New Offerings Cater to Financial Services Companies

The recently announced MSN Money Professional portal hosting service and Money Explorer software client will allow financial services firms to customize and private-label Microsoft financial products and services for their customers. Microsoft will initially sell these offerings through software vendors who already serve the financial services market, a strategy which could help Microsoft gain ground in an industry that views it with some suspicion, but which presents both benefits and risks for its partners.

MSN Money Professional

MSN Money Professional is the code name for a planned service that will be similar to the Portfolio Manager service on the MSN Money Web site (the final name will probably be different). Announced at the Comdex trade show in Nov. 2001, the service will enable professional financial advisors to maintain a Web portal with personalized content for each of their customers. Microsoft will host the portals, and some of the content-such as stock quotes and news feeds- will come from the MSN Money Web site. But the advisor will also be able to post customer-specific information, such as transaction statements or proprietary research about a potential investment. In addition, the advisor will control the basic look of each portal by submitting logos and other design requests to Microsoft; Microsoft will then enforce the design by way of Cascading Style Sheets.