Laura Rowley Money & Happiness

If we've learned anything from the financial crisis, it's that consumers must fend for themselves. No one will protect you from an exploding subprime mortgage, disastrously high investment fees, or scam artists of the Madoff variety.

That puts a premium on information and transparency. At the Finovate conference in New York this week, companies were heavily focused on helping consumers get the information they need to make better financial decisions. Here's an overview of some of the best innovations.

Combining Search and Rewards

Have you ever searched online for a product, say, a digital camera, found the model you wanted, then launched a separate search to find possible coupons or discounts for the item, so you could land the best deal? (Or spent an hour searching your email inbox for that coupon from the electronics store?) Billeo, a provider of personal finance applications, has launched a free service that combines the two searches -- finding the product and scoring the deal -- into one.

Called the Offer Assistant, the toolbar delivers real-time shopping discounts and rewards directly to the consumer within their unsponsored search engine results. An icon appears with the search indicating a deal is available from an online merchant, bank or financial institution. If a coupon code is needed at checkout, the Offer Assistant will prompt and assist users in filling in the code. 

According to ComScore, 70 percent of all online purchases start with a search, so it's high time for an innovation that combines the search with the rewards.

Pricing the Payback on a College Investment

Wondering if that enormous college tuition is worth the investment? People Capital, a Web site that facilitates peer-to-peer lending to college students, has launched a new tool aimed at figuring out the payback. They call it their "Human Capital Score College Planning Tool." It's aimed at college-bound high school students, guidance counselors and college consultants.
 
Basically, the tool purports to help students decide whether it's worth paying extra, say, for a private college over a state school, based on the income potential. The student inputs his grade point average, SAT scores, planned college major and the various schools under consideration. The tool then calculates the data and presents a graph and chart documenting results of several scenarios (up to five maximum) of the user's potential income a decade after graduation.  

The tool makes sense particularly for students who are faced with choosing a more elite school but are considering taking on considerable debt versus a more affordable state institution. It helps assess how manageable that debt will be by projecting future income. The tool costs from $19.95 for a one-time use to $199.95 for six months with unlimited access.

Making Health Care Costs More Transparent
 
More and more companies are adopting high-deductible health plans coupled with health savings accounts (HSAs). Under these insurance plans, workers are responsible for a significant portion of their health care costs before coverage kicks in. They save up for expenses on a pretax basis in the HSA, a type of savings account the individual owns, controls and invests. Money that is not used in a calendar year can be carried over for future health care expenses. Since they were introduced in 2003, HSAs have grown to $4 billion in savings, up 36 percent from last year.

The problem is workers need to shop around for their medical procedures and services to make sure they are getting the most for their HSA dollars. Canopy Financial, a technology firm that powers HSAs for major health insurers and financial institutions, introduced a new mobile-phone application to facilitate comparison shopping.

In its demo, Canopy gave the example of someone who needs arthroscopic knee surgery. The consumer opens the app and can find out if that procedure is eligible as an HSA expense; find doctors in his ZIP code that provide it, and best of all, get the average price for the procedure in that geographic area. The app also shows which code the providers use to bill the HSA account (which consumers should discuss, as the coding can affect the cost). It's a cool application that reflects the paradigm shifts toward consumer-managed health care.

Is Your 401(k) Plan a Dud?

I've reported several stories regarding problems with 401(k) plan administrators siphoning off billions of dollars in fees from workers saving for their retirements. But since many fees are hidden, it's fairly difficult for plan participants to figure out if their 401(k) is a winner or a loser.

Enter BrightScope, a research firm that boasts the largest database of 401(k) data and analytics in the U.S., run by brothers Mike and Ryan Alfred. A kind of Morningstar for 401(k) plans, it reviews 4,500 different company plans on a variety of metrics including fees, participation rates and employer matches. BrightScope is independent -- it does not accept compensation in the form of revenue-sharing from mutual fund companies or plan providers. The firm hopes to have information available on 30,000 plans by the end of the year.

Finding the Best Savings and Checking Accounts

BillShrink.com, the free savings tool that helps consumers save on their bills, introduced a new feature to assist in locating the ideal combination of savings accounts and CDs. The company, which made its name helping users sorting through cell phone plans and credit card offerings, gives consumers the best rates from up to 60 banks, and allows them to customize their searches. Plus, it doesn't take money from sponsors in exchange for a preferential listing position.

If it's a high-yield checking account you're after, check out CheckingFinder.com, which finds banks that offer high-interest checking (around 4 percent) if the consumer agrees to follow certain requirements (such as 10 debit transactions a month, one ACH transfer, online statements, etc.) CheckingFinder.com is the brainchild of Bancvue/First ROI.

The company's latest innovation is helping small community banks that are offering high-yield checking accounts to market them under a national brand name "Kasasa." The company unveiled a series of commercials with the tagline "Do you Kasasa?" (Actually I do -- I'm currently trying out a high-yield checking account that yields 4.02 percent.) But that's a story for another column.