Recently GreenPath, one of the country’s largest nonprofit financial counseling organizations, released “Building Successful Nonprofit-Fintech Partnerships,” detailing its work to co-develop and distribute a new client service with EarnUp, a fintech company that makes it easier for people to manage and pay down debt. The report is a goldmine of insights on how to build better […]

In January 2018, we issued a call to the marketplace of entrepreneurs in America, seeking a broad range of solutions to improve the outcomes of people in America struggling with their finances. Applicants were strongly encouraged to support diversity in solutions, customer focus, and founding teams. For the fourth year in a row, the Financial […]

Winning Ideas Leverage Technology and Life Experience to Focus on Financing College, Improving Savings and Accessing Credit 07:00 AM CT NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today the Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) at the Financial Health Network with founding partner JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced eight fintech innovators as winners of its Fourth Annual $3 Million Challenge (Challenge). Each of the […]

This story first appeared on Medium.  It took a natural disaster 1,500 miles away from where he was living in New York for R. Jerry Nemorin to upend his Wall Street career and start anew. Five months after the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands and leaving 1.5 million people without a […]

Today we’re sharing an interview with Matthew Cooper, co-founder of EarnUp, a member of the 2016 Financial Solutions Lab class.    You’re an openly gay fintech founder. How do those two facts relate to each other? Being openly gay has greatly affected my career choices and how I became an entrepreneur. Both my startup journey […]

By Liz Loewy As a former elder abuse prosecutor in a large District Attorney’s Office, I witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of fraud in later life. The hundreds of elder financial exploitation cases I handled had a number of things in common. First, many of the cases involved older victims who weren’t able to testify, […]

Lab to focus on the next generation of financial technology products 09:22 AM CT NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today the Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) at the Financial Health Network with founding FinLab partner JPMorgan Chase & Co. officially launched its Fourth Annual $3 Million Challenge (Challenge) to identify fintech innovators and products that can help improve the financial […]

February 22, 2017 08:00 AM Eastern Standard Time Virtual fintech lab launched by the Financial Health Network and JPMorgan Chase helps fintech startups improve and scale solutions for people of color, low-income women, aging populations and people with disabilities SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today the Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) at the Financial Health Network with founding FinLab partner […]

As an active participant in the fintech ecosystem, the Financial Solutions Lab shares in the responsibility to create a more inclusive industry, especially for female founders and people of color. Last year, we published our early thinking on the Financial Solutions Lab’s role to support and encourage diversity within the early-stage fintech space, and candidly […]

Imagine leaving the nation of your birth–where you had great credit, a car, a home, a bank account–and moving to the United States for the first time. While you might think that having great credit in your home country would ease the financial path ahead, today that’s simply not the case. Your credit history doesn’t […]

With nearly three quarters of Americans living without life insurance, there’s no question estate planning is a major issue that often goes unaddressed by far too many in this country. That’s why Dave Hanley, co-founder of the app Tomorrow, wanted to make estate planning more accessible to the average American, not just the wealthy. The […]

A former software engineer at Google, Morgan Conbere had the chops to solve everyday problems using software development. He also knew there was one space that was ripe for improvement: public transit. In 2017, Conbere and a group of co-founders–Zachary Browne, Samuel Daly, and Ekaterina Kuznetsova–came together to create Token Transit, a platform that allows […]

Banks want to know what around the corner is trying to put them out of business, so it’s no surprise that a spate of fintech-focused accelerator programs has sprung into existence in recent years. For example, Deutsche Bank just opened its fourth innovation lab in New York this year, after opening outposts in Silicon Valley, […]

In our last blog about consumer data access, we discussed the challenges that startups face when it comes to accessing their users’ financial data in order to build innovative tools. Today, we’re back to share that the Financial Health Network has just published a new report on this topic: Liability, Transparency and Consumer Control in […]

Today, the Financial Health Network released its 2017 Snapshot paper. In this report, authored by members of the Financial Solutions Lab, we discuss the latest trends in fintech and provide an overview of the market segment as informed by our analysis of over 360 applications from 2017, the more than 1,000 applications in our first […]

Everyone should have a friend they can turn to when they need someone to spot them a little cash. At least Jason Wilk thinks so, which is why he and his cofounders John Wolanin and Paras Chitrakar teamed up to build their fintech startup, Dave. Wilk is no stranger to the startup world, and Dave, […]

Instead of relying on 401(k)s or employer pensions, which are quickly becoming extinct, Matt Carey has set out to build a new way for people to plan for retirement. His startup, Blueprint Income, is busy digitizing and creating a virtual option for folks to set up and manage their retirement funds securely. Carey spoke with […]

Eddie Lim had already sold one successful business to a global financial company and was getting ready to start a new venture when he realized he’d hit a major roadblock. Lim found himself getting rejected over and over by big banks when he tried to refinance his home. Surely he wasn’t the only one facing […]

Financial fraud is a massive issue when it comes to money management for senior citizens. More than one in four victims of financial fraud in the U.S. are over the age of 60, according to FTC data. But for the longest time, not much has been done to help prevent this theft from happening. When […]

We are excited to announce the eight organizations just named to the 2017 class of the Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) at the Financial Health Network with founding partner JPMorgan Chase & Co. These organizations represent the most promising group of early-stage financial technology innovators that are improving Americans’ financial health. The Financial Solutions Lab winners […]

Tom Brown is a partner at Paul Hastings LLP and a deeply experienced fintech attorney who works closely with the Financial Health Network and all of our Financial Solutions Lab companies. He graciously took a few minutes to discuss the regulatory and legal framework in which founders of these businesses need to operate, providing an […]

The financial technology sector is huge and growing–in 2016, $12.7 billion was invested in fintech according to CB Insights. Whether they are disruptors of the traditional banking system, working with robo-advisors to help consumers invest smarter easier, or making credit-building easier, many new startups are focused on young, technically-literate millennials, who are now the largest […]

This post is a follow-on to our recently released Financial Solutions Lab Snapshot, a report in which we identified industry insights, trends, and analyses based on Financial Solutions Lab’s 356 applicants in 2016. In this post, we’ll share more of our funding related applicant data and call out what we think these data imply. As we […]

Building products that help consumers improve their financial health is hard. Finance is complex, the space is regulated, and consumers tend to be reserved about sharing their financial information, limiting viral loop options. So why would anyone try to build a product in this space instead of another food delivery app? Here are five reasons […]

Three Things Innovators Should Know About Prepaid Millions of Americans–whether they have bank accounts or not–depend on prepaid cards to take more control over their financial lives in a way that cannot easily be done with cash alone. High-quality prepaid products are a critical component to the financial health of those who use them to […]

Financial Solutions Lab sat down with Jean Claude Rodriguez-Ferrera, Co-Founder of Puddle, one of Financial Solutions Lab’s 9 winners, to talk about FinTech and Finhealth. What made you start your company? There’s nothing more powerful than a community that trusts you. I discovered this some years ago by working with different communities who shared money […]

While digital platforms make it easier to reach a larger number of consumers, it doesn’t always mean those consumers will choose your product or even continue to use it once they do. Gavin Michael, Head of Digital for Chase, offers the best practices that have helped his team transform the way they interact with their […]

Guest blogger: Eldar Shafir, Co-Founder of ideas42, Princeton University Professor, and Advisory Council Member for the Financial Solutions Lab Like many of us, I’m lucky enough to be able to manage my daily life while devoting just a sliver of my mind to looking after my personal finances. But for lower-income American households, navigating continuously […]