It's so refreshing to have some real numbers to go on, even if they are self reported. Aside from Prosper, Lending Club (here), and most recently SmartyPig (here), few of the startups we track provide meaningful metrics on their operations. That's why we use Compete website traffic estimates as a proxy for success.

Yesterday, MoneyAisle, the reverse-deposit-auction marketplace from neoSaej, released the following results for fourth quarter 2008 (press release): 

• $1.65 billion in auctions run by consumers, up three-fold from Q3 2008 (note 1)
• $100 million in deposits generated

That's not a lot, but we can make a few estimates from that info (note 2):

• Assuming 80 active bank partners, the average take per bank in Q4 was $1.25 million
• But applying the 80/20 rule to those results means that 16 banks generated about $80 million in deposits, or $5 million each
• And conversely, the remaining 64 banks brought in just $300,000 each
• Assuming the average deposit balance auctioned was $20,000, five thousand separate auction winners funded a deposit
• Assuming a commission of $37 per funded auction (note 2), neoSaej would have generated $185,000 in commission income in Q4, this is in addition to license fees and monthly maintenance fees

And for those of you who still want traffic numbers, MoneyAisle's website usage (monthly unique visitors) has been trending upwards after suffering a post-launch dip in November. In December, visitors totaled just under 20,000. 

Bottom line: It's a promising start for the company which earned an OBR Best of the Web this summer, was picked by the audience as Best of Show in October's Finovate (video here), and was recently chosen as a top-10 innovation of the year in our most recent Online Banking Report (here).

When MoneyAisle adds integrated online account opening (powered by Andera), results should be even stronger. 

Notes:
1. Deposit-generated total is 6% of total auctions run, because consumers are not obligated to make the deposit after they run the auction.

2. My speculative estimates, not provided from the company.

3. We outlined the company in a June blog post and in the pages of our Online Banking Report on New Models for Lead Generation and Online Banking Report on Growing Deposits in the Digital Age.