There are three huge usability challenges with online personal financial management (PFM):

• It's hard to get started
• It's a pain to keep up with tagging transactions to make the data meaningful
• It can be disconcerting for many users to view spending summaries

That's why so few Americans engage in PFM, despite its obvious benefits (note 1). One way to tackle the first problem: Offer a sweepstakes or bonus to induce trial.

Truliant FCU is doing that with a late-summer sweeps encouraging members to log in and give its FinanceWorks (powered by Intuit's Quicken) program a try. Members who sign up for the PFM between July 6 and Sept. 29 are automatically entered into the sweeps. There is no cost for the service (note 2).

Prizes include:

• $100 awarded each week
• iPad 2 awarded each month

Total value of the prizes is about $3,000.

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Truliant FCU PFM sweeps (11 Aug. 2011)

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Notes:
1. For more on online personal financial management (OFM), see Online Banking Report (published May 2010).  
2. We urge FIs to consider charging for value-added services such as online PFM. See our recent Online Banking Report, Creating Fee-Based Online & Mobile Banking Services (published May 2011) for the rationale.