Visa Interactive has agreed to add two software products from Home Financial Network Inc. to its array of home banking systems.
Home Financial is trying to carve a niche with bare-bones programs for personal computer owners who do not use - or want to learn - more comprehensive, higher-end financial management software like Intuit Inc.'s Quicken.
"Ours is a very simple, transaction-oriented software," said Thomas S. Dittrich, vice president of marketing for Westport, Conn.-based Home Financial.
"We appeal to the mass market, the 75% of the U.S. population who do not balance their checkbooks on a monthly basis," he said.
The products - Home Pay and Home ATM - do not even include a check register, Mr. Dittrich noted.
By contrast, Visa's other home banking offerings appeal to customers who "enjoy sitting down and doing pie charts and bar graphs of asset allocation," Mr. Dittrich said.
Greg Jones, a Visa spokesman, said Home Financial's software "helps make our offerings in the PC arena even more comprehensive."
The arrangement, he said, is "along the lines of what we've done with Microsoft and our ongoing work with Meca (Software Inc.) and other devices for remote banking applications."
Home Financial's founders, Daniel Schley and Eric Jacobsen, were top executives at Meca, a bank-owned competitor of Intuit.
Visa Interactive, which is based in Herndon, Va., plans a pilot test of Home Financial's products by September.
