Company Profiles: Spotlight on Travel and Tech

Mintos is not your traditional peer-to-peer lending platform. It is a leading global online marketplace for loans. RewardExpert spoke with CEO and co-founder, Martins Sulte, about the uniqueness of Mintos and how the company has grown.

If you regularly worry about money, you’re definitely not alone. According to the Center for Financial Services Innovation, 57 percent of Americans are struggling financially causing them a significant amount of stress.

Forty-one percent of small business owners lack a financial backup plan in case of emergency according to Reliant Funding’s recent Small Business Report. Among those who have a plan, 20 percent have $75,000 or less socked away, and 3 percent have no emergency savings at all.

If you’re tired of earning less than 1 percent interest on money languishing in your savings accounts but desire an alternative to the usual stocks and mutual funds, you may want to consider investing in commercial real estate. According to RealtyMogul, an online real estate investing marketplace, real estate has outperformed the stock market nearly two to one for 15 years—even in robust bull markets like the one we enjoy today.

When it comes to banking, most people are looking for a community bank where the customer comes first. But they’re also interested in one that has all the components of a great technology platform as well. With Radius Bank, you get the best of both worlds–the convenience of online banking with a sense of community all wrapped up into one.

According to the SBA, nearly 98 percent of all businesses in the U.S. are small businesses—but their contributions to the country’s economy are anything but. Altogether, these estimated 30 million companies account for 65 percent of the nation’s GDP, or gross domestic product. The success of these myriad organizations is clearly vital to that of the U.S. itself, yet many of them struggle due to short-term cash flow challenges. Data analysis by Fundbox, a company that provides small business financing, shows some $825 billion unpaid invoices are a big part of the problem.

According to a recent poll, getting a new job is once again among the top resolutions Americans have made for the new year. If you are among them, CreativeLive may be a great place to start. With over 1,500 curated courses by the world’s top experts in a wide range of subjects, the online learning community is a valuable resource for professionals who want to enhance the skills used in their current careers as well as those who dream of turning their talents into viable businesses of their own.

According to American Century Investments’ annual National Plan Participant Study, 90 percent of U.S. employees feel at least some regret about saving for their future. Among the 1,500 full-time workers surveyed for the study, more than half feel that not saving enough is one of the greatest mistakes of their lives.

When it comes to planning a trip, most people do it on a budget. You want to have a nice vacation with your family, but you don’t want to break the bank. An RV that can serve as transport and lodging may sound like a good idea, but while many RV owners buy one with the intention of using it many times throughout the year, the reality is that many campers sit in driveways most of the time. Over 15 million RVs in North America sit unused for nearly 350 days each year, according to Outdoorsy, a company that helps both RV owners and travelers save money on their vacations.

Money and education often go hand in hand, and it all starts with the necessary building blocks from elementary school. At Inspirus Credit Union, it’s all about caring about students in the community. RewardExpert spoke with Collin Campbell, vice president of strategic initiatives, and Morgan Cole, public relations specialist, about what makes their credit union stand out from the rest and why after more than 80 years it’s still going strong.

When it comes to investing, many people incorrectly believe that you need to have a lot of time and a lot of money to be successful. In fact, you can get started on your road to financial freedom by investing whatever you have, thanks to companies like Acorns.

RewardExpert spoke with Manning Field, chief commercial officer of Acorns, which is a mobile investment platform that helps anyone and everyone invest their money. “We firmly believe that anyone can grow wealth,” according to Field.

Over the past two years more than 25 million Americans started or were running new businesses in an economy that continues to show moderately healthy growth, according to the  Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2016 United States Report released by Babson College.

What if you could manage key aspects of your business while lying on the beach? Create schedules or finalize payroll while sipping an exotic beverage, or even get the low down on how the weather will impact your scheduling back home while watching the sunset?

If any of that sounds good to you then Deputy might just be up your alley. It is software designed to streamline scheduling and workforce management. Companies like Amazon, Nike, and McDonald’s are already using Deputy, and so is NASA, along with local mom-and-pop stores looking to get the most out of their money and time.

In the wild world of finances, it can be tough to get access to credit. For students who are starting out and having a hard time getting their first credit card, it’s hard to know where to turn. A company called Deserve helps make credit access possible. 

Let’s face it, paying bills is not a fun activity, as you part with your hard-earned money. Even with the convenience of online bill pay, it still seems like a tedious process and takes time – not to mention having to remember each bill, each online password, each due date, etc. But the days of stressful bill-paying are over.

A company called doxo has made this process simple by allowing users to pay each of their bills in one convenient place, the doxo platform. According to VP of Marketing and Consumer Services for doxo, Jim Kreyenhagen, “doxo is the first crowd-sourced, customer-centered bill pay solution built around the consumer, and it’s already changing the way people manage their bills.”

Buying a home is one of the most important financial and personal decisions a person will ever make. Naturally, most buyers have lots of questions about mortgages, interest rates, taxes, down payments and more. A company called Mr. Cooper is aiming to answer those questions, working to make the home loan process simpler by putting the focus back on customers.

Finding your perfect home isn’t an easy task. It usually takes countless hours of research, time viewing homes, looking up listing agents, etc. Homesnap is an app that simplifies the process by providing accurate, real-time data on over 90 million homes in over 100 markets, representing about 750,000 agents nationwide.

With the New Year, now is a great time for consumers and businesses to think about protecting their financial data. North Carolina-based SAS is one of the analytics companies that businesses turn to, to stay ahead of fraud and security threats. Banking Fraud Solutions Manager at SAS, Ian Holmes, spoke to RewardExpert about some of his company’s products that help keep banks, merchants and consumers safe. 

If you’re looking to boost your financial returns and make more money, are interested in alternative investments and would like quick access to your newfound cash, consider peer-to-peer lending. One of the fastest growing companies in Europe’s peer-to-peer lending industry is Latvia-based TWINO.

Republicans accomplished a feat this past week that had eluded them for more than three decades—a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax system. Passed through the Senate and House on party lines, and celebrated outside the White House by Republican legislators and the president, the bill is less popular with the American public. According to a recent CNN poll, only 33 percent favor the GOP’s proposed tax code.

On the other hand, an earlier survey by Paychex, a payroll and HR solutions company, found that tax reform has a more favorable rating among the small businesses it was intended to stimulate. RewardExpert spoke with Mike Trabold, Paychex’s Director of Compliance Risk, about the survey results.