By Tim Mullaney, Special for USA TODAY
Yodlee built a solid business selling software to big banks to power their online-banking sites. Now the Silicon Valley start-up is hoping to push itself into the fast-evolving world of mobile apps.
The company is out doing interviews about its "FinApp Store" strategy, to create a suite of 200 or more financial applications that it will sell through its partners, ranging from credit card companies like American Express to insurance company USAA and others. This week, it added products including an advice app from personal-finance columnist Jean Chatzky.
The idea is that breaking Yodlee's software into a series of apps will let each consumer create a custom package of services he or she needs without paying for anything they don't want, Yodlee Chief Executive Anil Arora said in an interview. Initial apps have been built to run on PCs, with the anticipation that many will go mobile by the end of the year, spokesman Ed Zitron said.
"Yodlee is trying to address a very basic consumer problem -- how to organize personal finances," said Arora, adding that the average consumer has 12 to 14 accounts at seven or eight different financial institutions. "We've got about 40 [apps] live and 200 in the pipeline."
The idea is that Yodlee partners will give away basic apps for tracking balances, while charging for apps that handle tougher problems like organizing and preparing a tax return, said Arora, a former marketing exec at Pillsbury.
Other apps include a credit-score tracker and one that keeps track of warranties on gadgets an appliances in a consumer's home. Redwood City, Calif.-based Yodlee is creating an open platform for developers to build apps, he said. It also offers its software-as-a-service directly through moneycenter.yodlee.com.
Yodlee-powered websites serve some 28 million Americans, and only about 50,000 are beta-testing FinApps so far. Most Yodlee partners will begin to offer the apps over the next few quarters, Arora said. If consumers like it, FinApps and software like it will mark another big step toward moving consumers' daily lives to a mobile lifestyle.
Yodlee's top rival is likely to be Intuit, which owns the Mint.com website and mobile app to organize personal finances. Mint used Yodlee software before Intuit bought the start-up in 2009.
Tim Mullaney is our guest blogger working in Tech Live for the next few weeks. To reach the author of this post, e-mail him at Tim@tim-mullaney.com.
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