Account Aggregator Adds Partner

VerticalOne will announce a
partnership Thursday with Lifeminders.com that will allow its
members to obtain information updates and tips on a variety of topics all in
one location.

VerticalOne allows users to see a summary of their accounts with a variety
of partners, including financial institutions and e-mail as well as other
content providers. Currently, around 220,000 individuals have registered
through the service, which is growing about 10 percent a week.

In addition to access with PCs and conventional Internet accounts,
VerticalOne also supports a variety of wireless platforms, including Palm
Computing. Initially, Lifeminders members will only be able to access their
accounts using PCs, but the other services will be soon to follow.

Lifeminders allows users to sign up for e-mail “reminders” on a variety of
topics, including finance, travel, shopping, sports, recreation, and small
business.

Last week, the firm announced a deal with Fiserv which will resell its
technology to small and medium-sized financial institutions. VerticalOne has
already signed deals with many of the nation’s largest banks.

In an interview Wednesday at Internet World Chicago 2000, Sandra Dunn,
VerticalOne vice president of marketing, said the company has several
revenue streams from which to draw. The company charges partners a set-up
fee depending on their size and the complexity of the project. In addition,
VerticalOne receives a fee for every new user a partner signs.

“Distributors see it as increasing the stickiness of their site. Every time
a user comes back, our partners are seeing an increase of five to six page
views per user,” she said.

Other services that will roll out soon include financial management
tools. Users will be able to view information from all of their financial
accounts in a single screen, allowing them to perform a number of
calculations using current data.

Over the long term, the company wants to add the ability to do transactions
with financial firms directly through the VerticalOne platform.

“It’s great to look at data, but people will next want to do things like pay
bills and trade stocks in a single place,” Dunn said.

The firm plans to announce its strategy in that area in late fall.

The company, which was bought by financial services enabler S-1 Corp. last
year, is also targeting a number of international users, with plans to
launch its service in Australia in the coming months.

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