The...er...Aggregation of Account Aggregation.

• Author: Linsley, Clyde
• Position: Electronic banking services - Brief Article

What's new with banks on the account aggregation front? Quite a lot, actually.

For example:

One-Stop Money Management. You're hailing a cab on the street when you realize that you haven't paid the phone bill, which is due today.

No problem. As you climb into the cab you whip out your Palm Pilot and pay it. And as the taxi pulls away, you set up a bill-paying protocol so you won't forget again. You call up a history of the checks you've written, verify your credit card balances, confirm your airline reservations and get an up-to-the-minute report on the status of your stock portfolio.

Salem Five Cents Savings Bank, based in Salem, Mass., was one of the first banks in the United States to offer its customers online access to all their personal financial information via the Internet. Salem Five's online account consolidating feature, OneView Service, is available to customers from their personal computers as well as from wireless hand-held computers and from cell phones enabled with Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

The service is offered through the bank's Internet banking division, www.directbanking.com, in partnership with Yodlee, a Redwood, Calif. firm specializing in data aggregation technology.

"The Check is in the Ether." The checkbook, that most beleaguered of modern inconveniences, just took another hit. Citigroup has launched an electronic bill paying service that can be used by anyone with an e-mail account, whether or not he or she is a Citibank customer. Furthermore, it can be used to pay--or receive payment from--anyone else with an e-mail account, whether or not be or she is a Citibank customer.

The service is called c2it. It permits registered users to transfer funds to or from bank and brokerage accounts or credit cards issued by any financial institution. The recipient of these funds can elect to have the payments credited to a credit card, deposited into the bank account of their choice or issued in the form of a check.

What's in this for Citibank? A spokesman says the bank will charge a service fee of $2 per transaction. For the first three months, however, it's free. (www.c2it.com)

Upside/Downside. Account aggregation offers a lot of advantages for the bank that's willing to jump into the fray, but a guaranteed cross-selling opportunity isn't necessarily one of them. Cleveland-based KeyCorp surveyed its aggregated account customers recently and determined that it would take a soft touch, indeed, to glean further revenue...