The Innovation Engine Community - Financial Services Forum

Brother, can you spare a solar panel?

Marc Stoiber — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:57:37 GMT

Sustainability benefits incredibly from connectivity. The latest story to reinforce that comes to us from New York... http://springwise.com/weekly/2010-08-25.htm#energyincommon People in developing countries rely on dirty power. Through Energy in Common , you can connect directly to these people on an individual level, and lend them money to buy a clean energy source - solar, wind, geothermal, etc. When enough lenders have been lined up, the recipient gets their clean energy setup - along with a schedule of repayments to the lenders. I wonder why we're not doing this right in our own backyard? We still run on coal and oil. Isn't there a company willing to introduce lenders to folks who want green power, but can't afford it all in one payment? Would be interested in hearing about anyone engaged in this sort of work.

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The Good Guy Tax

Aly — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:35:23 GMT

Danny Westneat of The Seattle Times wrote an interesting column in yesterday's paper about a local business owner, Stephan Mollmann, who has perfect credit and was trying to refinance his home loan to a lower rate yet facing various roadblocks. Mollman doesn't have clout, but he's got a direct line to food at his gastropub and a great story angle. Read on: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2012384300_danny18.html Here in Seattle, as I learned from my brother who I'm visiting (hence all this time to blog, normally I'm writing about my neighborhood) there is a lot of backlash against Chase due to Washington Mutual's strong footprint in the community and Chase having acquired Washington Mutual. What I found really interesting about Westneat's piece was not Mollman's story in itself, but a comment Mollman made about had he of had bad credit and been facing foreclosure, the opportunity to refinance would have been made much easier because Chase has a program for that consumer segment. It also reminded me of a friend in Chicago- another good little guy- who told me he is not eligible for a student loan to go back to school, but if he were a recovering drug addict or coming out of...

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The 3 Minute Credit Check - Financial Services Innovation in Brazil

Maria Umbach — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:46:54 GMT

I recently read this article on financial services innovation in Brazil: http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/07/brazil-the-new-home-of-financial-innovation/ The concept of a 3 minute credit check is very intriguing. We know that spending stimulates the economy, but left unchecked it can lead to a credit crisis, or better stated, a tighenting of the belt. While the easy and quick extension of credit is definitely something new to Brazil, it is fascinating how they leaped over the typical process and focused on speed as a primary driver over other aspects (ie amount, accuracy, etc). Intuitively it would seem that a country that is largely under 35, enamored with beauty and fashion and also where about 45% of the nations' wealth is held by 10% of the households, there would be people chomping at the bit for the ability to use capital that was previously unavailable to them. And the added benefit of being able to get it without thinking twice (ie no time to turn back...) is fresh. The big question is will it work in market as well as my intuition and early indicators note. Any financial services pros want to weigh in?

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ARTICLE: The Pros and Cons of Financial Innovation

Javier Flaim — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:27:58 GMT

A good read warning of the dangers/risks in financial services innovation. We believe that the upside is much greater than the downside of ignoring innovation, and in general the author reaches similar conclusions. Do you think innovation in financial services is a neccessity, an unncessesary risk, or somewhere inbetween? Innovation in financial services is no exception to the rule that every silver lining has a cloud. I believe that it has done considerably more good than harm, but it has undeniably caused damage. The intertwining of benefit and harm means that any assessment of financial innovation will necessarily be subjective. First, there is no clear, objective way of balancing the good and the bad. Think again of automobiles. Read more >>>

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For Mobile Payments, It's Hip to Be Square

Javier Flaim — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:23:48 GMT

An interesting piece on mobile payments - how have you taken advantage of similar systems in the last 6 months? For Mobile Payments, It's Hip to Be Square Nick Summers After a recent ski trip in California with friends, I needed to reimburse one of them for the rental gear she'd picked up on my behalf. Except I didn't have my checkbook handy, and she didn't have an account with PayPal. So the following steps occurred: I flew across the country to obtain and fill out a check. Read full article >>>

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