Aug 15, 2012, 3:52pm

PYMNTS.com, the premier source of news, commentary and innovation in payments, is pleased to recognize the winners of the first annual PYMNTS.com Innovator Awards.

The PYMNTS.com Innovator Awards are designed to recognize the most creative and disruptive innovators across the broad payments sector. The selection process was a comprehensive look inside the sector that is moving the payments industry forward.

“Innovation is what is disrupting, reshaping and energizing the industry of payments. And it is happening at the intersection of robust ecosystems like mobile, social, software, and advertising which bring a world of new options and opportunities to all participants,” said Market Platform Dynamics CEO and judging panelist Karen Webster.

The finalists were chosen by a leading panel of payments industry experts including David Evans and Karen Webster of Market Platform Dynamics; Hans Morris, General Atlantic; Dan Rosen, Highland Capital Partners; Dick Schmalensee, MIT Sloan School; and Matthew Witheiler, Flybridge Capital Partners.

And after more than 4,000 fans voted and judges spent countless hours deliberating, the community finally selected the winners.

The most sought after award, Most Innovative, was awarded to Kabbage for their social credit profile-building platform. Co-founder and COO Kathryn Petralia accepted the award. Runner up was edo Interactive, nominated for their card-linked loyalty platform, and rounding out the top three was Square, made famous by their well-known mobile payment card reader.

The tightest race throughout the entire competition was the battle for Most Disruptive. Google and PayPal were neck and neck throughout the voting process, with PayPal inching Google out at the last minute for their mobile commerce and digital wallet platform. Vice President of Enterprise Architecture & Infrastructure Nik Sathe was on hand to accept the award. Google came in a close second for the Google Wallet, and Payfone, nominated for their one touch mobile payment solution, came in third.

The award for Best Technology went to cloud-based payment gateway guru Braintree, and CFO Amit Jhawar was on hand to accept on behalf of the company. The silver medal was awarded to Stripe for its online payments processing platform for developers, and bronze went to VoicePay for its mobile voice authentication technology.

XYverify won the award for Most Invisible for its geo-location mobile cloud fraud prevention solution, beating out Microbilt and Online Resources. On hand to accept the award was founder Elliot Klein who gave a nod to judge David Evans in his acceptance speech. Runner up Online Resources was nominated for its virtual collection agent and coming in third was Microbilt for its ACH Risk Verify Database.

Winning the Best Newcomer award by a landslide — and, “hoping to be next year’s Most Disruptive winner,” said Chief Rockstar and COO Michael Hagan — was LevelUp, designers of one of the most popular payment and loyalty platforms in all of mobile. The second place award went to Paydiant for its white-label mobile wallet, with third going to Swift Exchange for its ‘points as currency’ mobile platform.

PYMNTS.com would like to thank everyone who helped make this process a success, including the judging panel, submitters, nominees, finalists, voters and, most of all, readers. The on-demand ceremony can be viewed on PYMNTS.com and be sure to stay tuned for the announcement of next year’s awards!

About PYMNTS.com

PYMNTS.com is reinventing the way in which companies in payments share relevant information about the initiatives that shape the future of commerce and makes news. This powerful B2B platform is the #1 site for the payments industry by traffic and the premier source of information about “what’s next” in payments. C-suite and VP level executives turn to it daily for these insights, making the PYMNTS.com audience the most valuable in the industry. It provides an interactive platform for companies to demonstrate thought leadership, popularize products and, most importantly, capture the mindshare of global decision-makers. It’s where the best minds and best content meet on the web.