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This week, Citibank released a new banking application for iPad, designed to give customers access to common banking tasks (balance checks, bill pay, transfers, etc.) as well as financial analysis tools. While we don't (and can't) cover all mobile application launches individually, the new Citibank iPad is an interesting case study that shows how a large organization has thoughtfully developed a platform-specific application instead of simply repackaging its mobile app for the bigger tablet-sized screen.

In addition, the financial tools now available in the Citi iPad app seem to take inspiration from similar online services, like Intuit's money management suite at Mint.com, for example. And, says the company, the iPad app's progress won't stop here. It will be under constant evolution, getting "smarter" over the coming weeks, and may even help users manage offers and rewards in the future.

Continuing our series of business apps for the iPad, today we look at accounting and finance apps.

Accounting is probably one of the last applications that you'd expect to do extensively from the iPad. We doubt that you'll want to shift fiscal staff to working extensively from iPads, but giving them on the go access to critical business applications could be a good thing.

As much of our lives are now conducted online, we still all receive a surprising amount of paper in the mail. Even with the advance of online banking and bill pay, much of what we lug in from the mailbox is related somehow to our personal finances. And even if we can pay some of our bills online, they're often separate transactions.

That's what Manilla promises to address: the organization and the simplification of our household bills.

Google has been offering users a mortgage comparison tool for a couple of years and has slowly added new financial products to that comparison tool as well, including credit cards, CDs, and banking account information. But these tools have never been showcased by Google, until now with the launch of a new site called Google Advisor.

The site rolls all these different search and comparison tools into one place so you can examine providers side-by-side. Looking for a checking account with no monthly fees? Looking for a credit card that offers frequent flyer miles? Looking for a low-interest mortgage? These are the sorts of questions the new site can help users answer.

As of June of 2010, the total U.S. consumer debt was $2.40 trillion. As much as 98% of the revolving debt in the U.S. is credit card debt, and the average household carries about $8000 in credit card debt. As daunting as those statistics are for the country as a whole, the choices faced by the individuals who are in debt and who want to eliminate it are just as depressing.

Information about debt reduction can be difficult to find, and there are plenty of questionable practices by banks and by debt consolidation companies that just serve to muddy the waters.

So making the task of tackling your debt easy and transparent is a big part of the mission of the YC-backed company Ready for Zero. Ready for Zero a free service with a very simple interface that helps clarify your financial status and plan your way out of debt.

Credit card giant Visa announced a new peer-to-peer payment service today that will soon give its U.S. customers the ability to receive and send money from their Visa accounts. The new personal payments service moves Visa's focus away from being just a handler for point-of-sale transactions and takes aim at an area that has long been dominated by PayPal.

Visa's announcement includes a partnership with CashEdge and Fiserv, two person-to-person financial transactions companies, which will now have access to VisaNet, the company's payment processing network.

I never know what to think when I see a rating next to a business on something like Yelp or Google that ranks a business as "$" or "$$" - how much is "$$" exactly and do I want to spend it? Well now, if you know you have exactly $12 on hand and you're looking for dinner, you can look at Mint Data and find out exactly what the average bill at that new restaurant might be.

Mint Data launched today and is the product of Mint.com, the personal-finance management site. Mint Data aggregates anonymous spending data from Mint's more than 4 million users "to deliver an unprecedented real-time economic index".

Mint.com, the personal finance management system, already includes bank accounts, credit cards, student loans, car loans and more when providing you with a picture of your financial standing and today it will add one more to the list - your home valuation.

Mint has partnered up with Zillow to help determine home value and include this as part of the broader personal finance landscape.

Wesabe is closing its doors. In an announcement on its site today, Marc Hedlund, the company's CEO said the personal finance site can't take care of its obligations to assistance and security.

Almost two years ago, we wrote a survey of the 10 leading personal finance sites. In the intervening months, three have shut down, one has been folded into another and a fifth, Mint, has been acquired. That's quite a grisly faceplant for a sector in which we could find 10 companies to profile.

With the end of the month rolling over this weekend it is the time when some begin preparing their monthly invoices to bill clients. Theses days there is no shortage of online tools to help with financing and invoices, so we thought we would take the opportunity to point out a few tools to help you get your weekend work done quickly and efficiently. With a plethora of services comes an equally cumbersome amount of features and options, from invoice limits, to pricing and to iPhone apps. Hopefully with this quick overview of four great services you'll be able to better choose the right one for you.