Software vendors are starting to incorporate money management features from corporate products and personal financial management applications into their consumer online banking systems.
Last month S1 Corp. upgraded its Enterprise software, putting several business functions into consumers' hands. The Atlanta company, which offers the software mainly to large banks, is planning to introduce another upgrade this fall.
Several other vendors that serve mainly smaller institutions are making similar upgrades. In October, Intuit Inc. will start offering consumers online banking software with features from its Quicken desktop software. It also plans to offer a small-business version in December.
Online Resources Corp. added personal financial management features in February to its MoneyHQ online banking software.
The version S1 rolled out last month, Enterprise 3.6, is the first upgrade "for S1 in a while," Jerry Silva, its vice president of product strategy for its retail online division, said in an interview Monday. "We threw away all of the personal online banking code" and replaced it with code from the business banking product, allowing banks to turn on any business features for their consumers.
S1 banks that adopt the change can offer remote deposit capture, wire transfers, and other business features to consumers.
In September it plans to begin selling Enterprise 3.7, which will feature "a brand new interface" that allows consumers to "design their own Web page based on what they use more often," he said. The personalization features will resemble the "widgets" that users of portals and social networking sites can add to customize their interface.
"That's what customers see outside of financial services," he said, and they expect the same features at bank sites. The 3.7 update is "competitive and keeping up with the times."
The version rolled out in May replaced Enterprise 3.5, which had been expected in 2005 but was delayed by a year after a management shake-up. The prior version, 3.0, dates to 2004, and Mr. Silva said some customers are still on even earlier versions.
The new features could entice some banks to update their software, he said. Persuading customers to update has been a long-standing issue for S1. Some enhancements, such an online authentication feature added as a result of a 2006 pact with PassMark Security Inc. (now a part of EMC Corp.'s RSA Security), were applied only to certain versions as an incentive for clients to upgrade.
Mr. Silva joined S1 in April after eight years as an analyst with TowerGroup Inc., the Needham, Mass., independent research firm owned by MasterCard Inc., and 17 years in the banking industry before that. He said that S1 is hiring more people with direct experience in the industry.
Christine Barry, a research director at Aite Group LLC of Boston, said vendors are starting to beef up their offerings because of increased consumer demand for features that typically have been reserved for businesses.
"A lot of the vendors are going to be moving in the direction of that 'PFM lite,' if that's what the customers are looking for," she said.
Business features in particular are in demand because of the worsening economy, Ms. Barry said. More consumers are being exposed to business banking "as the economy changes and people lose jobs and start their own businesses." As vendors respond to this trend, "we're seeing, in a way, the best of both of the solutions," consumer and business, "starting to come together."
Besides better tracking tools, banks want to offer remote capture to consumers, she said. "The ulitmate goal of banks is just to increase the visibility of their solutions."
