JJ Hornblass

BNP Paribas, the French bank which generated $12.9 billion of revenue last quarter, has launched the first “standalone, digital mobile bank” in Europe — and has done so with a rousing symphony. According to Finextra, a Hello Bank! account can be opened in just four steps from an Android or Apple smartphone, tablet and over...
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Developers have long used PayPal’s Mobile Payment Libraries to develop in-app mobile payment functionality. But yesterday PayPal quietly completed the rebranding and relaunch of Mobile Payment Libraries as Mobile SDK with the introduction of SDK for Android. (IOS Mobile SDK was introduced last March.) Mobile SDK, apparently, is expected to better sell PayPal as a...
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Our man Phil Ryan is out in San Francisco covering FinovateSpring. See his Twitter coverage of the event at @BankInnovation or at the #finovate hashtag. Phil will also be posting Bank Innovation’s customary ratings of the demoing companies here over the next couple of days.
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The payments company may have launched in 2011, but it released just its second marketing video yesterday. The video highlights Swipely’s POS and retail payments features in typical animated fashion. (It seems as though every marketing video in banking innovation today is animated.)
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Banno, the Cedar Falls, Iowa, banking technology company, today will unveil Kernel, a marketing application that “helps financial institutions deliver relevant content and enhance lead generation.” According to the company, Kernel “adjusts advertisement delivery between mobile, online banking, and other experiences based on users’ interest and interaction with each channel. As a result, banks...
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Anything Donald Trump does engenders a certain revolution. There’s no better sign of over exploitation of a concept or business than when the Donald gets involved. Last week, the Donald did his thing on crowdfunding with the launch of FundAnything, a crowdfunding venture of, well, anything. His partner on the venture, Bill Zanker, told AllThingsD...
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Earlier this week, Pageonce ditched its brand for a new identity — Check — and stepped in a different direction toward bill payment from PFM. This is a move to be proud of. Pageonce, which is an Israeli company, exhibited a strength that too many US companies lack: the ability to pivot to a...
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Is Finovate really the FinTech startup showcase it is cracked up to be? Yesterday, the folks at Finovate circulated an email boasting of registration topping 1,100 people for the upcoming spring event, which starts in San Francisco in several days. And while I don’t want to dash the expectations of attendees, those of you...
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In New York City, a taxi medallion — that is, the right to own a taxi in the Big Apple — costs $917,000. In 2003, a medallion would set a hack back around $200,000. Why the steep price increase? Supply and demand. There are around 8.5 million people living in New York City, and only...
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In a startling about face, Bank of America Corp. now says its mobile banking logins do not outnumber online banking logins. Earlier this week at the Net Finance conference in Phoenix, Marc Warshawsky, a senior vice president at  Bank of America, in his keynote address, said mobile logins at the nation’s No. 2 bank by...
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