It's isn't often you see one of the companies that we write about make it to the top of Inc. Magazine's list of fastest growing private companies (note 1). But this year, Timonium, MD-based Bill Me Later landed at number six.  

To make it to the top, it takes an amazing amount of growth over a three-year period; in Bill Me Later's case, 87-fold, usually combined with a very small number in the base year ($600,000 in 2003) to top the chart (note 2). 

The self-reported revenue figures for the company are:

2003: $610,000
2006: $53.6 million
3-Year growth: 8,650%
Number of employees: 100

The company's been on a fabulous run and it will be interesting to see how long they stay private. Depending on the credit quality of the company's receivables, it could be an attractive acquisition target for a traditional financial institution or for a certain Web-based payment giant. 

Two other companies we follow made the top 500:

#205: CreditCards.com (Austin, TX) with an amazing $43 million revenues, up 10-fold from its $3.7 million in 2003. With 16 employees, the company does almost $3 million per.

#382: CashEdge (New York, NY) up 7.5 fold from $2.4 million in 2003, to $20.4 million last year, 315 employees. 

Congratulations to this year's high fliers.

Notes:

1. The Inc. list was expanded 10-fold this year to 5,000 companies 

2. The percent-growth rankings are far more dependent on the denominator than the numerator. If Bill Me Later would have had $400,000 less revenue in 2003 they would have grown 268-fold and topped this year's list. However, even $10 million more in 2006 revenues would only push them up one spot. 

The latest entry in the mobile banking space is Geezeo, who unveiled an account aggregation/mobile banking mashup Sunday called Geezeo Mobile. Take a few minutes and watch their screencast (here), which does a good job explaining how it works. Geezeo recently changed its name from DebtFolio and still operates a credit card selector at debtfolio.com. The company also offers a student loan consolidation service, called Geezeo Student.  

 Here's how it Geezeo Mobile works:

1. At the Geezeo website, list the usernames/passwords and challenge answers if necessary, to any credit card or bank account you wish to track (see screenshot below)
2. Register your mobile phone with Geezeo
3. Send a text message to Geezeo, and it will return a text message listing your current balances at all the tracked accounts (see inset)

The account aggregation is powered by CashEdge, which has considerable credibility in the banking industry, but is an unknown with consumers.

Analysis
As much as I personally love this service, it's probably ahead of its time, at least as a standalone product. It's a combination of two little-used services, text message banking + account aggregation, offered by an unknown company. Furthermore, massive security and privacy concerns are barely addressed, and it doesn't work in IE6. But it is a beta offering in its first week, so those things will be fixed. And the mobile service is just a piece of a larger personal finance offering according to the email sent to Geezeo registrants May 13:

Geezeo Mobile and Geezeo Student are part of a much larger online personal finance manager that's soon to be released. Geezeo will feature solutions to help you manage your money, keep track of where your money goes, provide suggestions for improvement, help you meet your financial goals and connect with others.

We have yet to connect with the founders, but according to MobileCrunch, the business model is contextual advertising. If that's true, Geezeo will need to appeal to the youth market, where bank account balances are lower, security concerns are fewer, and texting is the norm. But a better business model might be licensing the tool to banks and credit unions. In one fell swoop, the Geezeo app would give a financial institution a unique mobile banking offering, an entry into account aggregation, and an appealing platform for younger customers.

First reported by Bank Deals today (see note 1), Huntington Bank has recently launched a new direct bank, called DirectHuntington <directhuntington.com>. It goes against the naming convention of having "direct" follow the main brand name, but it shouldn't make too much difference. Still, the bank should secure domain-name rights to HuntingtonDirect.com, currently used by New.net Inc to post a few generic banking links and throw a pop-up or two at unsuspecting users. 

Huntington chose a color palette that makes it stand out from other financial institutions, a good move. However, the yellow 5.30% APR doesn't stand out as well as it should given its importance in the purchase decision (see sceenshot below).

But once again the CashEdge-powered online application leaves a lot to be desired (see previous coverage here and second screenshot below). But before you can even see the application, you must agree to the "Consent for Electronic Disclosure," a terrible first impression for someone who's thinking of sending you ten-grand or more (see screenshot below).

The upper-right Online Guarantee is a nice touch, but it links back to the main Huntington site which might be confusing for users (see screenshot below).

There is no mention of DirectHuntington at Huntington's main website <huntington.com>. However, there's a secret code (anywheresavings) you can enter into the Special Offers box that takes you to the direct banking site. 

*Yet another direct bank

Note:

1. The Bank Deals writer had a relatively uninspiring call with DirectHuntington's customer service when he researched the account. 

As mentioned earlier this week (previous post here), Flushing Financial's new Internet offering iGoBanking features a great price, modern homepage design, visible rates, and an overall good user experience.

At least until prospective customers decide to buy. Once the user clicks the grammatically challenged link, "iGo Open a New Account," things go downhill quickly. The application (see screenshots right and below), hosted by CashEdge (see related post here), fails to maintain the user experience from the bank's homepage.

In fact, the application is a circa 1999 all-text affair that leaves you wondering if the graphic designers at CashEdge are on strike. Here are a few of the problems:   

• No Customer Service or Help on the application
• No telephone number
• No way back to the homepage, the bank's logo is NOT clickable
• Overall lack of design and graphics, even the logo in the top looks like a low-resolution version
• The application steps are hardly visible because the white font is too thin to be easily read through the blue background
• Social security number required on first page
• Application is massive in length for a simple savings account (see screenshots below); we realize the need for regulatory compliance and security, but it should be either shortened or broken into smaller steps to maintain

For more on best practices in application design, refer to Online Banking Report (#104).

Screenshot: iGoBanking application page 2 (click to enlarge)

I had a good chat with CashEdge <cashedge.com> VP Neil Platt at BAI's Retail Delivery last week. The company is busy working on a much-needed channel integration initiative so that account applications begun online can be completed with a phone call or even a branch visit, with no need to start all over from scratch.

The company hopes it can capture half of what it estimates is 70% of completed online applications that go unfunded
(see chart inset).
If that's true, the payback for the solution, at least at larger financial institutions, will likely be measured in months, if not weeks.

Other projects in the works:

• Cross-selling other bank products during the new account-opening process
• Facilitating other types of applications, such as loans
• Improving risk management by tapping additional data sources outside the credit bureau

CashEdge is a great example of a specialist that carves out a profitable niche in a relatively narrow, but risky area of online operations, new account funding. Thanks to big clients such as Citibank, the company is on track to facilitate one million online account openings this year, about a quarter of the estimated 3.5 to 4 million new checking and savings accounts opened this year online (Note: CashEdge estimates). 

The company ranked number 101 in INC Magazine's list of the 500 fastest growing private companies. According to the published figures, the 177-person company grew from just over $1 million in revenues in 2002, to approximately $10 million in 2005.