The Friday Five: Innovative Financial Services Start-Ups

On Fridays, I regularly post a list of five things worth knowing about, and invite you to add others in the comments.

This week, it's New England start-ups working on new ideas in the financial services space.

- Cambridge-based Blueleaf wants to encourage you to collect all your banking and investment info in one place, and then collaborate with friends, family, or financial advisors to improve your returns.

- Currensee. A social network built especially for foreign exchange traders. It allows participants to discuss strategies and compare performance. Boston-based Currensee has raised $12 million in venture capital so far, from firms like North Bridge and Egan Managed Capital.

- Taking a page from the ING Direct playbook, PerkStreet is a bank without branches or toaster giveaways. Targets consumers who are happy to bank online, ask questions via e-mail, or call up a live person by phone. By keeping costs low, Boston-based PerkStreet can offer rewards for using your debit card that include free Dunkin' coffee, iTunes downloads, or Amazon.com credit.

- Swipely encourages users to share information with friends (or the Web at large) about purchases they've made, and to rate or comment on the things they've bought. Launched a beta last month, and announced $7.5 million in funding. Based in Providence, RI.

- Trefis is building a community of amateur equities analysts, who use the site to share their scenarios for how a particular stock will perform. Nifty visual tools for estimating how good or bad performance in a given line of business will affect the share price.

(One more company worth a mention is WePay, which offers a solution for group payment situations — like renting a Cape house for the summer with a bunch of friends. Founded here by two Boston College alums, it's now based in Palo Alto, unfortunately.)

Who would you add to the list? Post a comment...