Consumers want more from their banks. That means better technology and access to their financial data. Ecosystems are being built that connect banks and fintech companies, so that the end user gets to use the most cutting-edge tech to access their financial data.
Tearsheet is celebrating the top firms building out these data ecosystems. Tearsheet’s Data Awards are the premier awards program in the financial data industry. As apps and institutions further integrate, data and data sharing have become the building blocks of modern finance.
On the heels of Tearsheet’s inaugural DataDay Conference, we’re announcing the winners of our Data Awards for 2021. We received dozens of entries from some of the best companies in the industry. It was very hard to choose single winners from so many qualified submissions.
Our judges sized the entries on four attributes: creativity, innovative thinking, customer value and results.
Thank you to all the organizations that applied for this award program — stay tuned as we’re planning on turning the great entries we received into an exclusive Tearsheet guide on what’s state-of-the-art in financial data in 2021.
Data Company of the Year: Plaid
Plaid continues to be at the forefront of the financial data industry with secure data exchange and open finance. Over the past 12 months, the firm has added hundreds of financial institutions to its Plaid Exchange API, signed multiple API data access agreements with the top 10 banks, and advocated for consumer permissioned data access at the highest levels of government.
Plaid also announced its commitment to having 75% of its traffic committed to APIs by the end of 2021.
Best Data Aggregator/Fintech Partnership: MX
MX won this award for its work with FormFree, a tech company that improves lenders’ ability to make more informed decisions about borrowers and minimizes lenders’ risk via a seamless loan application experience for borrowers. By using MX’s modern connections (tokenized, credential-free API connections), the average aggregation time for FormFree connections decreased by 89 percent -- going from an average of 3 minutes and 30 seconds to an average of 22 seconds, and resulting in a revenue lift of 15%.
Best Customer Data Implementation Award: Payveris/CU*Answers
Payveris worked with CU*Answers, a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) that pools together resources from a large number of smaller credit unions, to provide services that aren’t accessible to individual credit unions. The companies created a data exchange and bill pay dashboards that unlock insights for hundreds of credit unions.
Best New Alternative Data Product: Finicity
Finicity announced its Mortgage Verification Service (MVS) in February of 2021, shaving more than a week off the origination process and providing clean, trustworthy data to create a faster and simpler experience for borrowers and lenders. This one-touch solution allows consumers to quickly permission bank and payroll data so lenders can verify assets, income and employment in a single interaction with the borrower.
Data Innovation Award: Fiserv
Fiserv's AllData Connect provides a secure portal where customers can consent to share their financial data for third-party application activity. The integration, requiring minimal technical work, means banks and credit unions can simplify the complexities of an expanding aggregation market, and fintechs can easily access accurate data that their consumers need to enable their applications.
Built on decades of Fiserv aggregation experience, AllData Connect enables consumer data consent by directing consumers to a Fiserv-hosted portal where they validate their identity and provide consent to share their data.
Best Alternative Data Product: M Science
Throughout 2020, M Science expanded its innovative analytics and actionable insights. Its data dashboard solutions have provided near-real time updates on company and industry trends that have allowed clients to respond to pandemic shifts.
M Science has seen this work inform real business decisions. The past year marked the largest expansion in the firm’s 19-year history, and record growth in revenue, headcount, and product launches.
Best Data Marketing Campaign: E*Trade
The unique backdrop of 2020 accelerated digital adoption and meaningfully increased levels of engagement. To further educate new investors on their financial journeys and provide guidance around next steps, E*TRADE launched its first-ever year in review campaign. The hyper-personalized email celebrated investors’ successes in 2020 and offered further guidance and support to help navigate the markets in 2021.
Powered by Movable Ink, the email showcased a variety of different account-specific accomplishments, including account performance, a tally of total contributions, trades, withdrawals, and dividends earned. Investors were also presented with a personalized checklist of next steps, tools, and resources to make the most of their relationship and meet their investing goals in the year ahead.
Best Data Aggregator / FI Partnership Award: Central Payments, DataSeers
Central Payments, the payments subsidiary of Central Bank of Kansas City, worked with DataSeers to normalize large amounts of divergent data. DataSeers provides data to Central Payments that is cleaned, prepped, and analyzed so that Central Payments can perform full data reconciliation, compliance scans, fraud detection and more.