Wells Fargo Kicks Off Personal Financial-Planning Tool

Wells Fargo & Co. on Thursday unveiled a new online service for consumers called My Spending Report that groups transactions into categories such as food, gasoline, and entertainment, giving customers a window into their spending habits.

The service, which is being provided free to online banking customers, builds on the appeal of financial-planning software such as Microsoft Money by delivering "personal financial-management functionality to the masses," says George Tubin, an analyst at research firm TowerGroup.

The service aggregates customers' checking, savings, debit, and credit transactions into spending categories based on merchant-classification codes. Reports are updated daily and can be printed or viewed online. The process that collects the spending data and generates the reports is similar to that used by corporate business-intelligence applications, says Jim Smith, Wells Fargo's executive VP of consumer Internet products.