Mint moves into retirement savings, adds richer analytics

August 18, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler | Comments | |

mint-logoPersonal finance site Mint.com is moving into retirement savings and adding richer analytics to track your net worth as part of a push into higher-ticket items and long-term financial goals.

Launched two years ago, the Mountain View-based company started as a place to sync your bank accounts and watch credit card spending. Since then, it’s attracted 1.4 million users, added mortgage and investment tracking and raised $31 million in funding in three rounds. That includes a $14 million Series C-round last week.

The company is adding a function today that advises users on how to optimize their retirement savings. When a worker switches jobs or gets laid off, their 401k retirement accounts can sit dormant and get charged management fees. Mint.com will suggest options to roll over those savings into an individual retirement account or IRA.

“Most people don’t know that these funds charge about 1 percent in fees every year and it comes right out of your stock gains,” said founder and CEO Aaron Patzer in an interview. “As you leave an employer, you should move that money into an IRA with lower fees.”

The start-up is also building up its analytics functions, which let users track their finances and plan for large expenses or purchases like taxes or vacations. For example, you can track how much you’ve spent with a specific business such as Starbucks over the last year. You can also track your net worth and net assets over time, and then break that portfolio down into assets by allocation. You can also follow your net income by month.

Mint earns revenue by presenting its users with savings options. Companies that offer financial products like credit cards with lower rates, or savings accounts with higher returns pay to be included in those results. The same model would apply to potential retirement savings options, Patzer said. Mint.com also collects a vast amount of information on personal spending by aggregating user data.

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About the Author, Kim-Mai Cutler

Kim-Mai was born and raised a stone's throw from Apple headquarters in Cupertino by a devout Hewlett-Packard family. After attending UC Berkeley, Kim-Mai worked for Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in New York, Los Angeles, London and Buenos Aires. Follow her on Twitter at @kimmaicutler, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Kim, thanks for the post, happy to answer any reader questions. Next week we'll be rolling out some great updates to our popular iPhone application, and a new "interactive" mode for connecting to certain banks. If you've ever had trouble linking to ING, Emigrant Direct, Sallie Mae, Citizens, or any other bank that asks a series or random questions on login, later this month it will become a whole lot easier to link them into Mint.

    Aaron Patzer, Founder & CEO, Mint.com
  • It's really amazing what you guys offer here.
  • Mint User
    Love Mint, been using it for over a year now. An app for Blackberry would be icing on the cake! It's amazing to see how my family has reigned in frivolous spending by tracking our expenses on Mint.