Intuit acquires competitor Mint.com for $170 million

What a summer it's been. Since we published our new report on Personal Finance Sites in May, our top pick, Mint.com has undergone a number of changes, regularly piling on new features and winning accolades from reviewers, most of whom prefer it over competitor Intuit's Quicken Online. That competition is about to come to a screeching halt, however, as Mint.com has been acquired by Intuit for $170 million, as confirmed by Mint.com CEO Aaron Patzer at the TechCrunch50 event this month. Mint.com received a $50,000 award when it launched two years ago at TechCrunch40, a competition that pits start-ups against one another. Patzer will join Intuit as GM of the company's Personal Finance group, which includes Quicken and Quicken Online.

These past few months have been busy ones for Patzer as Mint.com has launched new features that rectify some reviewer complaints. Users can now split transactions between categories, though you still can't manually add transactions. The site also offers stronger budgeting and debt management tools, including the ability to create graphs and to roll over expenses from one month to the next.

The question now is whether Mint will keep its name and branding or be folded into Quicken Online. The two services work a bit differently. For example, Quicken Online doesn't have ads or sponsored offers, while Mint features the latter. Mint's advantages over Quicken Online include better investment tracking and connection to more financial institutions. However, Mint uses a third party vendor (Yodlee) to transmit account information, while Quicken Online does so internally. It's also not clear what will happen to Quicken Online and its customers. Right now, Intuit is still promoting it -- on the same page as its Mint.com announcement, in fact. We'll be keeping tabs on this acquisition, so be sure to check back for updates.