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Intuit%squots Online Banking Service Expands to the Internet

Introduced on AOL, BankNow Internet launches with seven financial institutions.

By Yardena Arar, PCWorld   

At launch, seven financial institutions with 11 million depositors are offering BankNow Internet to customers, Intuit said. The service requires you to download and install a free plug-in for Netscape 2.02 or later or Internet Explorer 3.01 or later.

BankNow is meant for people who want the convenience of online banking without all the personal finance management tools in sophisticated packages like Intuit%squots flagship Quicken.

Linda Arima, group product manager for BankNow, described the software%squots target audience as %dquottransactors%dquot as opposed to the %dquottrackers%dquot who would buy a full-blown personal finance manager.

%dquotPersonal finance users see more value in being able to track and manipulate their financial data,%dquot she explained. %dquotTransactors just want to do specific tasks.%dquot

Looking very much like its AOL counterpart, BankNow Internet allows users at participating banks to check balances, pay bills, and transfer funds between accounts. Users can work offline and then connect to transmit instructions and receive data.

Fees for the service are set by the banks, but generally run no more than $9.95 a month. That%squots comparable to the fees charged by many banks for online banking via Quicken or Microsoft Money; however, you%squotre less likely to encounter Net lag on the proprietary networks used by these packages.

Launched in September 1966, the AOL version of BankNow has about 25 participating institutions. While the number of BankNow users was not available, Arima said studies place the number of people who use online banking at between 1.1 million and 2 million. The same studies forecast that the number of online banking users will increase eightfold within the next five years, Arima said.

The banks signed at launch are: Bank of Stockton, Barnett Bank, Centura Bank, Compass Bank, First Michigan Bank, First Union National Bank, and Mellon Bank.