging mobile technology for financially underserved Americans," said Timothy Flacke, Executive Director of D2D Fund. "After months of development, with support from an amazing network of advisors and mentors, our teams are ready to share their products and prepare for what comes next."
“This year’s FinCapDev Finalist Teams demonstrate how we can harness the potential of technology to improve consumer financial health,” said CFSI President & CEO Jennifer Tescher. “We are proud of the promise that these and other mobile innovations have in solving the pain points that millions of Americans face on a day-to-day basis.”
The 2014 FinCapDev Finalist teams built apps that address a variety of financial challenges, from fostering positive financial behavior in young adults and immigrants to saving for retirement. The apps are:
- 2055 (San Francisco, CA), led by Brent Lamphier - 2055 helps you save and earn money to make your future retirement goals a reality.
- Alcanza (Mountain View, CA), led by Miri Hutcherson, Juntos Finanzas – Alcanza is a free app for busy people seeking greater peace of mind about their finances. Based on the Mexican Loteria, it breaks down expert financial planning into single digital playing cards with actions that take less than five minutes a week.
- BeThrifty (New York, NY), led by Femi King – BeThrifty is an app that facilitates bulk purchases by small groups, allowing individuals to buy staple goods at bulk discount prices.
- BillGuru (San Francisco, CA), led by Yoni Blumberg - BillGuru is a free service that helps people organize, track, and prioritize their bills to minimize fees and interest penalties. BillGuru evaluates late fees, interest rates, and financial consequences, and calculates which bills you should pay with the money you have on hand.
- DoLoCo (New York, NY), led by Xin Wang – Leveraging insights from savings and lending circles, DoLoCo formalizes informal giving and fundraising to meet the financial needs of a community and reduce dependence on expensive sources of credit.
- MoneyThink Mobile (Chicago, IL), led by Jennifer Shoop, MoneyThink - Moneythink Mobile is a gamified Instagram for finances.
- Planwise (San Francisco, CA), led by Vincent Turner, Planwise – Planwise is the first mobile app to combine property financial information with your personal financial information and real time mortgage pricing to give you feedback on mortgage affordability and accessibility.
- Rezzcard (Haworth, NJ), led by Alex Cooper, Rezzcard - The Rezzcard app, available to residents of buildings and properties that offer Rezzcard payment services, lets you see your current rent balance and due date, search your payment history, find the nearest payment location and pay your rent.
- Trackr (Oakland, CA), led by Trish Powell, GoodMoneyApps, LLC – Trackr is a mobile app for parents and children that will reward kids for completing tasks while instilling sound financial values and mindful spending early in life.
- Union Capital (Boston, MA), led by Eric Leslie, Union Capital Boston - Union Capital is a loyalty rewards points tracking program for low-income families that provides social and financial service rewards in exchange for community involvement in schools, health centers, community organizations, and civic programs.
The 2014 FinCapDev $100K Demo Day Judges are:
Kristen Berman - Founder, Irrational Labs
Kristen founded Irrational Labs, a non-profit behavioral consulting company with leading behavioral economist and best-selling author Dan Ariely in 2013 to help companies understand and leverage behavioral economics – how and why people make the decisions they do. Kristen is dedicated to bringing the insights on human judgement and decision-making (or our lack thereof) to companies looking to make a positive impact on the world.
Maggie McGrath - Reporter, Forbes
Maggie McGrath is a reporter for Forbes magazine, where she focuses on personal finance and investigates everything from financial aid-related issues to the psychology behind why we make the financial decisions we do. Before joining Forbes, Maggie worked for Jean Chatzky, the TODAY Show financial editor, and Philadelphia Magazine.
Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz - President, Charles Schwab Foundation; Senior Vice President, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.; Chairman of the Board, Schwab Charitable
Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, CFP®, is one of America’s most trusted sources for financial advice and a leading advocate for financial literacy. As leader of Schwab Community Services as well as President of Charles Schwab Foundation, she is devoted to making investing more accessible to the American public, demonstrating that strategic corporate social responsibility and philanthropy can simultaneously support business and social objectives.
Danny Shader - CEO, PayNearMe
Danny Shader founded PayNearMe in 2010 as the world's only real-time electronic cash payment network. A firm believer in enabling everyone to enjoy the conveniences of the digital economy regardless of how they choose to pay, he learned the value of cold hard cash when it was the primary form of tips he received in his high school job delivering singing telegrams in a full-body bear suit. Previously, Danny led Accept.com, the first consumer-to-consumer payment service, which Amazon.com acquired in 1999, and Good Technology, Inc., which Motorola acquired in 2007. He holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and operations research from University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford University.
Jason Young - Co-Founder, MindBlown Labs
A serial entrepreneur with a passion for personal finance and education, Jason Young is the co-founder of MindBlown Labs, a social enterprise that creates highly interactive experiential learning tools to empower young people to make better financial and life decisions. He is also co-founder and President of The Hidden Genius Project, a non-profit that trains underserved black male youth in technology creation and entrepreneurship to solve the problems of tomorrow and was also recently appointed to the President's Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans.
About FinCapDev
The Financial Capability Development Competition (FinCapDev) is a nationwide $100,000 challenge to develop new mobile apps to help underserved Americans make smart financial choices and get better access to financial services. It is a community of developers, technologists, financial service firms, venture capitalists, engineers, non-profit organizations, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, students, advisors, marketers, designers, and more working together in ways otherwise unexpected in the pursuit of building new mobile apps that improve financial health of underserved Americans. FinCapDev is made possible through the generous support of the Citi Foundation, Ford Foundation and the MetLife Foundation. Learn more about FinCapDev at http://fincapdev.com.
About Doorways to Dreams Fund (D2D Fund)
Doorways to Dreams (D2D) Fund is a national nonprofit headquartered in Boston whose mission is to strengthen the financial opportunity and security of low-to-moderate income consumers by discovering ideas, designing solutions, pilot testing and evaluating designs, and driving innovations to scale. To do this, D2D works with the financial services industry, government agencies, national nonprofit groups, state and local community groups, and public policy organizations. D2D’s innovation process has generated solutions including financial capability video games, prize-linked savings products, and tax-time savings opportunities. For more on D2D, go to www.d2dfund.org and follow on Twitter at @D2DFund.
About the Center for Financial Services Innovation
The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) is the nation’s authority on consumer financial health. CFSI leads a network of financial services innovators committed to building a more robust financial services marketplace with higher quality products and services. Through its Compass Principles and a lineup of proprietary research, insights and events, CFSI informs, advises, and connects members of its network to seed the innovation that will transform the financial services landscape. For more on CFSI, go to http://cfsinnovation.com and follow on Twitter at @CFSInnovation.
