Financial software giant Intuit—makers of well-known products like Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax—has announced a deal to acquire personal finance services Web site Mint.com for some $170 million in cash. Mint.com is a financial services Web site designed to show consumers ways in which they can save money by analyzing their financial actions and habits. The service claims some 1.5 million users tracking nearly $50 billion in assets and $200 billion in transactions. Intuit plans to make Mint.com the main personal finance management service it offers to consumers via the Web, while Intuit’s existing Quicken Online will continue to offer Quicken users online access to their Quicken services.
“Joining Intuit enables us to bring our vision of helping consumers understand and do more with their money to millions of Intuit customers,” said Mint.com Founder and CEO Aaron Patzer, in a statement. “This is a compelling combination of our innovative product, technology, and user interface design with one of the most trusted brands in software.”
Intuit is also excited about Mint.com’s “ways to save” engine, which generates revenue through advertising and partnerships rather than charging users directly. Intuit also sees the acquisition as a way to bolster its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings—SaaS isn’t uncommon in corporate and enterprise environments, but has had difficulty finding traction with consumers—although Google, Microsoft, and many other software developers are increasingly eyeing cloud-based computing and SaaS models as a way to offer software, rather than monolithic releases.
Mint’s Aaron Patzer will become the general manager of Intuit’s Personal Finance group, and will be responsible for Intuit’s online, mobile, and desktop personal finance products.
