Holvi prepares to roll out banking for teams across Europe in 2013
The Finnish financial services upstart has pulled in a new round of funding, with serial entrepreneur Thomas Madsen-Mygdal becoming a key backer and board member. Read more »
Where machine learning and ‘human artistry’ meet your wallet
photo: Shutterstock / Andrea Danti
Even if you don’t agree with ZestFinance’s business, it’s hard to argue with its grasp of big data and applied mathematics. Now, the company has added a human touch to machine learning in order to make its models for assessing repayment risk even more accurate. Read more »
LearnVest’s financial planning platform lands on mobile
photo: LearnVest
LearnVest, a New York-based startup offering an online financial planning platform, as well as services with Certified Financial Planners, has launched a new mobile app for the iPhone. From the app, users can track spending and view their overall financial position. Read more »
How big data might mean better business for big banks
By becoming an underwriter for some of the world’s largest banks and credit card companies, ZestFinance might actually be able to achieve its goal of using big data to supply the underbanked with needed credit. It’s not altruism by any means, but here’s how it works. Read more »
Transferwise adds more currencies: dollar on the way?
photo: Shutterstock / Glovatskiy
London currency exchange startup Transferwise has teamed up with a neighbor, The Currency Cloud, to let people transfer money between a range of European currencies. But is the next stop for the disruptive finance company going to be the US dollar? Read more »
How data mining leads to loans for the underbanked
Next-generation online banking service ZestCash uses data to help qualify people for short term loans. The company explains at Structure:Data it has been giving $300 to $800 loans to users based on thousands of variables, which are boiled down to 10 models. Read more »
What is the next industry Apple can disrupt? Banking!
A new survey of consumers in the U.K. and the U.S. found that one in 10 people would consider banking with Apple, and 43 percent of existing Apple users would. Banking would be a stretch for Apple though a mobile payments service could be possible. Read more »
Latvian bank run sparked by Twitter rumors
Swedish banks are fighting off rumors of financial difficulties amid reports that online rumors led to a $29m bank run in Latvia over the weekend. But was it really a Twitter-induced panic? Read more »
Subscriber Content
Big data needs to think outside the tech box
Web companies like Google and Facebook gain business advantage by analyzing large volumes of rapidly changing data about their users, but they are far from alone. A recent infographic from Get Satisfaction charts the volume of data stored in 17 key industry sectors, illustrating that most ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Defining Hadoop: the Players, Technologies and Challenges of 2011
Hadoop has been used by large web companies for applications such as search engines, but the reality is that the project is so much more. This report takes a closer look, examining what Hadoop is (and isn’t), who’s doing what to productize it and why we can expect to see the market pick up serious steam in 2011. We profile the growing number of companies — from startups like MapR to Cloudera, the arguable leader in the space — using Hadoop, the challenges still hindering widespread adoption and where potential users can expect the market to go as we move through 2011 and beyond. Companies mentioned in this report include Yahoo, Facebook, EMC, Teradata and Appistry. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Putting Big Data to Work: Opportunities for Enterprises
Business and IT leaders now face significant opportunities and challenges with big data — that is data sets that are so large they are difficult to store, manage and analyze. This report explores the rapidly evolving big data business and technology ecosystem. It examines big data in the context of several different industries: financial services, health care, sports, travel and media. We explore the different big data technologies — from Hadoop and NoSQL derivatives to cloud-based collaboration tools — and their various benefits for enterprises. And we examine some of the existing challenges big data poses, and what enterprise IT leaders can do to overcome them. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon Web Services, Google, Teradata, IBM and Cloudera. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Review: iBank 4 Makes Quicken Essential No More
Still waiting for Intuit to do something with Quicken Essentials for Mac? Stop wasting your time and try the latest version of iBank from IGG Software. It’s like Quicken, except it has features. Read more »
App Review: iBank Mobile
[appreview] title=iBank Mobile image=http://gigapple.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/ibank_mobile_00.jpg price=$4.99 url=http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=318802616&mt=8 rating=bronze [/appreview] The developers of iBank, the robust alternative to moribund Quicken for the Mac, have gone mobile with their latest product. With iBank Mobile for the iPhone and iPod touch you can bank on the go, but probably not […] Read more »
iPhone Banking
Last year, Bank of America launched its mobile banking service, which as their website name claims, allows you to bank from anywhere. (You can even watch the uber-cheesy videos that explain it if you want.) Last week Bank of America announced that it has hit over […] Read more »
