By year end, Mountain View, Calif. based Intuit will offer itspopular, standalone personal finance manager Mint directly tofinancial institutions, for them to offer the personal financialmanagement solution as a value add to their customers.

The company said it also plans to continue to offerFinanceWorks, a more traditional PFM that Intuit had offeredthrough banks and credit unions since 2008.

Mint, acquired by Intuit in 2009 and hitherto offered directly toconsumers, has proven wildly popular, with some 12 million usersclaimed by Intuit. Thus the decision to roll out Mint morebroadly.

In an interview, Maria Smith, group product manager, indicatedthat Intuit planned to charge financial institutions for thisversion of Mint, with fees probably based on number of activeusers. She did not offer specifics. She did say that Intuit doubtedfinancial institutions would attempt to charge their customers foruse of Mint.

Importantly, she also said that this version of Mint will allow the offering institution tocustomize the advisory email messages Mint as become knownfor. How it presently works is that Mint users receiveregular emails – customized to their financial situation – notingthat, for instance, he/she could save $500 a month by refinancingtheir mortgage or that money could be saved by switching to a lowerinterest rate credit card.

In this FI-centric version of Mint, advice will continue to begiven but the content will be customized by the FI, that is, mostprobably will use Mint to alert consumers to products offered bythe credit union that would benefit them.

Smith said Intuit planned to offer this version of Mint to allfinancial institutions, not just ones using Intuit online or mobileplatforms.

Smith said Intuit planned to continue to offer Mint directly toconsumers but the company apparently believes that a personalized,FI-centric edition will resonate with consumers who want customizedadvice from their own FI.