Besides this week’s FinovateFall showing off a number of new services and features that flexed their FI innovation muscles, the two-day event also had a number of “oh, wow” moments from the presenters. We like the bizarre happenings just as much as fintech product news, so we wanted to share what caught (ahem, startled) our eyes while watching 63 demos:
* Customer acquisition provider Andera conjured up McDonalds’s Hamburglar as a way to explain its new account fraud prevention tool. The Finovate Twitter feed also tweeted confirmation we weren’t alone in our approval.
* While showing off a very life like virtual agent, MyCyberTwin had an unusual way of proving to the audience that its avatars emotionally respond to consumer requests. The demo-er requested the avatar to “take off her shirt” and “give me a kiss” to show viewers how she responds.
* Beyond its demo, FeeFighters also marketed its service in the men’s restrooms with signs in the urinals telling men to not “piss their money away.” (Verified only by my male fellow Finovate attendees.)
* ModoPayments got the audience to giggle on two occasions. One, someone dressed up as a bear during the demo to pass out t-shirts, and two, when the presenter panned to a real-live camera shot of the mobile payment technology in action at a Manhattan bar, the camera lingered on the bartender’s cleavage.
* PayNearMe scored approval from attendees not only by what it presented, but also how it presented. The demo-ers went old school and used Monopoly and a toy register to convey its news.
* Lighter Capital explained a use case for its funding service with the presenter highlighting Tomato Battle, a festival where people pay to throw the fruit at one another while drinking beer. The Finovate crowd certainly approved of the case study, although no actual tomatoes were involved in the demo.