NZ gets its own Quicken portal

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Intuit Software, maker of the Quicken personal finance package, has launched a local version of its financial services website, which it says is the first in New Zealand to allow online share trading in four overseas exchanges.

Quicken.co.nz will allow users to trade shares on the New Zealand, Australian, Nasdaq, New York and Amex exchanges via brokers DF Mainland.

Intuit also plans to introduce local versions of some services available on its US site, including mortgage and insurance broking, personal banking, managed funds investment and car finance.

Steve Rickwood, Quicken Managing Director -
International, said the US website, launched in 1997, had become the world's leading finance portal, beating yahoo.com.

"The dotcom became a natural extension of what we do in our software. Many functions are web-enabled versions of what we are already offering on the desktop."

Mr Rickwood said he was "not fussed" whether people used the Quicken package or free web services for these tasks, as the website would provide revenue from banner advertising, subscriptions, e-commerce joint ventures and software sales.

In the US, the website has ridden on the back of the popularity of the Quicken personal finance package, which has a worldwide installed user base of 12 million.

Another 3 million small businesses use the company's Quickbook bookkeeping software.

"There is only one other product in the race and that is Microsoft Money," said Mr Rickwood.

While Quicken.com now attracts 6 million unique visitors, New Zealand chief executive Russell Hutchinson said he would be happy with 20,000 to 30,000 visitors to quicken.co.nz in the first year.

The relatively late entry of a localised version of Quicken, which arrived in 1998, had meant sales in this country were lower than worldwide.

Mr Hutchinson estimated that Quicken held about 35 per cent of the New Zealand personal finance software market, compared with up to 87 per cent overseas.

Microsoft Money accounted for 35 per cent, with local packages making up the balance.

About 10,000 copies of Quicken were in use in New Zealand, of which a quarter had been used to access the quicken.co.nz site.

He said the site was not about heavy traffic volumes, but was for financially adept, committed users.

Links:

www.quicken.co.nz