Intuit is Changing the Face of Online Banking
Recent Acquisition of Digital Insight Already Producing Next-Generation Solutions
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Digital Insight(R), an Intuit company, today announced the upcoming release of Personal FinanceWorks and Small Business FinanceWorks, two products expected to lead the next generation of online banking. The product announcement comes just five weeks after Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU) completed the acquisition of Digital Insight. Personal FinanceWorks is expected to be released this summer; Small Business FinanceWorks in the fall.
These revolutionary new offerings, which will change the face of online banking, are the first in a series of new product introductions planned by Digital Insight and Intuit for the financial institution marketplace. Financial institutions will soon be able to offer better, easier and more integrated financial management tools to their consumer and small business customers, making current online banking tools seem outdated and static.
Together, the combined entities will create solutions that solve customer problems in a way that will be tough for others to match. Intuit brings its customer-driven innovation product development process, which over the last two decades has created easy-to-use solutions like Quicken(R), QuickBooks(R) and TurboTax(R). Digital Insight brings its ability to provide completely outsourced online banking solutions at world-class levels of security, reliability and stability, which has delighted nearly 1,800 financial institution clients for more than a decade.
In addition, Digital Insight's service-oriented architecture supporting these solutions will enable financial institutions to rapidly add new functionality over time while still providing a seamless end-user experience.
"For the last 10 years, financial institutions have made great progress establishing a Web presence and enabling customers to conduct some of their financial business online, but it's time to deliver much more," said Jeff Stiefler, president of Intuit's financial institutions division. "Combining the unique strengths of Intuit and Digital Insight will enable us to provide consumers and small businesses with more control over their financial lives than they have ever had, while helping financial institutions become the financial hub for their customers."
Giving Consumers Control and Insight into Their Cash Flow
Personal FinanceWorks represents a major advancement to the current online banking offerings used by 43 million households and will solve many of the most important day-to-day financial management needs identified through hundreds of in-home customer observations:
-- Managing all bills in one place: Current online banking
offerings generally only show users the bills paid through
their bill payment product - a service only half of all online
banking households use. Personal FinanceWorks will let users
manage all of their monthly bills and obligations on their
bank or credit union's online site, regardless of the method
used to pay bills. This will help customers meet their monthly
obligations, reduce late fees and ensure healthy credit
ratings.
-- Knowing their Real Balance(TM): The No. 1 reason people visit
an online banking site is to see how much money they have
available to spend. Most current online banking solutions only
show customers their cleared balance, leaving them to wonder
exactly how much money they have available. Personal
FinanceWorks users will see the cleared balance as well as
their Real Balance, which includes checks written and upcoming
scheduled bills and deposits.
-- Getting control over their spending: Very few online banking
sites today show users where they are spending their money.
With Personal FinanceWorks, users will be able to easily view
and customize spending reports. Armed with this information,
users will have the ability to make changes that will help
them spend less and save more.
Uncovering and Benefiting From Millions of Invisible Small Businesses
There are more than 22 million small businesses that are currently "invisible" to and therefore underserved by financial institutions. They are invisible because about half of these business owners use pencil, paper and spreadsheets to manage important tasks and fund their business via their personal checking account.
"Existing online banking solutions fail to address the key financial issues faced by the vast majority of small business owners, including the need to manage both personal and business transactions in one place," said Susan Feinberg, research director for wholesale banking at TowerGroup, an industry analyst. "Financial institutions that offer a single platform to support the full range of personal and business activity and at the same time provide more advanced business features for growing companies are likely to win market share in the highly competitive race to capture small business banking customers."
Small Business FinanceWorks will be the first integrated online solution that will help small businesses easily manage their most important administrative jobs. Instead of using a combination of tools to manage important tasks -- such as cash flow, payroll, invoicing and taxes -- a single secure log-in at a businesses' bank or credit union online banking site will let small business owners:
-- Understand and control cash flow: Small Business FinanceWorks
will include all the features of Personal FinanceWorks to help
business owners manage their cash flow, pay bills and
suppliers, and separate their business from personal finances,
making tax time much easier.
-- Create professional-looking invoices and easily receive
payments from customers: Invoicing customers will no longer be
a painful manual process as businesses will be able to easily
create, print, e-mail and track invoices. Their customers can
click a link in the e-mail to pay their bill online, making it
easy to bring funds into the business and offering payment
convenience.
-- Easily accept credit card payments: By implementing a "virtual
terminal," invoices and payments will be integrated so small
business owners can accept credit card payments online, over
the phone, or in person.
-- Easily and efficiently manage payroll: Paying employees is a
time-consuming and daunting task for small business owners who
handle payroll themselves. The Internal Revenue Service says
it takes approximately 13 hours to fill out quarterly payroll
reports, and that more than one-fourth of those resulted in
penalties. Small Business FinanceWorks uses the same tax
calculations and forms engines of QuickBooks Payroll - the
payroll leader among small businesses with almost 1 million
customers - enabling small business owners to run their own
payroll in minutes and automatically fill in payroll tax
forms.
The Benefit for Financial Institutions
Customers currently spend 22 minutes per week on their online banking solution. With these new products, banks and credit unions will offer customers a much more advanced online solution that will likely increase the relevance of the financial institution in their customers' lives. In turn, financial institutions will have the opportunity to learn more about their customers and their financial needs, establish deeper relationships and cross-sell opportunities with them, and gain new customers through word of mouth.
"FinanceWorks is a huge leap forward in online banking," said Lisa Welander, senior vice president and chief information officer of Heritage Bank in Olympia, Wash., after reviewing the products. "Finally, we will have solutions that will help us simplify the financial management tasks of hard-to-reach consumers and small businesses that have traditionally fallen between the retail and commercial platforms. Offering these products to our customers will help them manage their financial lives and give us an online means to broaden our relationship with them."
Another industry research firm praised the effort to bring new solutions to financial institutions, consumers and small businesses.
"Other companies are talking about the next generation of online banking solutions, but to date, it's been mostly talk. Digital Insight is delivering," said Jeanne Capachin, vice president of global banking, Financial Insights.
Digital Insight was acquired by Intuit on Feb. 6. Together the companies serve more than 5,000 financial institutions, nearly 25 million consumers and nearly 7 million small businesses. For more information, please visit www.digitalinsight.com.
About Intuit
Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. Its flagship products and services, including QuickBooks(R), Quicken(R) and TurboTax(R) software, simplify small business management and payroll processing, personal finance, and tax preparation and filing. ProSeries(R) and Lacerte(R) are Intuit's leading tax preparation software suites for professional accountants. The company's financial institutions division, anchored by Digital Insight, provides on-demand banking services to help banks and credit unions serve businesses and consumers with innovative solutions.
Founded in 1983, Intuit had annual revenue of $2.3 billion in its fiscal year 2006. The company has more than 8,100 employees with major offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other locations. More information can be found at www.intuit.com.
Intuit, Digital Insight, Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax among others, are registered trademarks and/or registered service marks of Intuit Inc. in the United States and other countries. Other parties' trademarks or service marks are the property of their respective owners and should be treated as such.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release includes "forward-looking statements" which are subject to safe harbors created under the U.S. federal securities laws. These include statements about the expected benefits, functionality and release dates of new or future products. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from our expectations. These risks and uncertainties include: the risk that future products and services may not be released when or as expected; the risk that any future products may not address customer needs or achieve acceptance in the market; and the risk that Intuit will not be able to successfully integrate Digital Insight's technology, products, services, personnel and operations and achieve planned synergies or capitalize on anticipated market opportunities. For information regarding other related risks, see discussion of risks and other factors in documents filed by Intuit with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including Intuit's Form 10-K for the year ended July 31, 2006, available on Intuit's website at www.intuit.com. Forward-looking statements represent the judgment of the management of Intuit as of the date of this release, and Intuit disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
Source: Intuit Inc.
Released March 13, 2007