That taskbar thing would not have been from Money; it is probably just a cooincidence. Tuesday was the monthly update day (second Tuesday of the month), and there are indeed several windows updates.
If it makes you feel better, in IE8 you could do Tools->WindowsUpdate to trigger the updates.
Regarding the Money thing, it is probably legitimate, but you may not want to click it anyway. What version of Money are you using?
On my Money Plus (USA, non-sunset) I got "Your provider has updated their service offerings.
Click here to update your Online services." and did not click on it.