Finovate features innovative financial technology for SMEs

The SME Finance Forum is partnering with Finovate, which brings together innovators in financial and banking applications. The sold-out Finovate Fall event held in New York on September 10 and 11, 2013 featured innovative financial technology from nearly 70 firms.Solutions for banks and other lenders:

• Backbase (United States) is rolling out software solutions for commercial banking. It contains apps such as Cash Management Dashboards, Invoicing, Financing, FX Trading etc.
• Kofax (United States) allows borrowers to keep track of the loan origination process. They can also take pictures of required documents with their mobile phone and send them in. Kofax cuts down loan processing cost and time.
• Luminous (South Africa) offers an online business loan PreApprover app. Customers can use it anonymously to determine if they fit the bank’s lending criteria, without negatively affecting their credit rating. Successful applicants can quickly and easily convert their anonymous pre-approval, into a formal loan application.
• QuarterSpot's (Unites States) innovative Artificial Intelligence-driven underwriting platform can incorporate millions of pieces of real-time data from business bank accounts, business credit profiles and more to execute a pre-approval decision in seconds. It offers SMEs a cost of capital as much as 85% lower than other lenders and does not require personal collateral to secure loans.
• Lighter Capital (United States) developed an SME lending platform that integrated Customer Relationship Management data (e.g. via Salesforce software) in addition to accounting and banking data to predict borrower’s future performance. Lighter Capital invests 50,000-500,000 USD into companies with revenues of 15,000 USD per month and up.
• Capital Access Network's (United States) Mobile Funder is a tablet-based solution that lets “on-the-move” small business finance reps to quickly and securely pre-quality prospects, authorize credit checks and propose multiple financing options. 
• SimpleVerity (United States) is a fully automated SME credit verification process. Using a social approach (e.g. Yelp reviews) and proprietary analytics, it can produce a reliable credit report on any SME in America – even those with little or no data in file at major credit bureaus.

Mobile Payment Solutions:

• Zooz (Israel) is a mobile/web payment platform that allows one-tap checkout for consumers and plug-and-play solution for merchants. Zooz has partnerships with leading payment gateways, processors and e-wallets.
• DoubleBeam's (United States) e-checks mobile app links users’ bank accounts just by taking a picture of a blank check and stores information to process low-cost e-chaecks as a method of payment. It saves merchants up to 80% off the cost of credit card interchange fees.
• Verify Valid (United States) lets customers make and receive payments online. Through its partnership with Deluxe Cororation (United States) it can offer e-check payment services to 4 million SMEs and 5,700 bank customers.
• PayWith (Canada) dynamically generates a virtual credit card on a user’s phone for every transaction. These Mobile Payment Cards (mCARDS) also merge rewards, loyalty and gifts with payments.

Other:

• BizEquity (United States) offers a web-based tool that SMEs can use to estimate the value of their business. This can potentially help them if they are planning to sell their business, get credit or figure out how much insurance they need to get.
• Unleash's (United States) Cloud CFO is a business-intelligence software that SMEs can use as a financial decision-making tool. It  includes a “peer index” functionality which shows SMEs how they stack up against their competition. It also gives SMEs a “uScore”, which the is the equivalent of a FICO for business health.