If you’re not familiar with Yodlee, they’re the financial services company that developed technology to make back-end aggregation of bank data secure and speedy so that services like Mint.com could be born and go on to be swallowed up by Intuit for boatloads of cash. Founded in 1999, Yodlee now boasts over 30 million users and has raised over $100 million in funding to date. It’s quietly become a provider of financial applications and management solutions that let users collect all their account information in one, centralized place to let them easily manage all their pesky financial tasks.
This is really the big value proposition for Yodlee. Online banking is really no longer just online banking, it’s now personal financial management. They may sound the same, but to the customer, the latter gives the impression that they’ll be able to manage their finances all in one place and that the management experience won’t suck, it will be personalized, and offer the benefits of modern technology — like, for example, mobile functionality.
Yodlee’s FinApp Store was created with this exact purpose in mind, as it allows banks to take advantage of a technology platform and apps ecosystem that allows them to rapidly build and deliver personalized financial services. More than 250 developers have registered to the Yodlee FinApp ecosystem already to help banks create revenue-generating apps like, for example, merchant-funded rewards, automated tax preparation, identity protection, etc. The apps are then delivered by Yodlee alongside its personal finance solutions to enable banks (and their chosen partners) to access a single, secure delivery mechanism for these complementary app-based financial services.
Of course, Yodlee succeeds based on the partnerships it forges with financial institutions and banks, and today the company is adding a big-name partner to its bullpen, announcing that Bank of America will be implementing Yodlee’s FinApp platform into its online banking operations very soon.
As FinApps turn your online banking experience into something that’s more representative of a modern smartphone homescreen than a bleak, dreary accountant’s office, BoA is hoping to give its customers enhanced web banking UX through a variety of financial apps that will let them turn their BoA online account into a full-service banking depot. Because, let’s be honest, Bank of America’s online banking experience could use a shot in the arm. FinApps tap into users’ financial data (securely, mind you) to deliver coupons based on their transactions, tax prep from H&R Block, custom savings plans, credit-score improvement, and (the biggest attraction) p2p money transfers.
Bank of America badly needs to infuse new life into its personal online banking experience, and Yodlee’s tech (which, by the way, includes an API to let developers build cool apps for Yodlee’s products) bring a mix of trusted financial management services along with third-party development that may just make BoA’s online banking experience more bearable.
Stay tuned for more.