The Banking Industry’s Guide to Major PFM Providers

Personal financial management (PFM) tools help banks and credit unions deepen relationships with consumers and differentiate financial institutions by making it easier for consumers to keep track of their financial picture. But consumers won’t be satisfied with basic budgeting and transaction analyses. Here are seven major providers with solutions that offer robust analytics, proactive recommendations and even interactive gaming tools that can help consumers improve their overall financial health.

Even though personal financial management (PFM) tools have been available for more than a dozen years, more than half of U.S. consumers still use decidedly old-school methods of tracking their finances like pen and paper (38%) and spreadsheets (20%), according to RFi Group.

Only one out of six consumers give themselves an “A” grade in financial acumen and half admit they follow a monthly budget, but the majority of those awarding themselves the highest marks use PFM.

This is an opportunity for banks and credit unions to offer personal financial management (PFM) tools. Traditional banking providers might fear that firms such as Mint and Quicken have already cornered the market on PFM, but that’s not the case. The RFi Group found that more than three-quarters of consumers would prefer PFM tools offered by their primary financial institution, compared to just 6% who say they would prefer PFM tools come from non-bank third-party providers.

Unfortunately, those consumers who do use PFM tools from their bank and credit union are not impressed. Oracle found that consumers are more dissatisfied with personal financial management services (along with investment management services) compared other banking services.

“Whether a retail bank sees PFM services as a core part of its strategy or not, they play a pivotal role in customer retention,” Oracle wrote in a report on digital banking strategies. “Banking providers can’t afford to ignore this decline in customer satisfaction.”

The message is clear: banks and credit unions can ignore PFM no longer. To help financial institutions identify the right partner, The Financial Brand created this handy guide to several of the industry’s biggest and most popular players in the PFM space.

CSI

Website: www.csiweb.com
Launched: 2011
Employees: 1,100
Bank/Credit Union Clients: 123
HQ Location: Paducah, KY
White Label: Yes
Standalone or Integrated: Integrated
Pricing Model: Setup and peruser fees
Account Aggregation: Yes
Auto Categorization: Yes
Debt Management: Yes (net worth)
Budgeting: Yes
Credit Score: No
Bill Payment: Yes (via CSI Digital Banking)
Transfers: Yes
Alerts: Yes, including spending and goal tracking alerts
Investment Tracking: No
Tips/Advice: No
Notable Feature: Integrates accounts on the financial institution’s website

Envestnet

Website: www.envestnet.com
Launched: 1999
Employees: 3,500+
Bank/Credit Union Clients: n/a
HQ Location: Chicago, IL
White Label: Yes
Standalone or Integrated: Both
Pricing Model: Options based on AUM, AUA and technology licensing agreements
Account Aggregation: Yes
Auto Categorization: Y
Debt Management: No
Budgeting: Yes
Credit Score: No
Bill Payment: No
Transfers: No
Alerts: No
Investment Tracking: No
Tips/Advice: Yes
Notable Features:

  • Goals-based planning, document vault, and self-service investment support
  • Configurable modules that allow consumers to aggregate personal finances to obtain a holistic view of wealth and financial health
  • Modules include a configurable digital storefront for opening an account
  • Financial Wellness Solutions powered by Yodlee that include budgeting, cash flow and net worth

Geezeo

Website: www.geezeo.com
Launched: 2007
Employees: 50
Bank/Credit Union Clients: 502
HQ Location: Braintree, MA
White Label: Yes
Standalone or Integrated: Both
Pricing Model: Varies
Account Aggregation: Yes
Auto Categorization: Yes
Debt Management: Yes
Budgeting: Yes
Credit Score: No
Bill Payment: Yes
Transfers: No
Alerts: Yes
Investment Tracking: Yes
Tips/Advice: Yes
Notable Features:

  • Geezeo API delivers PFM to any channel/device — mobile, tablet, ATM and more
  • PFM for Mobile mirrors the online experience
  • Marketing platform presents relevant, contextual messaging to online users and financial and behavioral data to generate accurate consumer insights and highly targeted promotional offers
  • Data analytics includes a set of tools enabling banks to utilize data to make more informed decisions. In most cases, reports are customizable allowing executives to track the information that is most critical

Meniga

Website: www.meniga.com
Launched: 2009
Employees: 100+
Bank/Credit Union Clients: 40
HQ Location: London, UK
White Label: Yes
Standalone or Integrated: Both
Pricing Model: License
Account Aggregation: Yes
Auto Categorization: Yes
Debt Management: Yes
Budgeting: Yes
Credit Score: No
Bill Payment: No
Transfers: No
Alerts: Yes
Investment Tracking: No
Tips/Advice: Yes
Notable Features:

  • Financial activity feed — a social media inspired timeline of financial life with clearly categorized transactions mixed with insights, advice, fun facts, tailored offers and recommendations
  • Automatically categorized transactions with up to 99% accuracy
  • Insights and reports — clear visual representation of income and expenses by category and merchant, weekly and monthly reports and predictions based on past spending
  • Upcoming cash flow analysis — short-term account balance projection including highlighted bills, payments and transfers
  • Peer-to-peer comparisons of your expenses, income and savings against people with similar demographic and financial profiles
  • Savings challenges where users can compete against peers, challenge friends and share progress on social media
  • Actionable features such as Google-like search, filtering, editing, tags and split functions
  • Community features such as restaurant recommendations
  • Four-time ‘Best of Show’ winner at Finovate

Moven

Website: movenenterprise.com
Launched: 2011
Employees: 50
Bank/Credit Union Clients: n/a
HQ Location: New York, NY
White Label: Yes
Standalone or Integrated: Both
Pricing Model: Monthly license fee based on features/functions and number of monthly users
Account Aggregation: Yes
Auto Categorization: Yes
Debt Management: Yes
Budgeting: Yes
Credit Score: No
Bill Payment: Yes
Transfers: Yes
Alerts: Yes
Investment Tracking: Yes
Tips/Advice: Yes
Notable Features:

  • Mobile signup
  • In-app financial wellness and savings advice chatbot
  • Behavioral-based spending tracking and feedback, real-time receipts, spending categories plus splitting and targets
  • Personalized saving prompts, savings velocity visuals, wish list gamification, social sharing and referrals
  • Secure and frictionless auto-login options
  • Enterprise options include full app; embedded SDK; API data only; web, widgets, smart watch
  • Extensible design for other product cross-sell
  • Enterprise UX/UI and ROI guidance with proven track record.

MX

Website: mx.com
Launched: 2010
Employees: 170+
Bank/Credit Union Clients: 1,800
HQ Location: Lehi, UT
White Label: Yes
Standalone or Integrated: Either
Pricing Model: Per User
Account Aggregation: Yes
Auto Categorization: Yes
Debt Management: Yes
Budgeting: Yes
Credit Score: No
Bill Payment: Yes
Transfers: Yes
Alerts: Yes
Investment Tracking: Yes
Notable Features:

  • Visual representation of spending patterns using bubble budgets
  • Leverage user data to create hyper-personalized offers
  • Best of Show at Finovate six times running
  • Insight & Target – a tool to present cross-sell offers to consumers
  • FinStrong – a white label training solution for budgeting and spending

Strands

Website: strands.com
Launched: 2008
Employees: 150
Bank/Credit Union Clients: 600
HQ Location: Barcelona, Spain
White Label: Yes
Standalone or Integrated: Both
Pricing Model: Software licenses; pricing on-premise or cloud
Account Aggregation: Yes
Auto Categorization: Yes
Debt Management: No
Budgeting: Yes
Credit Score: No
Bill Payment: No
Transfers: No
Alerts: Yes
Investment Tracking: No
Tips/Advice: Yes

Notable Features:

  • Automatically categorized expenses with 99% accuracy and actionable through search, filter, edit, export and split functions
  • Context-aware and data-driven financial tool allows banking providers to anticipate consumer needs and suggest next-best actions
  • Pattern detection, interactive financial calendar, behavior-driven notifications, income and spending visualization
  • Provides relevant and actionable insights to drive consumers to digital channels, which increases long-term value and helps build relationship banking
  • “Community” – Anonymously compare spending patterns with any chosen segment of fellow bank customers
  • “What If?” – Predicts the impact of a certain purchase in near and medium-term finances
  • “Okay to Spend” – Instant snapshot of how much a consumer can spend today
    without hurting their financial balance in the future
  • “Cash Flow Projection” – Trends in spending over time by analyzing historic, actual and forecasted inflows and outflows

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