The Chase Mobile (free, link) iPhone app has received two big features in a recent upgrade to version 2.3.1. The first, Quick Deposit, allows you to take pictures of checks and deposit them without going to the bank. It’s been getting all the press, but the other, called Quick Pay, is much more compelling.

Quick Pay allows you to quickly send and receive money with no fees to friends, family, etc, using your iPhone. All that is required is an email address and a US bank account. You don’t even have to be a Chase customer, but you do need to sign up through Chase. It’s all free, and Chase coordinates the transactions for free. There is a $1,000 daily limit. Check out Chase’s FAQ on Quick Pay for all the answers. You can sign up for the service within the app.

Quick Deposit utilizes the iPhone’s camera, letting you snap pictures of checks and send them to Chase for quick depositing into your account. No more dreaded trips to the bank. The free version of Quick Deposit is an iPhone-only feature, and limits you to $2,000 per check, and $3,000 in deposits per month. Another pay version is available for businesses and ups the limit, costing $50 a month.

Of the two, Quick Pay is definitely our favorite. How many times have you been at a restaurant with friends, and when it comes time to split the check, one person only has $20s, another only has a credit card, another needs to hit the ATM, etc. This simplifies everything, and would even be perfect for small businesses like babysitting. Sure, there have been other services, like the PayPal app, that offer the ability to do this, but they often charge ridiculous fees for exchanging just a few dollars.

Chase Mobile is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

List of new features:

• Bump: Easily start by bumping iPhones.
• Withdraw funds from your PayPal balance.
• Request Money: Get paid faster, it’s the easy way to ask for the money you are owed.
• Split the Check: Instantly split the bill, calculate tip, and request everyone’s share.
• Collect Money: Ask for contributions from a group for an event, gift, or cause.
• Set Reminders: Never miss rent or a bill.
• Refer the app to a friend

We like the idea behind this app a lot. How many times have you been at a restaurant and everyone only has only $20 bills or everyone wants to use a credit card. This way, one person could pay and the others just transfer the money into that person’s account. No fumbling with separate checks or making change.

However, we don’t like PayPal’s fees. It could be an expensive app to use in the long run.

The PayPal app is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

1. CNBC Real-Time

CNBC Real Time (free, iTunes link) is one of our favorite apps because of its slick interface, quality of original video content, useful push notifications, and real-time stock quotes (thus the “Real Time” in its name).

While apps like Bloomberg and MarketWatch offer more text content, Real-Time is all about video, and they do it very well, offering long clips from various CNBC shows. The videos feature important or interesting moments from the CNBC broadcast day, but again, the clips are usually long, usually 8-10 minutes and are almost always worth watching. Real Time does offer text articles too, but they’re somewhat sparse when compared with the other apps.

Day traders should love the app’s real-time stock quotes. Other apps, and most websites for that matter, delay quotes by 15-20 minutes—a disadvantage for traders. The Real-Time app also automatically refreshes the stock prices for you, which means if you turn off the iPhone’s auto-sleep function, the iPhone could become a terminal for traders to watch the second-by-second rise and fall of their investments.

Creating a portfolio of stocks in the app is quick and easy. Simply tap the My Stocks tab, then tap the Edit button. You can also add new portfolios by tapping the New button, in case you wanted to keep a separate retirement or other account.

The app has a neat 3D, carousel-like menu system at the top of each section. Simply swipe your finger to rotate through the various topics for that section. It makes for an efficient use of space on the iPhone’s screen and a surprisingly clever interface design. Very slick.

The app also comes with free push notifications that alert you breaking business-related news stories. The alerts are handled well—there aren’t too many, and the news is usually important enough to warrant a “breaking news” alert.

Conclusion

Its combination of slick graphics, real-time quotes, easy-to-manage portfolio, video content, and push notifications make CNBC Real-Time one of our favorite financial apps. Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

1. (tie) Bloomberg

Bloomberg (free, iTunes link) has been on our Best of iPhone Apps list for a year now, and everything we pointed out in our previous review is still relevant. We love how economical the app is in presenting important financial information, and it’s content is all original and second-to-none in quality.

Bloomberg has four tabs along the bottom: News, Markets, My Stocks, and Stock Finder.

News is a easy-to-scan list of the day’s financial headlines—tap any one to read the article. What we love about the list style is how quick it makes getting an overview of the financial world. There’s no need to navigate through subtopics and news genres—it’s all just there in one spot. You can customize topics in the list by tapping the Edit button. Drag and drop the topics to rearrange their order. For example, I subscribed to the top “Most Read” and then slid my finger so that its stories will appear first in the list.

Markets offers a quick look at the various indices and global markets, not only for the US but also global.

The My Stocks tab lets you track individual stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, etc. To add a stock, simply tap the Edit button in the top right. You can also add information like shares owned and price paid per share so you can track your daily worth. It’s important to note that there are a lot of “hidden” features within that app that you can discover by using a careful eye and/or by tapping around the screen. For example, tapping the center column in My Stocks will cycle through stock price, shares owned, current value, day’s change in value, and the price you bought in at. The other columns feature have similar switchable features.

Bloomberg was, I think, the first app to offer full-screen stock charts that are activated by turning the iPhone on its side. Now, every major financial app offers the same feature. With Bloomberg, you can pinch or spread your fingers to expand or shrink the chart. Holding your finger on the chart will bring up a crosshairs that will pinpoint the stock’s historical price for that day.

The Stock Finder tab is simply a quick way to search for and pull up information on individual stocks, mutual funds, etc. To find a stock, simply type the company’s name or stock symbol into the search bar. Tapping on the company’s name among the results will bring up a page filled with various types of info, like current price, a chart, related news headlines, and a brief summary of the company. You can also navigate to the related news stories or turn the iPhone on its side to read the full-screen chart.

The app only has a few small downsides. First, the quotes don’t appear to be in real-time like with the CNBC Real-Time app. Usually financial websites and apps tell you if the prices are delayed or real time, but the app doesn’t say. However, I tested the prices against those on Google Finance’s website (which offers real-time too) and the prices seemed to be lagging by about 15 minutes. The other downside is that the app offers audio news, but it’s way too sparse and the content too questionable to be of much use.

Conclusion:

The Bloomberg app is all about quick and easy access to financial news and information. Its strength is in its minimalistic design that allows you to take in a lot of information in an efficient way. Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

3. Yahoo! Finance

The Yahoo! Finance app (free, iTunes link) has a slick look and full feature set, but it’s not quite as user friendly as it should be and requires a learning curve—it really should come with a user guide.

Yahoo’s iPhone apps have been of dubious quality so far, but one thing they get right is making their apps look good with the right amount of white space and readable fonts. The Yahoo! Finance app is a pleasure to look at and read.

The app offers 4 tabs to navigate through the app: Summary, Quotes, Research, and Tech Ticker.

Summary offers a quick overview of the financial world. It shows a small list of major indices (S&P 500, NASDAQ, etc) at the top followed by a list of the top news articles, and the day’s most active stocks and stocks whose prices went up or down the most in the day. You can tweak the info shown by tapping the lowercase “i” in the bottom right corner. We would love this screen except for one thing: it inexplicably leaves out the ability to add and track individual stocks.

For tracking individual stocks, there are two methods. The first is the Quotes tab, which features little graphical boxes stuffed with financial information. The widgets are configurable, so you can expand or shrink them to show more information. In their largest size, they show stock price, the current day’s chart, and 3 news stories. You can get rid of the widgets style and replace it with a basic list view by tapping the lowercase “i” in the bottom right corner. You can also add and remove stocks in these settings.

If you track your portfolio using the Yahoo! Finance website, you can import the portfolio into the app by tapping My Portfolio in the Research tab. You’ll have to log in to your Yahoo account in order to import. But you can’t edit the portfolio, which is very disappointing.

The app features full screen charts, which are accessed by turning the iPhone on its side. You can pinch and zoom and also hold your finger on the screen for a few seconds to pinpoint a stock’s price on a specific day.

The Research tab is where you’ll find financials news. The headlines (and a small blurb) are presented in an easily scannable list, but tapping them causes them to open in a browser within the app. The news is mostly from the Associated Press, but there is some aggregation of other business news sources as well.

The final tab, Tech Ticker, feature’s Yahoo’s financial video content. The videos stream to your iPhone over WiFi and 3G. The topics covered are usually interesting but filled with opinion, and we find the various hosts to be somewhat dubious in quality.

Conclusion

Overall, the Yahoo Finance app is slick and feature-packed, but it requires a bit too much from the user. Only after some tweaking does the app’s true usefulness come to the surface. We can recommend the app for its features, but we put it in third place because it’s not user friendly and much of its news is subpar. Rating: 8.2 out of 10.

4. MarketWatch

MarketWatch (free, iTunes link), like its website, focuses on financial news coverage and original content. The app also comes with an interesting voice-to-text feature that reads articles to you using a pleasant computerized voice.

The app’s most interesting feature is text-to-speech. Every news article comes with a “Listen Now” button that, when pressed, will launch the iPhone’s media player and read the article to you. There is even a “Cruise Control” option that will read all articles to you back to back, crating a sort of financial news podcast.

The app offers full-screen stock charts when turn on its side, like all the other apps. But it lacks any interactive features such as pinpointing dates for specific stock prices.

The navigation bar at the bottom can be configured to your tastes. You can add, remove, or rearrange the tabs at the bottom with various topics like Top Stories, Investing, Interational, etc.

In terms of appearance, MarketWatch cripples itself by placing a large ad at the bottom of the screen. Other apps have ads too, but most do not place it on the main screen, and if the do, the ad disappears after a few seconds. Marketwatch‘s annoying placement of their ad limits the amount of information you can take in at a glance, and when the iPhone is turned on its side, it makes the app useless.

With the Watchlist tab, MarketWatch makes it easy to create a portfolio to track you favorite stocks and funds. Just use the search bar to look up a stock and tap the “Add to Watchlist” button. But once again, the annoying ad interfers and only allows 4 stocks to be visible on the screen at a time.

Conclusion:

MarketWatch’s strength is in its content. We can recommend the app mainly as a secondary source to read about recent financial news. Rating: 7.7 out of 10.

5. DailyFinance

DailyFinance (free, iTunes link) has all the features you’d want in a finance app, but unfortunately the content is too buried and spread out amongst a cumbersome menu system. The app also requires that you sign up for an AOL Instant Messenger account in order to track a stock portfolio. Why? I don’t know, but the process does a nice job of wasting your time.

DailyFinance has five tabs along the bottom to help you navigate. They are Markets, News, Movers, my Stocks, and Get Quotes.

Markets is the default screen when the app is opened; it shows the performance of the important indices (Dow Jones Industrial, S&P 500, NASDAQ, etc), both for the US and global. It also shows a single “top market news” story above the indices. It’s a good design choice for the default screen, but why not add stocks I want to watch as well as more news stories below with this tab?

Tapping the News tab brings up another menu-filled screen. There’s an impressive range of news subtopics, but nothing to read—no headlines or articles, just subtopics. Only when you select one do you get a small selection of articles. There’s little reason to spread out the news like this. Besides offering AOL’s own exclusive content, the app also aggregates news from other sources, which the app opens in a browser inside the app.

The last three tabs, Movers, My Stocks, and Get Quotes, revolve around getting stock prices and info. These three tabs could have easily been combined into one to save you a lot of time—but that’s the theme with this app.

DailyFinance did have one feature that I really liked, its charts. All of the apps offer landscape, full-scren stock charts, but DailyFinance lets you pinpoint specific dates on the chart using your finger and a “crosshairs” feature. Point or drag to a specific date, and you’ll call up that day’s price and volume.

Overall, the information in DailyFinance is impressive in scope but too spread out, and our favorite iPhone finance apps do just about everything a little better.

Conclusion:

Despite being packed with features, DailyFinance suffers from poor design. Cumbersome account requirements and an inefficient menu system slows down the user experience. Rating: 6.0 out of 10.

I’m a Discover Card user, so I’m glad to see Discover Card Mobile (free, iTunes link) finally appear in the App Store. With it, you can:

• keep track of your balance
• pay off your card
• check your Cashback Bonus
• view recent transactions
• sign up for the 5% cashback programs

The app has a classic iPhone-friendly interface, so it’s much better than trying to access Discovercard.com using the iPhone’s browser. The only featuring lacking is the ability to spend your Cashback bonuses within the app. It’d be nice to order those Kohl’s gift cards within the app. Oh well.

Discover Card Mobile is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

The CNBC Real-Time app includes breaking CNBC business news, historical charts, 150 daily video clips, and a customized “My Stocks” watch list. Wall Street fanatics can also activate push notifications for breaking business news, a nifty feature that may make this app a worthwhile download. It seems to boast a few more features than the iPhone’s built-in stock app, so it’s worth a look.

The CNBC Real-Time app is a free download from the iTunes store.

Online banking has changed the way the world handles money. Now with the iPhone, it can change how and when you pay your bills or balance your checkbook. Below are 6 iPhone apps for the major US banks that let you do your online banking anywhere.

Bank of America – Mobile Banking

Bank of America – Mobile Banking (free, iTunes link) gives you access to your BoA account while on the go. With the app, you can:

• Check balances anytime, anywhere
• Pay bills
• Transfer funds
• Find the closes BoA branches and ATMs usings the iPhone’s GPS

The app uses Bank of America’s SiteKey to verify your identify and prevent fraud. Their Online Banking Guarantee ensures you won’t be responsible for unauthorized transactions.

Bank of America – Mobile Banking is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

Citi Mobile

Citi Mobile (free, iTunes link) is an easy-to-use app that lets customers bank anywhere. With the app, you can:

• Check your account balances (savings, checking, credit, loan, mortgage, etc)
• Pay bills
• Transfer funds
• Find ATMs and bank branches using the iPhone’s GPS
• Contact customer service with one-touch dialing

The app uses 128-bit encryption to protect your data. Should you lose your iPhone, access to your account via Citi Mobile can be deactivated instantly by calling a toll-free number.

Citi Mobile is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

Chase Mobile

Chase Mobile (free, iTunes link) lets Chase Online customers access their accounts while on the go. With the app, you can:

• Pay bills and credit cards
• Transfer money
• View account balances
• View transaction history
• Find the closest Chase ATM or branch using the iPhone’s GPS

Chase Mobile for iPhone and iPod Touch

Chase Mobile is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

Wells Fargo Mobile

Wells Fargo Mobile (free, iTunes link) lets you check your balance, pay bills, and transfer money between accounts. Using the iPhone’s GPS, you can also find the nearest Wells Fargo bank or ATM.

To protect your data, the app uses 128-bit SSL encryption.

Wells Fargo Mobile is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

PNC Mobile Banking

PNC Mobile Banking (free, iTunes link) gives 24/7 access to your PNC Bank account. It’s a free service to all PNC online banking customers, but requires you to sign up first on the website.

To enroll and activate, go to PNC Online Banking, click Mobile Banking, and click Enroll under the Mobile Banking Application. Follow the instructions to get an Activation Code.

With the app, you get the typical features:

• Check balances
• View transactions
• Pay bills
• Transfer funds
• Locate PNC ATMs and branches

The app offers PNC’s Security Assurance, which protects, detects, and resolves cases of theft and fraud.

PNC Mobile Banking is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

USAA Mobile

The cool thing about USAA Mobile (free, iTunes link) is that you can deposit checks by snapping a picture with the iPhone’s camera. Yup, take a picture with the app and send it in, and the money’s in the bank. Remember the days when you actually had to handle cash? Ahh, c’est la vie.

Of course, USAA Mobile offers all the classic features you’d expect from an iPhone mobile banking app, including:

• Check accounts
• Check transactions
• Pay bills
• Loan calculator
• ATM and branch locator
• Accident checklist (things to do if you get in a car accident)

USAA Mobile is a free download from the iTunes App Store.