Going Online To Balance Family Budget

February 17, 2005 11:12 AM

Going Online To Balance Family Budget

Excerpt: Banks want their Web sites to keep track of your budget as well as your balances.

Banks want their Web sites to keep track of your budget as well as your balances.

Many consumers already are going online to pay bills and to view account statements and balances. Now, a number of banks are adding online tools that allow customers to track their spending. The tools are similar to basic features offered by personal-finance software such as Microsoft Corp.'s Money and Intuit Inc.'s Quicken.

Wells Fargo & Co. plans to announce today a free tool that automatically organizes expenses into one of 20 categories such as gas/automotive and groceries. The "My Spending Report" tool provides a snapshot of spending by category for a single account, or across multiple accounts.

Among the other banks offering tracking tools is EverBank Financial Corp.'s EverBank. The Jacksonville, Fla., online bank rolled out in January a spending-report feature that allows customers to view an account's transactions by date, type and specific categories such as "household," among other things. Within the next six months, the bank plans to expand the time period for tracking transactions and to add a charting tool.

The tools are part of banks' efforts to differentiate their Web sites now that most are offering the same online bells and whistles. By providing free personal-finance features, banks hope to lure customers who want basic budgeting tools without having to pay for the software.

Most of the banks' tools track expenses for only certain types of accounts and for limited time frames. In contrast, software such as Quicken and Microsoft Money let customers view and combine information from accounts at multiple institutions and see data as far back as they have had the software.

READ FULL STORY ...

Banks Speed Process For Opening Online Accounts (February 04, 2005)

Bank branches are losing a major advantage over online banking: instant accounts. Visiting a branch has traditionally been the quickest way to open and fund an account for say, checking or savings, because of the paperwork and processes involved to validate customer identities and avoid ...

Online Banks Are Boosting Yields (January 15, 2005)

As interest rates start to rise, many online banks have already started to offer higher yields on many accounts. Traditional banks have been slower than their nimbler online counterparts to boost returns on many of their short-term cash-like investments. In recent weeks, many Internet banks ...

Read all 22 posts in the same category of Banking:

Banks Speed Process For Opening Online Accounts - Feb 04, 2005
Online Banks Are Boosting Yields - Jan 15, 2005
Online Banks Are Boosting Yields - Jan 15, 2005
Momentum Is Gaining for Cellphones as Credit Cards - Jan 10, 2005
Rebels With A Cause, And A Business Plan - Jan 01, 2005
Banks Boost Customer Incentives, But Rates on Savings Remain Low - Dec 27, 2004
Online Bill Paying: How To Get Started - Dec 27, 2004
Banks Test ID Device for Online Security - Dec 24, 2004
Paper Checks Going Bye-Bye? - Dec 08, 2004
Check It Out: Incentives to Pay Bills Online - Dec 07, 2004
'Gift Cards' May Come Loaded With Fees - Nov 29, 2004
Where To Keep Your Rainy Day Fund - Nov 29, 2004
What's Your Bill-Paying Personality? - Nov 28, 2004
Debit Cards Lack Protections Of Credit Cards - Nov 28, 2004
A New Era In Banking Begins - Nov 25, 2004
Automatic Debit Scams - Nov 22, 2004
Bank Accounts Fail To Follow Fed's Lead - Nov 12, 2004
ChexSystems Puts Him In Penalty Box - Nov 09, 2004
"Check 21" Starting in Late October - Nov 03, 2004
Gift Cards 04 - Nov 03, 2004
Save Electronic Checks for Your Taxes - Nov 01, 2004

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