Mint.com to Become a Bank
Mint.com will offer true-blue banking services by yearend.
Aaron Patzer, the company’s founder and CEO, has told The Wall Street Journal that he “expects the site will enable setting up savings accounts and money transfers by the end of this year.”
To do so, The Wall Street Journal says Mint.com “hopes to add by the end of the year” bank status that for its users “will actually allow for the real transfer of money, rather than the hypothetical” transfer of funds simulated in the new Mint Goals application, according to a WSJ video.
That revelation sets Mint.com on a course to make the most notable leap for an online PFM: into full “bank-hood.”
Mint.com officials declined to comment.
The news that Mint.com is going bank is all the more noteworthy considering that it comes on the heels of Wesabe’s demise last week. Wesabe was the first real, post-Yodlee PFM and widely considered Mint.com’s competitor.
Interestingly, I just today posted about the revenue potential of online PFMs and how that potential centers on acquiring full bank status.
Mint.com has three options:
- Become a bank on its own by filing for a bank charter;
- Acquire an existing bank charter; or
- Leverage another venture’s bank charter by offering banking services through that other enterprise, much in the way startup Bank Simple operates.
As far as I can tell, Intuit, Mint.com’s parent, does not currently have a bank charter.
What makes this transition to “bank-hood” for Mint.com dicey is that Intuit is a major service provider to banks through its Digital Insight unit. Intuit bank clients might not appreciate competition from an Intuit subsidiary.
Please login to join discussion
