Accounts Together

Accounting Technology,  March, 2007  by Antoinette Alexander

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In the late 1990s, account aggregation was all the rage as it promised to revolutionize the way consumers managed their finances online and the way their financial advisors collected the data needed to create a holistic view of an investor's entire portfolio.

So whatever happened to this technology some hailed as a "killer app" for e-finance? According to many sources, it has undergone its share of changes over the years but today remains alive and well, if not growing.

Back in its heyday, account aggregation was envisioned as this magical place where a person's financial data-such as bank account data, credit card debt, mortgage balances, and brokerage accounts-could be imported into a single Web page so that a financial advisor could get a complete view of the holdings (both those under the management of the financial advisor and those "held away") and the consumer also knew where they ...