It's hard to believe that Mint turns four next month. It made its financial industry debut at our first Finovate conference (demo here, Oct. 2, 2007) after having launched to the general public a few weeks earlier.

With 5 million registered users, and public ownership (Intuit), it's now "the establishment" that dozens of startups look to unseat.

Mint made a large stride forward this week with the addition of a bill-due-date timeline to its Overview page, the page that users land on after login (see inset and first screenshot below).

The company also expanded its text and email bill-due-date reminder system. A wizard launched from a promotion on Mint's main page (screenshot 2, 3) prompts users to establish reminders for regular household bills.

Bottom line: Mint's billing timeline is a good example of the forward-looking approach that's much needed in online and mobile banking.

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A timeline of upcoming bills has been added to the Mint.com's main Overview page (25 Aug. 2011)

Mint promotes the new feature with a huge interactive banner on the main  Overview page

In this pop-up box, Mint gathers together likely bills and asks if you want a reminder

A timeline of upcoming bills has been added to the main overview page

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Note: For more on online personal financial management (OFM), see Online Banking Report (published May 2010).