Almost four years ago, Mint.com put online personal finance management and budgeting on the map.  A flagship website in the Web 2.0 world, Mint revolutionized how this Facebook generation of users could track their finances across multiple accounts. Mint made it cool, fun and hip. Part social network, part Quicken, Mint helped their users understand where all their money went each month while providing a big picture view, a total view, of all their finances. Mint was a killer application.

Online banking, compared to Mint, was boring and limited. Sure it was revolutionary back in the 90′s, but that was so last century. Today, with the evolution of sites like Mint, Geezeo, and Wesabe, large banks are finally seeing the light and are incorporating interactive budgeting tools and account aggregation into their online banking portals.

There’s a story in the NY Times today which discusses this trend in online banking. The piece highlights some interesting points related to account aggregation which advisors may want to pay attention to. For one, large institutions now understand their clients want to see all their finances in one place. As one analyst in the story puts it,”There’s a screaming need for someone to come through and help them organize, and pull all that account data in one place.”

You can read the NY Times article here.

>>Great to see my pals over at Geezeo get a mention. I know Peter Glyman and Shawn Ward. They’re solid guys, and they’ve built an incredible platform.