financial innovators

consider everyone at this conference:

http://www.netbanker.com/2009/04/quick_guide_to_the_upcoming_finovatestartup_conference.html

This is the cutting edge of organizations developing financial technologies for the economic market place.  I've met a few interesting currency innovators, but this is the leading edge of who bankers will take seriously.  

there's also quite a bit of innovation that occurs outside of technological innovations (take derivatives and cdos) that are primarily regulatory and conceptual innovations.  

I'll go through these companies and report on any interesting demos.  the most interesting is the person-to-person debt market places.  kiva.com and other micro-loan infrastructure is coming along, and not represented at this conference.

these p-to-p loans are quite interesting, as it's trading one type of currency (debt) for another (cash), both of which have different properties.  the debt "paper" generally isnt transferable.  but what happens when the 4,000 year old innovation of making this p-to-p security transferable?  This is a particularly interesting innovation that is waiting to be repeated on the venue of the internet.