Apple Watch Ignites Fintech Community, Inspires New Apps

Earlier this month Benzinga wrote about the 22 fintech apps that are coming to Apple Inc.'s AAPL smartwatch. In the days that followed, many more fintech companies told Benzinga about their development plans for Apple Watch. "It's definitely something we are discussing and thinking through from a UI standpoint, especially as a means of serving notifications with the native mobile app, but it's not something we have a current delivery ETA on," Peter Hans, co-founder and president of Harvest, told Benzinga. "That said, I think the watch has a ton of potential as a means of delivering timely user notifications." Mike Sha, co-founder and CEO of SigFig, told Benzinga why his company is supporting the watch at launch. "SigFig has always been committed to embracing cutting edge technologies that enhance the SigFig experience for our users," said Sha. "As a result, we're pleased to have been approached by Apple early on to develop an Apple Watch app ahead of the watch's release. I believe that we'll start to see meaningful maturation of the wearables segment now that Apple has entered the market."

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Sha realizes that the Apple Watch may not be right for all fintech companies. "It really depends on a company's product offering and target customer," he said. "Just because a company can release an app for the Apple Watch doesn't mean it should. A lot of it depends on the product's use-case." On April 22, Motif Investing unveiled its brand-new app for Apple Watch. Dan Raju, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Tradier, also informed Benzinga that his company has two teams (one in San Francisco and one in New York) working on an Apple Watch app. "The wearables market is in it's infancy and early adopters are swarming to the Apple Watch just like they did for the first iPhone," Sha added. "It's no secret that the watch is heavily backordered, so Friday's retail sales should be strong." Sha does not expect the Apple Watch to peak overnight, however. "I believe that, just like we saw with the first iPhone, it'll take some time for the app ecosystem to develop," he concluded. "But Apple is obviously very good at defining new categories and making them mainstream and we are excited to be there early." Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.