Intuit is opening up the APIs to its financial data service - which powers Quicken, QuickBooks, Mint and FinanceWorks - to third party developers, inviting them to build their own services.
The firm says that by giving developers in the US and Canada access to its APIs it hopes to spur innovation, enabling outsiders to build the next killer finance apps and giving consumers and small businesses a broader choice of offerings to share their data with and use.
Open APIs will be available on a limited basis in October through the Intuit partner platform, with wider accessibility in December but the vendor says it will decide who can take advantage, in order to "maintain the same strong commitment to data privacy and audit standards that are the hallmark of Intuit's products and services".
Those that get the green light will have access to the same data engine that powers Intuit's money management tools, which, between them, have more than 40 million accounts using data from over 19,000 financial services organisations. Some popular third-party tools using this financial data service could also be incorporated back into Intuit's own offerings.
Aaron Patzer, founder, Mint, says: "Access to reliable financial data is among the biggest challenges developers face when working to innovate. These new APIs will accelerate the pace of development we'll see at startups looking to create new services for both individuals and businesses."