Intuit To Buy Credit Karma For $7.1 Billion, Creating Financial Data Giant (techcrunch.com) 41
Intuit -- the accounting, tax filing and financial planning software giant behind QuickBooks, TurboTax and Mint, confirmed that it plans to acquire Credit Karma -- the fintech startup with more than 100 million registered users, which lets people check their credit scores, shop for credit cards and loans, file taxes and more. "By joining forces with Credit Karma, we can create a personalized financial assistant that will help consumers find the right financial products, put more money in their pockets and provide insights and advice," Sasan Goodarzi, Intuit's chief executive, said in a statement announcing the deal. TechCrunch reports: Intuit said it would pay $7.1 billion for Credit Karma, making this Intuit's biggest-ever acquisition to date, and one of the biggest in the category of privately-held fintech companies. Intuit also announced its quarterly earnings today in which it reported revenue growth of 13% on revenues of $1.7 billion, beating analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. However, it missed analysts' average expectations for earnings per share: it reported non-GAAP EPS of $1, while they were forecasting $1.03.
Intuit plans to keep Credit Karma -- which makes more than $1 billion in revenues annually -- as a standalone operation, run by CEO Kenneth Lin, who cofounded the startup with Ryan Graciano and Nichole Mustard. The acquisition is an obvious fit for Intuit, where it will serve two purposes. Intuit can tap Credit Karma's customer base and range of services -- it partners with some 100 financial service providers in its marketplace -- to complement those it already offers, to help upsell those users to Intuit's premium, paid services. And Intuit can use it to grow its wider business by tapping a set of consumers -- typically younger users -- that Credit Karma has possibly been more successful in capturing than Intuit has.
Intuit plans to keep Credit Karma -- which makes more than $1 billion in revenues annually -- as a standalone operation, run by CEO Kenneth Lin, who cofounded the startup with Ryan Graciano and Nichole Mustard. The acquisition is an obvious fit for Intuit, where it will serve two purposes. Intuit can tap Credit Karma's customer base and range of services -- it partners with some 100 financial service providers in its marketplace -- to complement those it already offers, to help upsell those users to Intuit's premium, paid services. And Intuit can use it to grow its wider business by tapping a set of consumers -- typically younger users -- that Credit Karma has possibly been more successful in capturing than Intuit has.
Reverse Privacy? We don't sell your data ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this reverse privacy?
We don't sell your data, we just buy other companies (that have it) and amalgamate the data! /s
Sounds a corporate legal run-around regarding PII (Personally Identifiable Information) laws.
Moving on, am I missing something as I don't see how this acquisition is actually going to help customers?
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Moving on, am I missing something as I don't see how this acquisition is actually going to help customers?
Silly rabbit. Acquisitions are for shareholders.
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Sadly that seems to be the norm.
Customers? Who cares about customers when our stock is about to go up! Pump and Dump FTW and fuck the long term effects! /s
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Are you paying for CreditKarma's services? No, I didn't think so.
You aren't the customer, you're the product.
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bundled them into it's great hack waiting to happen
great hack that's already happened but nobody knows about it yet
FTFY
They need some good Karma (Score:2)
Yo Grark
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I noticed they did not mention the original Quicken in the summary, just QuickBooks -- which last I heard is practically SaaS now.
1 billion revenues from... Referrals? (Score:1)
I know those are valuable referrals, but a billion in revenue per year? Really?
Lets say those are $50 per sign up. So 20 million people signing up for credit cards a year and that would only count the ones that apply, get approved, and keep the card for whatever the minimum period is to pay
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I do not know how often people will apply for credit, but I wouldn't assume it is more often than once per year on average and likely far less (I mean once you have your credit card how many people are really shopping around for better offers.
You clearly don't understand the average American. There is going to likely be more than one per year for a lot of people. Further, with a lot of cards offering 0% interest on balance transfers there is incentive to bouncing around.
There are also a lot of other things than credit card referrals. There are personal loans, home loans, auto loans, checking and savings account referrals, and even their own savings account.
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Re: 1 billion revenues from... Referrals? (Score:2)
$50 is low. Airline crews are getting $90 and up if you apply for the the inflight credit card offer.
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Re: 1 billion revenues from... Referrals? (Score:1)
The gestapo pay well...
Yay!! (Score:2)
Now when there's a data breach at Intuit the bad guys will be able to get everyone's information.
What a time to be alive!
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implying intuit aren't the bad guys already.
IRS: We won't compete against you for e-filing, but you must do it for free
Intuit: fine. (laughs in evil) but we won't make it easy for them.
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Credit Karma has a free filing program with e-file, and it pulls your data from your w-2. Last time I tried Intuit, that was a premium feature.
7.1 B.... (Score:2)
Will there be any money left over to hire and equip competent network security people?
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They haven't been too concerned about that to this point, not sure why they'd change that.
Say goodbye to CK; it was a fun service while it lasted.
Outsourcing (Score:2)
Intuit has moved big time into outsourcing and using contract employees. The cost savings can fund the acquisation.
How do I get Credit Karma to delete all of my data (Score:1)
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Live in California, CCPA
Live in Europe, GDPR
Not sure otherwise, you could always ask.
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Bye Bye free tax filing (Score:3, Insightful)
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From the summary (Score:2)
>>...we can create a personalized financial assistant...
Prepare for data mining of your personal info the likes of which you have never seen before.
Then, once complete, Intuit will store it on an unsecured AWS server for anyone to pilfer.
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Then when the inevitable occurs, no executives will face a judge but the corporation can just settle for a fraction of its yearly revenue [ftc.gov]. Fines for gross data breaches are just a cost of doing business.
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>Fines for gross data breaches are just a cost of doing business.
That insurance will cover anyway.
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>Fines for gross data breaches are just a cost of doing business.
That insurance will cover anyway.
The generous bri... err, I mean donations, to the main PACs of both parties is merely just an exercise of free speech, and definitely not hedging the bet on who holds the reigns of power. Because corporations are people too that also get to participate in democracy.
All hail The Free Market, holy be thy name forever, amen.
Canceled (Score:2)
As soon as I read this terrible fucking news I rushed to cancel my account and filed a CCPA request for them to delete my data. I urge everyone else to do the same.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Taxes (Score:3)
Hmm....
In other news... (Score:2)
Intuit continues to not give a sh*t about Mac customers in general and force it's longstanding customer base that made it successful to cough up rental fees for it's sh*tty software.