Revolution Money

A large group of very heavy hitters, chaired by former AOL man Ted Leonsis, has launched a new financial services company called Revolution Money. The company will charge transaction fees it says are as low as 25% of the industry average and will allow those transfers to be carried out through existing Points of Sale, an anonymous PIN protected credit card and a variety of online methods, including social networking sites and AOL's AIM instant messenger. Here's the release on Leonsis's blog.

The team at Revolution Money is staggering. The Board includes Lawrence Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary; Russell Hogg, former President and CEO of MasterCard International, Inc.; Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae and former director of the Office of Management and Budget; David Pottruck, former CEO of Charles Schwab and David Golden, CFO of Revolution LLC and former Vice Chairman of JPMorgan. The company recently announced a $50 million Series B round of funding from Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and others.

Will you start seeing Revolution Money as a payment option online and off this fall? You probably will. This company could have the financial smarts to succeed where Google Checkout has failed and prove a viable challenger to PayPal, at the very least.