Should banks try to integrate with services like Wesabe and Mint or just offer them as value-adds?
Brad G. asked about 1 year ago
in
Banktastic
I Like It!3
I think Wesabe and Mint are really great products. They both work well for different reasons but I’m not here to review them. I curious why there hasn’t been more involvement by core vendors or bigger banks to try and integrate with these services? Is it just too small of a percentage of people wanting to use these services? Do they think their products are good enough?
Heath S.
Maybe the lack of interest for banks or vendors to integrate with Wesabe and Mint are because Wesabe and Mint did an excellent job of creating their website where folks can go directly to these sites and rarely have to touch their bank’s site. Kudos to Wesabe and Mint!
Elaine N.
In our August email newsletter, when I wrote about transaction downloading, I mentioned Wesabe as something you could import your data into. :)
I’m not sure really what you would do to “integrate” with something like Wesabe or Mint; they’re so entirely stand-alone. I wonder if the main idea would be something like the “share this” links on blogs…. I’m not feeling clever enough this morning to take it farther than that, though.
What were you thinking of?
(I have a few more cynical thoughts, but I’ll hold off on those for the time being.)
Marc
I wonder how eager banks are/will be to open up their account roles to this service when it is quite clear that Mint.com will essentially provide a vehicle for advertisers/other banks to solicit their customers. The tools they offer are potentially powerful, but why not approach banks with the module and say “you should integrate this into your own internet banking solution(s).” Plus, the perceived risks in floating so much personal financial information out there are probably daunting to most.
Now of course the answers to all of these are in the simple fact that Mint.com is a business with a very solid hook…provide a functional/pretty budgeting tool to consumers in return for the right to solicit them for credit cards and/or bank accounts. One of those wished I’d a thought of it first type things, but in essence they are no different than a newspaper or TV station selling ads (their ads happen to be more targeted because of the wealth of personal information people willingly give up as payment for the service).