What's all this about BarCampBanks? From a North American premiere in Seattle almost a year ago, we've witnessed two more in the last few months, and eight more are either scheduled, or in the planning process.

Well, maybe not exactly “planned.” BarCampBanks emerge more than they are planned.

What’s a BarCampBank?
It emerged from the BarCamp movement, which according to barcamp.org, is defined as...

...an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.

It started as a technology summit, an un-conference where developers and technology geeks could share exploits, connect, and find like-minded companions to extol the virtue of open-source and emerging technologies over pizza and wine.

And then someone decided that this forum would be a perfect place to talk about banking and finance. Weird. And yet it works.

It started in Seattle
I was fortunate to learn about BarCampBankSeattle, the first North American BarCampBank soon after it was announced by the prescient organizer Jesse Robbins. I can’t quite call it a decision to attend - it was more a compulsion. Somehow I knew I had to be there.

Probably some of you reading this will feel that way too. And if so, I urge you to get yourself to one of the BarCampBanks spawning like saplings everywhere bank-geeks gather. The conversations initiated, the innovations surfaced and the relationships developed at these organic and loose events are truly inspirational and energizing. It really is something to be experienced, and at a cost of $20-35, it’s a fraction of the cost of a typical talking-head conference.

After BarCampBankSeattle in July of 2007, there was a long dry BCB spell, which wasn’t broken until the last few months when BarCampBankSanFrancisco and BarCampBankNewEngland emerged. Some dedicated BCB-heads even attended both in a cross-country banking-frenzy (you know who you are, my friends).

Coming soon, in Dallas
If you’ve read this far and feel the need to dive in right away, your first opportunity is BarCampBankDallas planned by my co-participant in Seattle, Brad Garland. It’ll take place 21-22 June at the American Bank of Texas Building in Frisco, Texas. Brad is excited about the attendees who have signed up on the wiki (each BarCampBank hosts) where people can add what they wish to contribute to make the event their own. They have people coming from in and out of the country, from banks, credit unions, and even companies like Microsoft. It should be a great conversation.

BarCamping in London
If you’ll be in London this summer, you can check out BarCampBankLondon on 5 July at Sun Microsystems’ offices on King William Street. London is being planned by the great blogger James Gardner, the head of innovation at Lloyds TSB. In his entry on the event’s wiki, James mentions that he is interested in talking “about innovation programmes and the economic reasons why *not* to give them too much money.” Intriguing.

July in Charleston
After London, look out for BarCampBankCharleston, taking place on 26-27 July at the First Federal Corporate Center in North Charleston. George Pasley is organizing, and it should prove to be a great, inaugural Southern event.

BarCampBankBC, just too many Bs and Cs
If you’re on the West Coast and want to save the planet from the carbon emissions of travel to London or Charleston, come to BarCampBankBC, 20-21 September, at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in downtown Vancouver (originally called BarCampBankVancouver, who could then resist the acronym BCBBC?). I am organizing this event, along with Gene Blishen and Tim McAlpine. I am humbled and excited by the diversity of the attendee list so far.

Coming to Charlotte?
But what if you work at Bank of America or Wachovia? With the credit crunch, you may not be able to get your supervisors to pony up cash for an event with the flaky name of BarCampBank. Well, fear not, BarCampBankCharlotte is in the concept stage, and you can help make it a reality. Click through to the wiki and lend Josh Street a hand in organizing.

Stay tuned for more BarCampBanks
The other two in the nascent stage are another BarCampBankSanFrancisco, hoping to coincide with MacWorld in January 2009; BarCampBankMadison, being planned by Christopher Morris from the National Credit Union Foundation; and BarCampBankChicago, 16 July, in conjunction with the FDIC's Interagency Minority Depository Institutions National Conference. 

With all the changes happening in our industry, the focus on relentless innovation, and so much uncertainty about the economy, it’s a good thing that there will soon be a BarCampBank near you.

William Azaroff has been an occasional contributor to NetBanker for the past year. His duties driving Online Strategy & Community Engagement at Vancity, Canada’s largest credit union, keep him from writing as often as he’d like. He blogs at azaroff.com/blog

I delivered a presentation on Online Banking Innovations at Metavante's annual user conference in Milwaukee yesterday. As promised, here are the links to the companies and products mentioned. Thanks to everyone that attended and thanks to Metavante for having me.

Blogs:

• Young & Free from Common Wealth CU
• SourceCode from University of Wisconsin CU
• Member Connect from Piedmont CU
• The Diff from Quicken Loans

Personal finance:

• Mint
• Wesabe
• MyPortfolio from Bank of America

Investment communities

• Covestor
• Motley Fool CAPS

Lending communities (P2P lending)

• Prosper
• Loanio
• CommunityLend
• Virgin Money (US)

Mobile

• Chase Bank (text banking)
• Safepass from Bank of America

Fees:

• Tango from H&R Block 
• Quicken Online
• Identity Guard from Intersections

Lead Generation

• Credit Karma
• Quizzle from Quicken Loans
• Zopa (US)
• Mortgage Marvel from Mortgagebot
• Checking Finder from BancVue/FirstROI
• SmartHippo
• SmartyPig

Archives

• VaultStreet
• vSafe from Wells Fargo

Health Care Expense Management

• Quicken Health

Retirement Planning

• INGyournumber from ING
• Boulevard R

Mobile Payments

• Obopay

It will be interesting to look back at this post five years from now and see how many of the 40 startups presenting at our first annual FinovateStartup conference are thriving, holding on, or have moved on.

I know one thing for sure, there will be five years' worth of innovative ideas served up on April 29. I am really looking forward to it. If you can make time in your busy spring schedule, I hope you'll consider attending. You can still save a hundred bucks by registering here by Monday, March 31.

The press release follows.

------------------------------------------------------

Online Banking Report Announces Final Demo Lineup for
FinovateStartup Conference

28 March 2008

Seattle, WA: Times may be tight in the credit markets, but the financial services technology area is still hopping with startups. Forty of the most promising will gather in San Francisco April 29 to prove to an auditorium filled with bankers, VCs, tech gurus, and the press what makes each the next big thing in finance.

No slides. No speeches. No wasted time. Finovate serves up 100% demos with plenty of networking time to speak with start-up founders and execs.

The main threads will be online personal finance (5 startups), online savings/checking (3 startups), social finance/investing (7 startups), lending/credit (5 startups including 3 person-to-person lenders), comparison shopping for financial services (3 startups), security (6 startups), and mobile banking/payments (4 startups).

Several stealth companies plan to launch at the conference, and a number of startups will be introducing significant product improvements or new services. We expect to see plenty of Web 2.0, including social-media-inspired investing, widgets and Facebook apps, and next-generation financial search. It will be an amazing day.

Here’s the complete lineup by company type:

• Checking/savings: Andera, First ROI, SmartyPig
• Financial shopping/comparison: Credit Karma, FindABetterBank, SmartHippo, SimpleTuition
• Investing/asset management: Boulevard R., Cake Financial,
  CAPS (Motley Fool), SocialPicks, TradeKing, Vestopia, Zecco
• Lending/credit: Lending Club, Loanio, Prosper, Wonga
• Mobile banking/payments: Aradiom, ClairMail, Diversinet, Tyfone
• Personal financial management: Buxfer, Expensr, Jwaala, Mint, Wesabe
• Security: Authentium, Guard ID, Guardian Analytics, TrustedID, VaultStreet, Vidoop
• Other: IP Commerce, Unified Money, WorkLight and four stealth startups 

About FinovateStartup Conference

• Date: April 29, 2008
• Place: San Francisco, CA (UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center)
• Cost: $995
• Agenda: 20 demos in the morning, 20 in the afternoon; each session followed by two hours of networking to meet with the presenters in one-on-one discussions
• Website: finovatestartup.com
• For more information on last fall’s sold-out NYC event, see netbanker.com/finovate

Note: Members of the media should contact Jim Bruene, jim@netbanker.com to secure a press pass.

About Online Banking Report
Founded in 1995 by former banker Jim Bruene, Online Banking Report provides in-depth analysis, relevant data, and informed recommendations to financial services executives in 50 countries. Online Banking Report is published by Online Financial Innovations, a Seattle-based research company. For more information and free sample reports, visit onlinefinancialinnovations.com, email info@netbanker.com or call (206) 517-5021. You may also find OFI's blog on the latest in online finance & banking at netbanker.com.

Looking for a low-cost way to generate new ideas and meet like-minded financial geeks? You have three opportunities during the next four weeks:

• March 29: BarCampBankSF -- Berkeley, CA (9AM to 5PM)
• April 5: BarCampBankNE -- Manchester, NH
• April 12: BarCampMoneyNYC -- Manhattan (9AM to 5PM)

As of today, there are 34 people signed up for San Francisco, a dozen for New England, and 24 for NYC. Cost is minimal, max of $25. Register in advance on the respective websites.

Last year we hosted our first industry conference Finovate2007 in NYC (videos here, previous coverage here). It was such a success that not only are we repeating it this year (see note 1 below), we've added a unique new version, FinovateStartup featuring demos of new financial products and technologies from emerging companies.

FinovateStartup will be held April 29 in San Francisco. It will showcase dozens of the hottest financial technology startups – all in a single day. With a fast-paced format that mixes short demos (no PowerPoint slides allowed!) and high-quality networking, FinovateStartup gives attendees a chance to see the future of finance unfold. 

Already, a number of leading financial technology companies have already signed up to demo including: Andera, Boulevard R., Buxfer, Motley Fool CAPS, ClairMail, Credit Karma, First ROI, Jwaala, Lending Club, Mint, Prosper, SmartHippo, Unified Money, and Wesabe. We plan to add more interesting companies to this list during the next few weeks. If you know of an interesting new financial products or technologies that should be shown at this event, please drop me an email. Or if you think your company fits the bill, consult the presenter's page. 

Tickets for this exciting event are currently $745, $250 off the regular price of $995 (discount ends Feb. 29). And the first 25 NetBanker readers receive an additional $100 discount (use "netbanker25" as your discount code at registration). I strongly encourage you to register today as seating at the event is limited and the last Finovate sold out in six weeks.   

• What: A chance to see the future of finance & banking unfold at FinovateStartup
• When: April 29, 2008: 8:00am – 6:30pm. Registration and continental breakfast opens at 7am.
• Where: The beautiful new U.C. San Francisco Mission Bay Conference Center (just south of downtown San Francisco)
• Price: Only $745 if you register before March 1 (and first 25 registrants save an additional $100 with discount code "netbanker25")
• Format: Two action-packed demo/presentation sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each session contains more than a dozen of the hottest finance/technology startups giving 5-minute demos of their products (no PowerPoint allowed!) followed by several hours to talk with each of the presenters and network with other attendees. The day ends with a happy hour with an open bar and appetizers.
• Questions: Please contact us at finovate@netbanker.com or 206.517.5021.

I look forward to seeing you in April!

Note:

1. Save $250 and register today for our fall flagship Finovate 2008, October 9 in NYC. 

Last week’s Net.Finance conference entitled Online Innovations in Financial Services Marketing brought thought leaders together in New York to examine trends and breakthroughs in the world of banking.

For me, there was one clear take away: The new social tools that allow people to connect with each other online are ushering in a new economy.

We are moving into a social economy, where collaboration and participation between and among consumers will sway their choices more than marketing messages do. Those companies that enable social participation, add value to people’s lives and create authentic experiences for their customers will lead in this new economy. There were other topics discussed, but this theme kept creeping into the presentations and conversations in a way I had never before encountered. I’m going to narrow in on this one theme, which ran throughout the two days of the conference, and I apologize to those companies and speakers I’m not highlighting here.

Jurie Pieterse – ING Direct
Jurie outlined several of the key ways that ING is handling the power of its marketing and messaging to consumers by opening up its brand to customer participation. It is clear from ING’s early experimentation that it has a brand with strong emotional appeal and resonance. The bank opens the doors to people who engage with the brand to create photos, videos and prose about how their relationship with ING helps them manage their money.

Jurie explained that when they delivered the prizes in their user-generated content contests, which ranged from $1,000 to $15,000, most winners said that they entered the contests more from a sense of fun and participation than for the money. After this initial experimenting, ING will begin to examine the data to determine if these contest entrants are more loyal and profitable than less engaged customers. I would bet my Electric Orange account they are.

Chris Larsen – Prosper
It is fascinating to watch Prosper evolve their model. Chris spoke at length about the importance of social capital to improving its default rates. The idea is that people who have peer pressure built into their borrowing habits will pay back at a better rate than they do to traditional financial institutions.

Prosper has found that people who receive at least one of bid from friends or family have significantly lower default rates than those who only borrow from strangers. By leveraging this social capital, the entire community acts more honestly, even if lending to friends and family is a small part of the overall equation.

Jason Knight – Wesabe
Jason sees Wesabe as a community of interest focused on money. By allowing members to tag their financial transactions and share whatever information they choose with the greater community, they create a collective intelligence I find very exciting. I see them as the long tail of financial advice. People discuss better ways to use their money, from smarter investing habits to buying better cuts of meat. All of this collective intelligence fuels a social economy where people rule their situation by having a much healthier relationship to the way they spend their money.

Shari Storm – Verity Credit Union
Shari oversaw the creation of the first “bank” blog, which Verity started in 2004. She has strong information and advice to other FIs considering jumping into the world of blogging. It is clear that the blog is an excellent way to humanize the company and engage with their community in an honest and transparent way.

Thomas A. Desmond – TradeKing
I was blown away by TradeKing, a company I had not heard of before. Their marriage of social tools inseparable from their trading platform is perhaps the very best example of social media being used strategically by a company that I have seen.

They have baked community aspects into everything that happens on their site, so, if traders opt in to the community, they can learn from each other based on their actual trading results (similar to Zecco.com, below)

Asheesh Advani – Virgin Money
It took me a minute to wrap my head around Virgin Money’s model, but once I got it, I was hooked. Many people who buy houses get side loans from friends and family to make a bigger downpayment. Same with student loans, or with unsecured personal or business loans. Virgin creates a model around this kind of lending, so both sides can take advantage of the tax benefits available via a documented lending relationship. It creates excellent flexibility, because if a borrower needs to skip payments, the lender can adjust the loan accordingly. The loan can always be turned into a gift at a later date. This takes a part of the social economy which was underground and unseen, and brings it above board, recognizing it as an important part of the overall economy.

Gabriel Dalporto – Zecco.com
Zecco and TradeKing's models have many similarities (one exception being that Zecco offers 10 free trades each month). Community features are built right into the tools making it easy to track individual investors within the community. That allows the higher performers to gain a following and for newcomers to learn from the veterans. Like TradeKing, Zecco allows community menbers to see the actual trading results and portfolio holding of members (that have opted in), adding an enormous amount of credibilty to discussions about individual stocks and trading strategies.

Summary
It feels more and more to me that we’re at a turning point. I admit that these innovations are small, just barely bubbling up to the surface. But I believe these examples of companies quietly tapping into unmet needs provide a model of the future.

Anyone working at a financial institution who wants to understand the potential opportunities and threats coming our way should watch these companies and understand their models. If my experience is any indication, the social economy will begin to trickle into your FI's strategies and executive discussions and those who best understand these concepts can help inform, influence and shape the outcome.

William Azaroff is the Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William builds on a decade of experience at digital agencies in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles driving strategy, extending brands to the Web and building relationships for companies in several verticals, including Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and the Government of BC. He discusses trends and noteworthy achievements in social media at his blog: azaroff.com/blog.

Next week, I'll be interviewing Virgin Money USA CEO and Founder Asheesh Advani on stage at the Online Innovations in Financial Service Marketing Conference hosted by the Net.Finance (World Business Research) folks in New York City. Our main topic will be "Why consumers aren't buying mortgages online, yet," but I'm sure we'll cover the entire person-to-person lending spectrum in our 35-minute session Thursday morning (24 Jan).

If anyone has any questions for Mr. Advani, leave them in the comments here, or email me. I'll post the response here next week.

I attended the first U.S. BarCampBank held in Seattle this past July (previous coverage here). It was an interesting day that brought together a fascinating cross section of financial providers (mostly credit unions, no banks showed up) and technologists. However, other than Jason Knight of Wesabe, it didn't have that entrepreneurial energy that I expect at the BarCampBank San Francisco (BCBSF). And for those not wanting to trek across the country, there's BarCampBank New England (BCBNE) the next weekend (more info here).

BarCampBank San Francisco

  Date: 9 AM, March 29-30, 2008

  Location: UC Berkeley's Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology

  Time: 9 AM to whenever on Saturday followed by a half-day session Sunday

  Cost: $25 (register here)

  Agenda: None (see below)

  Scheduled speakers: None (see below)

  More info:

The aim of BarCampBank is to foster innovation and the creation of new business models in the world of banking and finance. Previous BarCampBanks have been held in Seattle, as well as London and Paris.

To ensure that the event is highly relevant for all those attending, the agenda will be discussed online beforehand (http://barcamp.org/BarCampBankSF) and then set by the participants the morning of the event.

Due to the large number of financial services startups in the San Francisco Bay Area, BCBSF will have a particular focus on bringing startups and industry together. So far, participating organizations include Wesabe, Boulevard R, NetBanker, Wikinvest, EverythingCU and Cake Financial.

The event, which is organized by volunteers, welcomes participation from anyone who would like to help with event logistics or spreading the word.

You may have noticed that the blogging machine has slowed down a bit during the past few weeks (see note 1). It's not because of a lack of industry movement. Far from it. It's because we've been putting together a scorching hot conference, our first ever!

But it will all pay off on Oct. 2 when twenty of the most innovative companies in the financial, banking and lending industries gather in New York City to offer a glimpse of the future of online and mobile banking at FINOVATE 2007: DEMOing the Future of Financial Services.

Following the popular format pioneered by DEMO, FINOVATE 2007 will provide companies with a mere seven minutes to “wow!” an audience of 200 leading executives, investors, analysts, members of the press and bloggers with actual demonstrations of their latest and greatest products and services (no Powerpoint allowed!). The demos will be followed by intimate networking sessions where attendees will be granted unprecedented access to these innovative companies and their executives.

Many of the twenty presenters have mobile solutions, but five are focused entirely on the mobile space (see note 2 for the full presenter list):

ClairMail, Firethorn, mFoundry, MShift, and Monitise 

General admission tickets for the event are extremely limited (fewer than 100 remain!). And with only 44 shopping days left, you'll want to get yours today and qualify for the early-bird rate of under $500. To register, visit our registration page at finovate.com or call us at +1 (206) 517-5021. Don’t miss out on your chance to see what’s next in P2P lending, online account opening, bill payments, mobile banking, social personal finance and more!

(Member of the press or industry blogger? Email us at finovate@netbanker.com to request a press pass.)

Notes:

1. Special thanks to guest blogger Brandon McGee for keeping the spiderwebs from accumulating the last two weeks.

2. Full presenter list (in alphabetical order): Andera, Billeo Inc, CheckFree, ClairMail, Firethorn, Digital Insight (an Intuit company), Identity Theft 911, iPay Technologies, Jwaala, Lending Club, Metavante, mFoundry, Mint, Monitise, MortgageBot, MShift, Online Resources, Prosper Marketplace, and Yodlee.

I just returned from an enjoyable day and a half at the inaugural Mobile Commerce Summit put on by SourceMedia, the publisher of American Banker and numerous other financial publications.

The conference featured speakers from the entire mobile banking and payments food chain including wireless carriers, device manufacturers, mobile platform vendors, text-message service providers, security companies, research companies, and 70 to 80 financial institutions of all sizes. My estimate of total attendance was 250-300.

In a show of hands, the functional disciplines of the financial institution folks split roughly 50/50 between IT and the business/marketing side.

Since I'd heard most of the vendor presentations a few months ago at the Mobile Payment Forum, the most interesting part for me was hearing the results of the BancorpSouth pilot with AT&T, Firethorn, and CheckFree. Michael Lindsey, senior vice president, electronic delivery at BancorpSouth, described the results during one of the few solo performances of the show. I will post an update on BancorpSouth tomorrow.

The major themes of the conference:

• Mobile banking has arrived.
• Mobile payments, at least in the United States, are some years away; widespread U.S. adoption needs a critical mass of contactless terminals.
• Short-term, mobile banking will be delivered through a mix of text messaging, WAP sites, and downloadable applications. Each has its own pros and cons, but ultimately consumers will vote with their wallets. On stage anyway, the vendors of the various and different models were extremely conciliatory, complementing other models and providers.
• Security of the mobile channel is generally much better than online (at least in the days before multi-factor authentication).
• The U.S. wireless carriers were generally portrayed as hindering developments, although Spencer White of AT&T did an admirable job of defending the carrier's position.

Best analogy from the podium:

• When explaining why carriers don't want open access to their phones, Tripp Rackley, CEO of Firethorn, explained how that would be like someone allowing anyone to add untested apps to your ATM machine.

Best answer to a question from the audience:

• When asked what the future mobile device might look like, Spencer White, director of mobile financial services from AT&T said, "We are looking at phones that print money." (OK, maybe you had to be there.)

Funnest presentation:

• Richard Crone, of Crone Consulting, was entertaining as always, tossing out Obopay T-shirts to members of the audience while delivering a presentation chock full of good advice for financial institutions and other mobile players.

Most discouraging stat:

• Among the dozen or so clients of Digital Insight that have launched the mShift-powered WAP site, only 0.5% of Internet banking users are using it, and even the best of the bunch is 1.5% (caveat, most of the mobile installations happened during the past month).

Most encouraging stat:

• Among BancorpSouth's pilot users that were already using online bill payment, bill payment volume INCREASED by 25%, indicating the mobile option created more engagement with transaction capabilities.

Weirdest thing we learned:

• One speaker's 14-year old daughter's non-negotiable mobile phone purchase-criteria was that the phone have a charm holder (this created a new conference metaphor with "the charm holder" being used to describe any consumer-driven feature).