Friday, June 24, 2005
Account aggregators : IT Software
Last time I had written about "content aggregators". This week my focus would be on account aggregators.
On an average citizens of the first world generally access 20 different sites to pay their bills. A group of bright engineers from Bangalore,India saw a business opportunity in this and started a company called "Yodlee" (can a company have such a name!) which would aggregate data from these different sites and display them to the customers. In 1999 this was a technology way ahead of its time and received lot of VC funding.(It now has several top notch clients such as "America On Line" ("AOL"),MSN,Bank Of America,Fidelity, "Charles Schwab" etc)
So other companies such as Virtual One, Cash edge joined the fray and the race of account aggregation was well and truly on.
Yodlee was soon under pressure and reacted by developing more innovative products.
But the first mover advantage has been lost and the verdict on the "Gatekeeper to onlinne account" is still out.
According to analyst few pain points are
1. Data displayed sometimes is improper. (it has to be 100% right everytime)
2. Account aggregation is just the bread. The butter lies in analyzing the data and making meaningful predictions based on it.
Account aggregators are furiously trying to bridge the gap or by partnering with financial powerhouses or tool developers.
And their is a "human angle" to this story.One of my friends was recently interview by the Yodlee team (both in US and India) and he was very impressed by their technical expertise and mentioned it would be a great challenge working in Yodlee as thier intellectual capital is very high.
My next post would be the revelutionary technolgy called "skype".
Don't forget to check out my other blog on "referral recruitment" in bangalore (which rarely appear in any newspaper").
Also, check out my "mailbox" daily. All the junk that i read, humour that i enjoy can now be easily viewed by you. ¶ 11:04 AM
On an average citizens of the first world generally access 20 different sites to pay their bills. A group of bright engineers from Bangalore,India saw a business opportunity in this and started a company called "Yodlee" (can a company have such a name!) which would aggregate data from these different sites and display them to the customers. In 1999 this was a technology way ahead of its time and received lot of VC funding.(It now has several top notch clients such as "America On Line" ("AOL"),MSN,Bank Of America,Fidelity, "Charles Schwab" etc)
So other companies such as Virtual One, Cash edge joined the fray and the race of account aggregation was well and truly on.
Yodlee was soon under pressure and reacted by developing more innovative products.
But the first mover advantage has been lost and the verdict on the "Gatekeeper to onlinne account" is still out.
According to analyst few pain points are
1. Data displayed sometimes is improper. (it has to be 100% right everytime)
2. Account aggregation is just the bread. The butter lies in analyzing the data and making meaningful predictions based on it.
Account aggregators are furiously trying to bridge the gap or by partnering with financial powerhouses or tool developers.
And their is a "human angle" to this story.One of my friends was recently interview by the Yodlee team (both in US and India) and he was very impressed by their technical expertise and mentioned it would be a great challenge working in Yodlee as thier intellectual capital is very high.
My next post would be the revelutionary technolgy called "skype".
Don't forget to check out my other blog on "referral recruitment" in bangalore (which rarely appear in any newspaper").
Also, check out my "mailbox" daily. All the junk that i read, humour that i enjoy can now be easily viewed by you. ¶ 11:04 AM
