Following are some of the better emails we’ve seen from financial providers in recent months. Because we only see those from financial institutions where we have established relationships, we would appreciate seeing others you’ve received. Send them to: info@onlinebankingreport.com .

Wells Fargo/ShareBuilder

This is our favorite holiday email. It was marketing NetStock’s ShareBuilder on behalf of co-branding partner Wells Fargo. It was sent the week after Thanksgiving (Nov. 28) and featured a engaging graphic of a young child and just 32 words of text (not including the mousetype fine print).

The pitch was for starting ShareBuilder accounts for children, with a $25 bonus for accounts opened prior to Dec. 31. A unique, if somewhat complicated, holiday gift idea for parents and grandparents.

First USA

This is a good example of a simple old-fashioned holiday greeting. FirstUSA punched it out on Christmas Eve and included a well-crafted P.S., “Maximize your holiday time by managing your accounts online at: Cardmemberservices.firstusa.com.

PayPal

PayPal sent several emails during the holiday period promoting a usage sweepstakes that rewarded users for shopping with PayPal. Taking a page from Visa’s annual holiday promotion , winners received their PayPal purchase free of charge. This message kicked off the program on Nov. 30.

PayPal also provided shopping ideas and a link to a directory of PayPal shops (right-hand side of the screen). The look of the emails was crisp and clean like the company’s Web site, but we would have preferred a bit more holiday cheer in the graphics.

DeepGreen Bank

DeepGreen Bank sent this message on Dec. 10 promoting holiday usage of its Home Equity Line of Credit. The message was pretty straightforward and was signed by DeepGreen CEO Jerome Selitto.

It’s a good email overall, but it’s a bit boring. The usual, great rates, great convenience, yada, yada, yada. To increase readership, it would be better to put some of the info into eye-catching graphics.

The company made a serious error by not putting DeepGreen in either the email subject or sender field. Unless you know the CEO, it looks a lot like a SPAM until you open it.

Intuit’s Quicken.com

We received our first holiday email from Intuit on Nov. 15, with a message entitled, “Holiday Gift and Sending Guide.”  The message had the usual format of Intuit’s monthly Money Matters email letter, with no holiday graphics. Beside the spending and gift advice, it featured a fifth anniversary sweeps for NetBank.

Although much of the advice is boilerplate, we like how it positions Quicken.com as a provider of thorough and timely advice about all aspects of your financial situation.

Normally, we don’t like to see outside advertising, but the NetBank sweeps added interest to the message.

NextCard

The December installment of NextCard’s monthly email newsletter was full of shopping discounts. The full newsletter was a bit cluttered taking up about four screens (at 800x600 on a 19-inch monitor).

The newsletter also promoted the Visa Magic Moments sweepstakes that awarded cardholders free purchases at a randomly selected second every day (box on the right).

To help differentiate its message from in-box SPAM, NextCard incorporates the cardholder’s first name in the email subject field.