What do you get when you combine data, highly skilled third-party developers, open application programming interfaces – APIs for short – and an ecosystem of customers ranging from small business to consumers? If you think like Intuit does, you’ll discover the next must-have app for customers, and a ready-made market for enterprising developers.
Expanding its connected services strategy, which focuses on creating an ecosystem of data-based applications, Intuit is providing outsiders with access to its data aggregation and categorization functions. That’s right: Developers can now tap into the same behind-the-scenes programming that makes Mint.com, QuickBooks and FinanceWorks tick.
How’s it Work?
Building on the success of the Intuit Partner Platform, which offers third-party developers access to QuickBooks data, this new financial data service gives developers the tools to build applications that generate deep level of customer insight and, because their data is aggregated, automatically give customers guidance and targeted offers based on their specific financial situation. Developers now have a powerful foundation to innovate their way to the next “Killer Financial App.”
Pilot developers such as SaveUp, a free rewards game for saving money and reducing debt, are already seeing early success. CEO Priya Haji says the company has been able to deliver and continuously improve its app thanks to Intuit Data Services.
“We’re able to use this information to track our customers’ smart financial actions and reward them accordingly. To date, more than $100 million in savings and $90 million in debt payments have been registered in SaveUp from financial institutions across the U.S.,” Haji reports.
Who Wins?
Thanks to the combination of Intuit’s data APIs, banks and credit unions can more readily meet customers’ needs by developing their own apps. Or, they also have the option of tapping into the developer network to include third-party apps via Intuit Financial Services’ open financial services platform.
Best of all, consumers and small businesses gain easy, seamless access to their data from more than 19,000 sources in North America, through the applications of their choice –be they from Intuit, a developer of a financial institution. As Intuit’s CEO Brad Smith points out, “you never know where the next great idea will come from… by reaching out to the developer community, we can help identify and solve important customer problems.”
