In today's Wall Street Journal, personal finance writer Jane Kim does a roundup of what she calls "the next wave of online banking." The impetus for the article was Yodlee's new MoneyCenter that will be available to consumers in early July. I was interviewed for the article and provided several of the examples along with the market size estimate.
In addition to Yodlee, the following developments were chronicled in the article:
- Citibank's <citibank.com> 50-fold increase in online interbank transfer limits from around $2,000 to $100,000 this summer. In what may simply be a self-serving comment made to a reporter, the bank cites the demand for its new e-Savings account as an impetus for the change.
- Commerce Bank's (NJ) Virtual Private Bank <virtualprivatebank.com> for customers with $1 million or more in investable assets.
- Wells Fargo's My Spending Report, a simple integrated spending report we discussed last year. (FMW Feb. 17, 2005)
- Bank of America's <bankamerica.com> account aggregation and recently expanded account alerts.
- Chase's <chase.com> next-day bill payment.
Analysis
Although most of these examples are relatively minor improvements, it's good to see the mainstream press recognizing online banking innovations. The last few years have been dominated by security concerns, and we believe it's a great sign that reporters are looking for "what's next." It would be wise to have an answer to that question when your local paper calls.
We believe the Virtual Private Bank (VPB) from Commerce and the Yodlee system deserve closer examination. We'll cover Yodlee's new product when it goes live next month. And, although we won't be able to drop a million into Commerce Bank, we'll take the VPB for a test drive later this week.
--JB