Did you know that the hippo, no the lion, is considered the most dangerous animal on the African savanna? Yep, it’s true, big teeth on hippos. Well Montreal-based SmartHippo is going to be pretty dangerous to banks who don’t want customers to shop around for the best mortgage rate. Launched into public beta at TC40, they currently only have rates and comparisons for U.S. mortgage seekers, but CEO George Favvas assured me in an e-mail that Canada is on their radar. He couldn’t give a firm commitment on a timeline, which is understandable and acceptable (they just launched for Pete’s sake!)
As my colleague Heri blogged–SmartHippo: join the herd to know the best mortgage rates | Montreal Tech Watch–this might not be sexy and cool, it is useful and something that huge segments of the population can use. Saving money on a mortgage can make a huge difference to you financially. I hope to see more services like this. I would wager that SmartHippo could expand into savings account interest rates, bank fees, car loans … if they could slowly build themselves as a clearinghouse for financial information and comparisons…that would be a huge win for consumers.
In Canada, I know the banks could use a good kick in the pants (I use a local credit union, myself) and maybe an angry herd of consumer hippos could be just the ticket.
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Nice service and I hope they open up to the Canadian market as I need to refinance next year
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:34 pm
@denis I will have a talk with Georges Favvas next week at the Tech Entrepreneur breakfast, I will ask him why he chose the US first.
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Heri, Great! I’m sure it’s all about market size and unless I don’t understand their service completely, I don’t see why this can’t be international. So far, I see this as an “exchange service” but perhaps there’s more to it in the future…
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
@Denis and Heri … I think it is about scale. The U.S. mortgage market is HUGE–despite the recent collapse in the mortgage industry–and I think the banks have the desire to share things there.
That being said, I think Canadians will support this…so Heri ask George and report back here, pls?
January 8th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
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