Finovate Fall 2014 is halfway over and if you were one of the nearly 1,500 attendees packed into New York’s Hilton Midtown Tuesday, you saw two costumed superheroes on stage grunting as they apparently tried to open an account on a mobile device.

Thee were also 34 other demos. (Here’s our take on Day 2.)

As always, many solutions were geared toward investors and money managers. There were no solutions having anything at all to do with bitcoin, which enjoyed a strong price rebound on the day, thanks to a certain announcement from PayPal. Millennials were not mentioned as often as in the past, but surprisingly, seniors had a moment in the FinTech sun. Dynamics was back again with a new card that works at Tim Hortons Donuts. Europeans in the audience scoffed whenever checks ATMs, or magstripes made an appearance, but it would hardly be Finovate without Dynamics.

Here’s a quick rundown of ten presentations that caught our attention:

NICE Systems showed off a slick and cost-saving automated voice authentication system.

Fiserv also demoed a support solution, with the use case of disputing a credit card charge with the mobile app using live chat or a phone call. Live chat is underutilized in banking mobile apps.

MoneyDesktop renamed itself MX live on stage. Its enhanced product suite, called Helios, looks ambitious and well-crafted as ever.

Global Debt Registry aims to bring transparency to the buying and selling of debt. Not sexy, but very practical.

VerifyValid also presented last year. Its new product allows checks to be written from multiple accounts in a manner reminiscent of Swiss transactional PFM platform numbrs. Without realtime payments, digital checks have a niche to fill. They are familiar and don’t carry fees — “1 $100 check is $100, not $94, or $92,” CEO Paul Doyle told Bank Innovation.

iBillionaire allows investors to follow the portfolios of Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn — but, as was pointed out in the #finovate tweetstream, Buffett and Icahn can invest in private companies, while most hobbyist investors cannot.

MISYS. This one will be talked about for years. The product on display seemed to be a rather elegant mobile banking solution, but it was hard to focus on it with the grunting going on from the frustrated superheroes Marble and Umbraman. Role-playing played a big role in Day 1, especially early on.

Toopher, led by famously fast-talking CEO Josh Alexander (he slowed it down a bit this year), showed off three-factor authentication (something you are, something you have, something you know) and flew a real drone around the room to show off the software’s geo-fencing capabilities.

EverSafe demoed a solution to protect seniors from fraudulent transactions and finanical exploitation. The eminently practical solution brought the painful realities of the outside world crashing into the ballroom for the first time, or second, if you include the drone.

BlueVine‘s practical and precise solution helps small businesses get cash advances based on unpaid invoices.

Congratulations to all the presenters from Day 1. The passion was palpable, and the energy invaluable to innovators everywhere. More FinTech innovation to come tomorrow!