| By Jim Bruene on April 21, 2008 6:27 PM | Comments (1) |
Two months ago we published a table (here) showing active users at the leading online personal finance startups. Below is the table, updated with March traffic and the addition of one more player: Bank of America.
The bank, which offers a full-featured online personal finance management solution called My Portfolio, powered by Yodlee, has 2.5 million active users, according to BofA exec Marina Moore (note 3). That's an impressive 10% of the bank's online user base, and about 6x the total user base of all the online startups combined (note 4).
| Company | Users (1) | % of Total | March Traffic(2) | Jan Traffic(2) | Chg |
| Bank of America | 2.5 million | 86% | -- | -- | -- |
| Mint | 180,000 | 6% | 160,000 | 150,000 | 7% |
| Wesabe | 100,000 | 3% | 28,000 | 41,000 | (32%) |
| Buxfer | 80,000 | 3% | 8,400 | 9,200 | (9%) |
| Geezeo | 20,000+ | 0.7% | 8,400 | 14,000 | (40%) |
| NetWorthIQ | 13,000 | 0.5% | 10,000 | 11,000 | (10%) |
| BillMonk | 10,000+ | 0.3% | 1,700 | 1,000 | +70% |
| Expensr | Five figs | 0.3%+ | 2,000 | 1,700 | +18% |
| Total | 2.9 million | 100% |
For more information:
- Online Banking Report (131/132): Personal Finance Features for Online Banking
- Online Banking Report (142/143): Social Personal Finance
- Our FinovateStartup Conference April 29 in San Francisco, where Buxfer, Expensr, Jwaala, Mint, and Wesabe will present the latest in online personal finance features
Notes/Sources:
1. Users: per BusinessWeek Online, Feb 2008, figures are reported by the companies and may include inactive users; Mint has been updated to 180,000 from 130,00 based on new figures reported in the Bank Technology News article published in April 2008
2. Traffic: per Compete estimates of website traffic for March 2008, retrieved April 21, 2008. Compete estimates traffic from its online data and can be off by a factor of two or three-fold for smaller websites.
3. As reported in a Bank Technology News article published in April 2008.
4. This table does not reflect all the players, such as Intuit's new Quicken Online, just the ones highlighted in the BusinessWeek article.
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So, you're saying there's a bit of a mountain to climb? ;-)
While it's great so many people are using B of A's tools, and taking an interest in managing their finances, one thing people should be wary of is the bank's motives. I'm sure they'd love for you to use My Portfolio and see what accounts you have at other FIs and try to convert those to B of A accounts, makes perfect business sense for them.
However, it's not the most objective approach to recommending financial products. As much as I think Mint's recommendations are useless in their current state, the idea that it's generally more objective is something of more value to consumers. Other startups offering independent suggestions would also fall into this category.
What are your thoughts? While bank provided tools offer the lowest barrier for users to get started, is it wise to use them?