This new report picks up on directions led by the likes of Wells Fargo, that takes online banking right into the core space that was once dominated by Personal Finance Managers (PFM) such as Quicken, and Microsoft Money.
This report looks at the more advanced personal finance features largely ignored by banks so far, including: categorization, sorting, reporting and long-term storage have largely been ignored by banks. Furthermore, integrated personal finance is less costly to provide than bill pay and may be an even more powerful a retention device.
Banks can go further because they have the data already. By capturing customers debit and credit transactions, they can be sorted, categorised and stored automatically, and made available to customers through online banking as required. The report makes the case that this type of service will have greater impacts on customer loyalty than bill payment.
I would add that it will also raise some concerns about privacy, but those concerns should be overwhelmingly mitigated by the convenience, and security of knowing the customers information is safe, secure, being stored at the bank, and not on a home PC. Such information will be stored for several years, providing customers the additional benefit of knowing the data is always there if they need it.
Relevance to Bankwatch:
Its long been understood that additional value to customers from Online Banking had to reach beyond simple transactions. The model described here that stores and levers customers’ own transactional data is powerful and personalised.
Bankwatch 
Colin, thanks for the post on our latest report. Good point about privacy…no getting away from that issue. With enhanced authentication coming online, hopefully users will view the bank as THE SAFEST place to store their records.
Jim … I enjoy your reports, and this is a good example of how you are able to highlight big ideas within online banking directions.
It also occurs to me that this kind of development probably provides a “2 for 1” in the sense that regulatory and fraud management needs require much more detailed transactional storage and analysis, so levering that work and providing additional value to the customer, just makes sense.