Enhanced Security

While you could always lock your device with the device passcode, we heard from users that wanted to specifically safeguard the Mint.com app with its own four-digit passcode. Now you can. Hand your phone to someone else and they’ll be locked out of the app. And if someone tries to hack it, after five attempts, we’ll reset your account and delete all of your personal information. If your phone is lost, stolen or misplaced, you can deactivate iPhone access.

Editable Transactions

We’re continuing to improve the Mint.com iPhone app to make it even more useful while you are on the go. You can now edit essential transaction details such as category, tag, description, note and date.

Real-time Notifications

The Mint.com iPhone app now takes full advantage of the notification technology in iPhone OS 3.0. In addition to getting notifications via email or SMS, you can now have them “pushed” directly to your device. It’s faster and it saves you money. Notifications for when you’ve gone over budget, receive fees or experience other unusual activity are delivered securely, right when they happen.

Update your iPhone app and take advantage of the new features today.

Scott Cook from Intuit here. OK, I’m about to date myself. Long ago (27 years ago in fact), I watched my wife complain about paying the bills. That gave me an idea. And that idea became Quicken. Check with your parents – they might use it. Maybe even your grandparents.

But probably not you. For many of you, Quicken is a 20th century product in a 21st century world. It’s like the car your parents had growing up. So you turned to Mint.com. Because it wasn’t Quicken.

Mint brings a fresh, unique approach to managing money, creating new ways to help you save or get out of debt. I so admire what Aaron and the team have done and how they have done it. I can recognize great innovators and innovation when I see it.

As you know, Intuit has entered into an agreement to buy Mint. Over the past few days, I’ve read your posts and comments. I understand your concerns about what will happen to Mint in the future.

So let me set the record straight: Mint.com isn’t changing. It is remaining free. Following the close of the acquisition, Aaron Patzer and the Mint team will remain in charge of Mint.com to continue both its principles and its fast pace of progress.

We’re not planning to change Mint.com and make it like Quicken. Quite the opposite. Aaron and team will also run Quicken and Quicken.com to ensure this doesn’t happen. Plus they will benefit from this larger pool of resources. I want Mint thinking to infuse Quicken.

On a personal level, Mint’s leaders have earned the chance to re-invent all of personal finance on the broadest canvas possible. I will give them that chance. Will you?

I hope you’ll be part of it.

Scott Cook
Founder, Intuit

Today, exactly two years after launching at TechCrunch40, I’m excited to announce that we have signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Intuit, makers of Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax, for approximately $170 million.  It’s a great opportunity that could bring Mint.com’s unique approach to personal financial management to millions more consumers and small businesses as well as the 1,800 banks and credit unions serviced by Intuit.

In two years, we’ve attracted over 1.5 million users, found over $300 million in savings, managed $50 billion in assets, and helped people track nearly $200 billion in purchases.  Most importantly, we’ve helped a lot of people better understand and do more with their money. Thousands of people have told us that Mint.com has helped them pay off debt, control their spending, manage job loss, and even resolve money disputes with their significant other.  Expect all of this goodness to increase after the acquisition closes. And yes, expect Mint.com to remain free!
 
This acquisition makes sense to me because, first and foremost, Mint.com and Intuit share a common vision.  Intuit is, and has always been, a very customer-centric organization, with constant usability studies and follow-me-homes that observe how people use software and the problems they’re trying to solve.  This is fully aligned with my design philosophy here at Mint.com.


In addition, by joining Intuit, we can accelerate our ability to add more fantastic new product functionality into both Quicken and Mint.com. This means more people will find it easy and affordable to stay on top of their money issues. Bottom line? I see this as a chance to take a big leap forward toward our ultimate goal of improving the national savings rate.

Personally, I’ll play a leading role in the next phase of the evolution of Quicken, one of the best known, most trusted, and respected brands in software. A recent survey showed that 85% of U.S. adults had heard of Quicken.  It’s humbling to work with the people who really pioneered the field of personal finance applications.

Intuit is equally excited.  They recognize Mint employees as innovative thought-leaders in the field, who can make a breakthrough contribution to Intuit’s connected services strategy.
 
We expect the deal will close by the end of the calendar year. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to be part of a larger team with more resources that will continue to deliver the best personal finance tools out there!
 
Aaron Patzer
Founder and CEO

For Intuit’s take see: http://blog.quicken.intuit.com/announcement/2009/09/14/mint-com-to-join-the-intuit-family/

9/15/09, Update:

I wanted to let you know that I’ve been following your comments and I totally appreciate your passionate response to our announcement. I’ll try to address your concerns as clearly as possible.

Here’s a little more detail on what’s happening. After the acquisition closes, the Mint.com team will be leading the development of both Mint.com and Intuit’s existing personal finance products, Quicken desktop and Quicken Online. The fact that Intuit has agreed to acquire Mint.com, and is leaving our team intact, is evidence that Intuit has been impressed by and wants to build upon the user experience that Mint.com offers. We’ll not only improve upon that experience for Mint.com but also bring our know-how to the Quicken product line. Destroying the Mint.com user experience does not make sense for Intuit, Mint.com or any of our users.  

I can’t speak to Intuit’s customer service but Mint has always been as responsive as possible to our users. We believe this is one of the reasons for the success we’ve had and the trust you’ve put in us. Our ability to respond quickly to user requests is key to the way we build software. In fact, in the discussions leading to this deal, Intuit heard a lot about our software development process and told us they are very interested in learning how they can do the same thing for all of their software products, not just the personal finance ones.

Aaron Patzer
Founder and CEO

Intuit founder Scott Cook on why Mint.com won’t change

A star is born. MintLife, our still new online magazine devoted to helping you manage your money and understand the economy is a finalist in the OMMA Awards for Web Site Excellence and your voice counts. Vote for us!

We’ll save the complete list of thank you’s for the award ceremony itself (if we make it) but there a few people we’d like to single out. First, we’d like to give a shout-out to the team at Mule Design, our partners in designing MintLife, who helped us create a website that has the real-time immediacy and interactivity of a blog, but the depth and research of a magazine. MintLife also delivers on Mint.com’s dedication to transparency by aggregating conversations already taking place across the social web on sites like digg, Facebook, reddit, StumbleUpon and Twitter. Congrats to Mike, Erika, Katie, Rebecca, and David on this recognition of your incredible talent. On the Mint side, JP kept us true to Mint’s design aesthetic and Adam and Colin put in countless extra hours to ensure that we launched on time and with desired functionality. Thanks too to the team of fantastic writers and visual artists (too many to list here) who have provided us with such killer content. We couldn’t have done it without you.

The OMMA Awards are being held by MediaPost, a leading publisher of print and online magazines for media and advertising pros. You must register with MediaPost to enter but membership is free and gives you access to its website and publications.

You have until September 16 to cast your vote.

Winners will be announced on September 21, 2009, during MediaPost’s OMMA Awards Reception at the OMMA Global New York Conference and Expo.

Budgets that work like you do

Now our budgeting features let you plan for the future like never before.
Look ahead to see how your current spending decisions will affect your ability to save. Move from just creating a budget to taking a comprehensive look at your financial health. You’ll know immediately what you can do today to save even more tomorrow. Now you can:

• Budget on income as well as expenses
• Budget for infrequent expenses (like paying taxes or annual vacation)
• Roll over unspent funds from one month to next
• Budget over different time periods

Improved graphs and trends

We’ve added more options for tracking spending, income, net worth and account balances over time. You’ll make smarter decisions when you start comparing your spending year-to-year or month-to-month. 16 interactive graphs give you the real-time insights you need. Now you can:

• Graph net worth over time and net income over time
• Compare your data across different time periods
• Compare your data to other demographic or geographic groups
• Enter more granular demographic data for future comparison options
• Easily export all reports to a CSV file

Better filters

Mint.com lets you see things your way, whether you are managing your household finances or running a small business. You can now filter trends and budgets by either account type or tag, giving you more ways to manage your finances. Now you can:

• Select which accounts or tags are included in budgets or trends
• Easily separate out spending by household member, or business from personal spending

New ways to save

We’ve added IRA Rollovers to Ways to Save making it easier than ever to save thousands of dollars toward your retirement.

I recently had the privilege of meeting Suze Orman (@suzeormanshow on Twitter) for an hour long meeting… that turned into 3 hours. First, the answers to your burning questions:
· Does Suze always wear fabulous jackets in real life? Yes, yes she does.
· Is Suze really tan? Yep. And she has nice white teeth too.
· Does she frequently say “fabulous,” call everyone “hey boyfriend” or use phrases like “girlfriend, you need to get real” in real life? Yes, yes, and yes.
· Is Suze really the nation’s best personal finance guru? Actually, I think she just might be.

I’d like to think I know a thing or two about personal finance. It is, after all, my personal passion, and why I started Mint. But in talking to Suze about my views on investing, emergency funds, bank fees, and the all important human element in personal finance, it is clear that 30 years of daily interactions with real people having real money problems makes her the master.

Suze is a larger-than-life personality. She can suck you in with her irresistible charisma. And she’s using that knowledge and that charisma for good. One example: she negotiated a deal with TD Ameritrade where if you put in $100 for 12 months straight, they’ll give you your $100 back in month 13. That’s an 8.3% guaranteed return on your money – better than you can get in any CD or savings account right now. Over 100,000 people have signed up at: saveyourself.com. That’s how powerful her advice is. Multi-national corporations listen to her…even the head of the FDIC listens to her: myfdicinsurance.gov. Note the picture with the fabulous jacket.

Now, I’m sure there are some of you for whom Suze’s tough love advice, or big personality are not appealing. But Suze has an undeniable appeal to an audience that has been largely underserved: women, and young people (see her “Young, Broke & Fabulous” book). And that’s a good thing.

Traditional personal finance services and tools have been built, well, for middle-aged men. If you look at the demographic of Quicken desktop, for example, its users are 46 and they’re 85% male. One of the things I’m most proud of at Mint is opening up personal finance to a whole new audience: our average user is 30, and new users come in at a 60/40 male/female split. One stat that truly humbles me: 94% of our female users have recommended Mint.com to friends or to their spouse. We’ve created a tool that’s easy enough (and fun enough) for everyone.

And that’s where Suze comes in. Mint.com and Suze are now friends. Yes, we like to announce these things. Fabulous friends? Well, maybe one day. Until then, though, Suze says she’ll answer any Mint.com user’s money questions via Twitter: @suzeormanshow and include #mint. It’s not a team, it’s not her assistant, she answers all of these questions herself. Her only rule is it has to be a 140 character question or less.

Mint is no stranger to the Webbys, having won two awards and an honorable mention last year. So I knew the pressure was on to deliver a killer five word speech. The event kicked off on Sunday evening with cocktails at Above Allen, a rooftop bar on the Lower East Side. I made the Mojito my brand-reinforcing drink of the evening until I ran the bar out of mint leaves. It was great to see faces light up when I mentioned Mint.com. The web crowd genuinely loves the application, though not so much the email reminders about overspending on [insert vice here]. We’re working on it, guys.

The real party commenced Monday night with the Webby gala itself, held at Cipriani on Wall Street – the heart of the financial district. As Seth Meyers noted in his opening speech, the Webbys are for people who wished the Oscars had more awards and less celebrities. Because there are so many winners, very few get to accept their awards on stage, and everyone is limited to five words, even stars like Jimmy Fallon. So my first order of business when arriving was to record my five word acceptance speech. Jimmy Fallon, you need Mint.com. Jimmy, we’re waiting for our seat on the couch. After my speech I was asked to pick a book, Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail style. Unfortunately I chose poorly and wasn’t rewarded with eternal life, or the chance to present on stage.

As the host, Meyers was great and kept the laughs going. On the event’s financial district location, “because nothing says forward thinking and ingenuity quite like Wall Street… were there no rooms available in Detroit?” On the crowd, “Ashton Kutcher is not here, I just wish there was a way to know what he’s doing…” There were also lots of very funny videos put together by the Webby people.

Some of the highlights of the evening that drew the most applause? The five word speech from Animoto, the marriage proposal, and for me, seeing some of the celebrities in attendance like Martha Stewart, Arianna Huffington, and Cameron Diaz.

Thanks to everyone who voted for us, and now it’s time for me to get back to work, recover from three open bars, and make our product even better so I can go back and do this again next year.

Microsoft today announced that it will stop selling Microsoft Money, its venerable personal finance software, by the end of June. While the software will continue to work, users will no longer have access to automated data feeds from their banks, credit card companies and other financial service providers.

If you’re a Microsoft Money user looking for a new tool to help you continue to manage your money, we invite you to try Mint.com.

Mint.com is the #1 free online personal finance service…and it’s free. It makes staying on top of your finances easy, efficient, and convenient. Mint.com shows you all of your accounts in one place, helps you budget, finds you ways to save money, and alerts you to any unusual activity in any of your accounts. Over a million users trust Mint.com with their critical financial information and find it the most convenient way to manage their money.

Here’s why we think you’ll like Mint.com as much as they do:

You’re in good company

Nearly 40% of Mint.com users tell us they’ve tried Microsoft Money — and chose Mint.com. In fact, Motley Fool and Lifehacker.com readers (among others) have consistently picked Mint.com as their favorite personal finance tool.

Mint starts free and stays free

Sign up for Mint.com and you can say goodbye to buying annual upgrades. Mint.com is continually adding and improving its features. And when we do, you’ll get them free.

Mint.com is easy to set up…and the rest is automatic

There’s no need to install software and connecting your financial accounts takes just minutes. After that, we do the work for you, updating your accounts, categorizing your transactions, calculating budgets, sending you alerts, etc.

Mint is online and accessible from anywhere

Unlike Microsoft Money, Mint.com can be used from any web browser on any computer. There’s no need to install anything and you can be up and running in a matter of minutes. We even have an iPhone app and a version of our service for your My Yahoo! personalized home page.

Mint is safe and secure

Your security is our first priority. We never ask for any personally identifiable information. We connect directly to your accounts using the same bank-level security as leading financial institutions. You can’t move money in Mint.com, and neither can anyone else.

Mint saves you money

Mint.com automatically compares your credit cards, bank accounts, brokerage accounts and CD’s to available offers and lets you know if there are better options to consider.

We know that change can be stressful. That’s why we’ve made it as easy as possible to get started with Mint.com. All you need is an email address and password. Then, add your accounts one at a time in just minutes. We hope you’ll try us out today.

Welcome, and please let us know your first impressions of Mint.com.

Many Americans start each day on their personalized My Yahoo! homepage. Starting today, they can use our new Yahoo! application to keep an eye on their money and budgets right along with their email, weather reports, sports scores, and news streams. If you’re a My Yahoo user, please try out the app today!

To add the app click here, or from My Yahoo! go to “Add Content” and look for the “Open Apps” category in the My Yahoo! gallery.

Look for the small
Mint leaf logo and click on
“+ Add”.

My Yahoo! users using the Mint.com app will get many of the at-a-glance insights that existing Mint.com users love most — an overview of their financial essentials — net cash, budgets, categorized spending, Mint.com alerts, investment performance, and ways to save – all on their home page.

And because so many Yahoo! users check their home page from their laptop while away from home, the Mint.com Yahoo! app does not display account balances or specific transactions. But all those details are just a click away on the Mint.com website.

We were honored to get the call from Yahoo! asking us to create a version of Mint.com specifically for their new Application Platform. We were one of just a select few companies chosen, we’ve knocked ourselves out getting this to market, and we’re excited to see it launch. At Mint, we believe that managing your personal finances should be an integrated part of your day-to-day life. Please let us know if or how the Mint.com Yahoo! app does that for you.

IMGCOM

As we head into Memorial Day weekend and look forward to spending time with our friends and families, our thoughts go out to those in military families who are separated from their loved ones. While Mint.com can’t help much in bringing them physically closer, we can bring them financially together and reduce some of the stresses that money management places on them.  We spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Mike Fenzel about this issue.

Lieutenant Colonel Fenzel has served in Afghanistan and Iraq while his wife and three children remained stateside.  He agrees that family members serving overseas face a particularly difficult time staying on top of their money while living apart.

“Leaving home to go to war for a year or more is hard enough, but when you add the complexity of managing finances while taking care of the kids it becomes a significant challenge and, as the months go by, a real burden,” he says. “This is particularly true if you own a home, are paying off school loans, or raising a growing family. When you do finally get on the phone with your spouse, the very last thing you want to talk about is a financial problem. Any tools that will make this easier for military families and lighten this burden would result in thousands of silent ‘thank you’s’ from around the military community.”

Mint.com addresses the needs of military families (and all families) by:

• Letting you see the family’s total financial picture on one, secure website…available 7/24.
• Making it simpler to track the family’s spending. We consolidate and categorize all debit and credit card charges in a single, searchable database…and provide charts and graphs which show how spending is trending over time.
• Making it easier to set and stick to budgets, by automatically calculating and tracking spending in the categories that each family feels are most critical.
• Making it clear how the family’s investments are performing vs. “the Market” with easy-to-understand graphs.
• Sending email or text alerts on significant expenses and deposits to both spouses simultaneously, wherever they are in the world.
• Providing iPhone access to virtually all of the above services, via the free Mint.com iPhone app.

We hope to provide a little peace of mind to anyone serving at home or abroad.  Thanks for your service and Happy Memorial Day to all.

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