Three tidbits of news from this week’s BAI RDS conference in Boston underscore how important it is for companies to recognize when they can get further by partnering rather than trying to do it all by themselves. In each case, smaller companies have signed deals with partners that have the potential to significantly lift their prospects: ClairMail with Visa, MMV with Digital Insight, and Geezeo with iPay Technologies.

ClairMail and Visa: The mobile-banking company announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal that will enable banks to tap into VisaNet, Visa’s global processing network, to provide almost instantaneous alerts to the customer regarding their Visa debit and credit purchases. The alerts are intended to be fast enough that restaurant patrons will receive an alert on their mobile phone before the waiter returns with the receipt to sign. This deal is a boon to ClairMail because it ties it in with the kind of real-time network capability that consumers increasingly will come to expect and demand when they become habitual users of mobile banking and payments.

MMV and Digital Insight: MMV, a joint venture of Citi and SK Telecom, said Wednesday that it has become one of Digital Insight’s “preferred” providers for mobile-banking services. MMV recently secured $12 million in a secondary round of funding from Citi and SK Telecom, but it has been scrapping to establish itself in the crowded field of mobile-banking vendors. Many of its top rivals already have found partners to help them sell their products – M-Com with Fiserv is the top example. MMV’s deal with DI opens the door to community banks and credit unions that are eager for mobile-banking services and make their first call to DI because they already have an established relationship with the company and want products that can tie neatly together. This is a setback for MShift, DI’s previous partner, however.

Geezeo and iPay Technologies: Known primarily for its free spiffy personal finance web site for consumers, Geezeo set out earlier this year on a path to sell “white label” products to credit unions. So far, the pace has been measured as it worked through the idea and hunted for credit unions that would take the risk of being an early customer. The two companies announced Tuesday that they have formed an alliance that will enable Geezeo to blend its PFM capabilities with the bill-pay products that iPay sells to 3,600 financial institutions. It’s an important door-opening deal for Geezeo as it tries to keep pace with Mint, whose sale to Intuit was completed last week. Geezeo stands in Mint’s shadow when it comes to proving to the online consumer audience that its PFM is as compelling as Mint’s. Now it has a partner who can offer credit unions an option to Digital Insight’s FinanceWorks. DI still has a huge edge based on quality and depth of products, number of PFM clients, and Intuit’s backing and expertise, but iPay lends credibility and marketing oomph to Geezeo’s pitch.