The Wesabe Gadget shows members their real-time bank and credit card balances, as well as the most recent financial transactions that have posted to their accounts.

"With the Wesabe Vista Gadget, an up-to-date snapshot of your finances is always in your sidebar, automatically updating. You can check balances, see if a purchase has posted -- essentially, get a real-time view of the state of your money," said Marc Hedlund, CEO of Wesabe. "This is hugely convenient. Instead of having to log in to individual bank sites or even Wesabe to check your balances, you just have to check your Vista sidebar."

Members can download the Wesabe Gadget in less than a minute from the company's site at  wesabe.com/page/gadget-vista. Once the gadget has been installed, users are prompted to log in to their Wesabe account when they start up Vista. As long as the computer is running, no further log-ins are required and bank information is continuously updated.

The Wesabe Gadget uses Vista's built-in security capabilities, and all network communication is encrypted using SSL. Wesabe members' bank usernames and passwords are never stored on the desktop, and the Vista Gadget provides a "read-only" view of a member's accounts -- no transactions may be made through the Vista Gadget or through Wesabe's site.

"The Vista Gadget was originally prototyped by a Wesabe user, making use of our open REST API. Any developer can easily provide great applications like the Vista Gadget using the API, which is extremely simple, straightforward, and secure," said Hedlund.