Mint - ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/feeds/tag/Mint en Copyright 2009 Richard MacManus readwriteweb@gmail.com Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:40:23 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.23-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Mint's iPhone App: Now With Budgets, Push Notifications, and an Extra Layer of Security mint_logo_may09.pngMint, the popular personal finance site that was just acquired by Intuit, just released a major update to its iPhone application (iTunes link). While Mint's iPhone app was always quite good, this new version brings a number of new features to the app that make it more useful and, most importantly, more secure. The new features include the ability to edit transactions on the phone, mobile access to Mint's newly enhanced budgeting features, and the app can now also receive push alerts which can be customized on the service's website.

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]]> One new aspect of the app that users will definitely appreciate is the extra layer of security that Mint has now added. Users can now specify a passcode that will keep others from opening the app even if they have access to the phone. mint_budgets_iphone_app.pngIn addition, the application now automatically exits whenever a user receives a call or text message.

Hide Your Data Behind a Passcode

Overall, this update brings Mint's iPhone app in line with the company's regular web service. Having access to the budgeting features is a nice addition, as is the ability to edit transactions right on the phone. The most important update, however, is the added layer of security that the application-level passcode now brings. Carrying access to all this financial data around on a phone will definitely make a lot of potential users feel queasy about using the app. This extra level of protection, however, should give users enough peace of mind to give the app another try.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mints_iphone_app_now_with_budgets_push_notifications.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mints_iphone_app_now_with_budgets_push_notifications.php News Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:45:14 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
Report: Mint Considers Selling Anonymized Data from Its Users mint_logo_may09.pngAccording to a report from Bloomberg today, Mint.com's CEO Aaron Patzer is considering selling anonymized data about the service's users. Mint, the online personal finance aggregator, obviously sits on a lot of very interesting data, some of which the company has shared on its blog now and then. Given that this was just a short interview, the details about this plan are more than vague, and it would be interesting to know what kind of data Mint might be planning to sell. What is clear, though, is that Mint will have to be very careful if it doesn't want to scare away its customers.

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]]> On Mint, users can aggregate information from their various checking, credit card, stock, and retirement accounts. Because of this, Mint could, at least in theory, build a very detailed financial profile of every user, though the company's Privacy and Security Policy clearly states that a user's privacy is not for sale.

Aggregate Data Only?

We can only hope that Mint is simply planning to sell aggregate data from its users and will hopefully refrain from selling anything more granular than that - including anonymized details about specific consumers and their shopping habits. We know that anonymized data on social networks is easily linked to specific users, and when AOL released some anonymized datasets of its users, these searches were also easily traced back to specific users. We can only imagine how easy it would be to do this with data from a user's credit cards, though in the Bloomberg interview, Patzer argues that his company "wouldn't share information about individual transactions."

Given the amazing quality of the data that Mint has access to, it is hard to blame the company for trying to monetize this information. Some of the data from Mint would surely be very interesting - and we can see that companies, for example, could use this data to get a clearer view of who their customers are.

Mint's Privacy and Security Record So Far: Impeccable

So far, Mint has had an impeccable record when it comes to security and privacy, though this interview will surely spook some users. Mint has to walk a very fine line here, as giving this data to Mint was already a leap of faith for a lot of consumers and Mint has worked hard to convince users that their data is safe on the service.

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_mint_considers_selling_anonymized_data_from.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_mint_considers_selling_anonymized_data_from.php News Mon, 18 May 2009 12:01:32 -0800 Frederic Lardinois Top 10 Real World Web Apps of 2008 150-red-star.jpgHere at ReadWriteWeb, we love to talk about the latest and greatest Web 2.0 applications. However, while a lot of these services make our life on the Internet a lot easier, another group of services on the web helps to keep our offline life organized. Here is our list of the top 'real world' apps that have made our offline lives easier in 2008. We will look at the following five six categories: finance, travel, education, health, politics, and non-profits.

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]]> Of course, given the broad range of topics that we cover in this category, we had to make some tough choices and many exceptional products didn't quite make the cut. If you have your own favorites, please let us know in the comments.

This is the seventh in our series of top products of 2008:

  1. Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2008
  2. Top 10 International Products of 2008
  3. Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008
  4. Top 10 RSS and Syndication Products of 2008
  5. Top 10 Mobile Web Products of 2008
  6. Top 10 Enterprise Web Products of 2008

Finance

Mint

mint_logo_sep08.pngMint single-handedly changed the market for personal finance tools on the Internet in 2008 and forced Quicken, its closest competitor, to start offering its own online tools for free as well. Mint aggregates personal finance data from across the web and displays a consolidated view of all of your accounts in a very well designed and easy to use user interface. Mint also uses this data to recommend better credit cards and savings accounts to its users.

Mint launched its beta program in late 2007 and came out of beta in October 2008.  By October, Mint already had close to half a million users and had managed over $12 billion in transactions. In the course of 2008, Mint added a substantial number of new features to its lineup, including the ability to get an overview of your investment accounts. Mint also launched a major redesign of its user interface in August.

Rudder

rudder_logo_dec08.pngWhile Rudder might look similar to Mint at first, this personal finance tool has a very different focus. While Rudder also aggregates your banking and credit card accounts, it does not focus on analyzing your past spending habits in the way Mint does. Instead, its focuse is on the letting you know how much money you still have to pay your monthly bills. One of the great advantages of Rudder is that it sends all your updates to your inbox, so that you don't even have to log in to the service to keep up to date.

Rudder debuted at this year's DEMOfall conference in San Diego and, given the current economic situation, couldn't have launched at a more opportune time. Rudder also features a large number of useful finance planning tools and a great mobile site.

Health

PatientsLikeMe

patientslikeme_logo_dec08.pngPatientsLikeMe is an online community for people with life-changing medical conditions like Multiple Sclerosis, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or Fibromyalgia. Even though the site is still relatively now, it already provides on of the largest patient communities, and also features a wide range of research tools for symptoms and treatments.

PatientsLikeMe was founded in 2004 and defines its mission as providing a platform for sharing real world medical data. Members of the site often share data about their individual health experiences like symptoms, weight, mood swings, or drugs they have taken. Thanks to this, you can easily find others who are in the same situation as you and see what treatments are working for them.

Earlier this year, we named PatiensLikeMe as one of our favorite Web 2.0 health apps.

Sermo

sermo_logo_dec08.pngOur second top health app is also a social network, but this time for physicians. Sermo has over 90,000 members who exchange information about both medical and non-medical issues. As Matthew Holt from the Health Care Blog pointed out to us, the site also features some highly sophisticated survey and ratings tools, though it is only open to registered physicians.

This year, Sermo also rolled out a partnership with Bloomberg that provides healthcare investors with access to medical information compiled by the site's members.

Education

TeachStreet

teachstreet-logo.pngTeachStreet is not an educational site in the traditional sense. Instead, it provides a marketplace for teachers and students to meet. TeachStreet, whose motto is 'Learn New Things,' focuses mostly on teaching adults anything from arts and crafts, to bagpiping and foreign languages. TeachStreet started out in Seattle, WA, but expanded to Portland, OR and the Bay Area this year. The site already lists over 60,000 different classes and instructors.

TeachStreet is an interesting tool, both for teachers to gain more visibility, and for students to find the right classes and teachers. Thanks to its excellent search functions and well-designed layout, TeachStreet has already made a name for itself in the regions where it has officially launched and is poised for more growth in 2009.

After the jump: Politics, Non-Profits, Travel

Politics

OpenCongress

opencongresslogo.jpgWhile the U.S. election surely dominated the news this year, one non-election related web app that we really came to appreciate this year was OpenCongress. OpenCongress is a project by the Participatory Politics Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation and is definitely a must for political junkies. The site tracks all the news and votes in the U.S. Congress through an easy to use interface that features a lot of AJAX and RSS. The site even supports OpenID and also provides its users with a large number of widgets they can implement on their own sites.

As our own Marshall Kirkpatrick pointed out in his review of the site, it makes users "want to pay attention to politics because the user experience is so smooth and compelling."

Non-Profits

Kiva

kiva_logo_dec08.pngKiva is a micro-lending service that was founded in 2005 and at that time, it was the first person-to-person micro-ending site on the net. Kiva allows its users to lend small amounts of money to entrepreneurs in developing nations. The loans typically go towards starting up or expanding small, local businesses, ranging from a motorcycle repair shop in Lebanon to tailors in Pakistan.

In November, Kiva announced that over $50 million have now been lend by Kiva's over 330,000 members. This is a major success for the organization, especially given that Kiva had only loaned $11 million by September 2007. Kiva also ran a successful billboard campaign in California thanks to the help of PayPal.

The current financial crisis is obviously affecting Kiva and the organization is already seeing fewer lenders. Hopefully, this trend will reverse in 2009.

Wild Apricot

wildapricot_logo_dec08.pngWild Apricot provides software-as-a-service solutions to small and medium sized associations, clubs, and non-profits. It has created tightly integrated solutions for membership management, event registration, and creating customized web sites, with a focus on the non-profit sector. Service plans range from free to a flat fee of $200 a month, depending on the size of the contact database you plan to manage on the service.

In 2008, Wild Apricot rolled out a number of updates to its software, including support for Google Checkout, custom URLs, and better group management. Currently, Wild Apricot has more than 10,000 non-profit organizations as clients. We also like the company's well-written and informative blog about technology for non-profits.

Disclosure: Wild Apricot is a RWW sponsor.

Travel

Yapta

yapta-logo.pngThe web clearly revolutionized the travel industry. Booking flights and vacations online has quickly become a routine activity, even for less savvy web users. While Yapta launched in 2006, it was really only in 2008 that the site was able to differentiate itself from larger competitors like Kayak, FareCompare,  or Farecast. In June, Yapta announced a new feature that allows you to track airfare changes, and in November, Yapta unveiled a unique service that also allows you to track when and where you can use you frequent flier miles to book a flight.

While it's probably best to take this data with a grain of salt, Yapta claims to have saved its users over $91 million in airfare since May 2007.

PlanetEye

planeteye-logo.pngPlanetEye is a social travel site with a strong focus on providing both user-generated content, as well as stories from local editors all over the world. One of the core features of PlanetEye are its Travel Packs, which let you clip content from the site while you are planning your trip. This allows you to easily create your own personalized travel guides. PlanetEye came out of beta in the middle of 2008 and has already managed to established a loyal community of users on its service. PlanetEye also partnered with Travelocity, OpenTable, and StubHub.

Besides giving you great info for planning your trip, PlanetEye also lets you share geotagged photos with the rest of the PlanetEye community. The highlight of the service, however, is the content added by PlanetEye's local experts which ranges from blog posts to reviews of restaurants and local sights.

That's our list of 'real world' web apps that we think have made a difference to mainstream people in 2008. Let us know in the comments what your favorites are.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_real_world_web_apps_of_2008.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_real_world_web_apps_of_2008.php Real World Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:55:33 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
Would You Manage Your Money Through The Newspaper? Wesabe150.jpgWesabe and the UK Telegraph Think You Might

Online money management service Wesabe and the UK newspaper giant The Telegraph have entered a partnership to offer co-branded tools on the Telegraph website. It's a daring move, we can't help but admire it. We can't help but wonder how users will feel about it too, though.

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]]> WesabeTelegraph.jpgWesabe says the partnership is big validation for its model of openness with data. A big increase in the number of Wesabe users will help make the company's aggregate data analysis and financial tips all the more useful, it says.

We like this idea and it's clear that many people want to use online services to monitor and manage their finances. There's no doubt that many of the Telegraph's tens of millions of monthly visitors wouldn't have found out about Wesabe any other way. It does sound like a great convenience, as the company says, to be able to manage money in the same place that you get your news.

We suspect that there will be richer integration of Wesabe into Telegraph pages in the future. We can imagine, for example, news recommendations based on a reader's investment history. Something like the recent LinkedIn/NYTimes partnership.

Still, we wonder how comfortable people will be with this particular choice of partners.

Do You Want the Newspaper to Have a Direct Line to Your Finances?

portlandbeer.jpgPrivacy is a touchy concern and it's generally assumed that personal finances are one of the most private matters in peoples' lives. None the less, online personal finance services like Wesabe and competitor Mint are growing fast. The value they are able to add on top of existing banking options online is substantial, though there may not be a big barrier to entry if established banks decide to offer similar features.

Partnership options are always interesting, and technology plays in finance are often fascinating - but the newspaper? We're not sure that an institution founded on the premise that it tells everyone everything is really the best choice to do personal finance through.

We like the idea of newspapers working with data (see what The Guardian is doing), but not necessarily our personal financial data - even if it is worked with in anonymous aggregate. Are we alone in that thinking? We doubt it.

What about readers? Are you comfortable, excited even, with the prospect of doing personal finance through your local newspaper? We suspect our readers are disproportionately uninterested in such things as you are more likely to know about these services independently. Still, isn't there something a little crazy about this?

Readers interested in learning more about this sector should check out our recent podcast edition of ReadWriteTalk on the topic, with executives from Wesabe, Mint and Tip'd as guests.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/would_you_manage_your_money_th.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/would_you_manage_your_money_th.php NYT Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:53:16 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick
RWW Live: Online Personal Finance You can't turn on the TV, visit Yahoo Finance or pick up the Wall Street Journal without hearing about the economic crisis we're in. It's caused most of us to step back and look at our own financial situation. In the next episode of RWW Live, to be broadcasted live at 3.30pm PST Monday (6.30pm EST), we look at how you can use Web tools to improve your personal finances. We have executives from Mint, Wesabe and Tip'd joining us.

You can tune into the show, and interact with us via the chat, by clicking here. You can also use the Calliflower Facebook app to tune in and participate.

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]]> Join the regulars from RWW Live, plus:

  • Aaron Patzer, Founder and CEO of Mint, a popular online money management service. (RWW coverage of Mint)
  • Gabe Griego, Vice President of Marketing at Wesabe, a "part money management tool, part community" service. (Wesabe was profiled in our recent round-up post Banking 2.0: Money Management Moves to The Cloud)
  • Mu Saleem, Community Director of Tip'd, a new online community "for financial news, ideas, and tips".

RWW Live is hosted as always by Sean Ammirati, with Richard MacManus and Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb on the call.

Before the show starts, we're interested in what questions you have for the panelists. Please leave a comment on this post and one of the RWW crew on the call (Sean, Marshall, Steve and myself) will do our best to ask your question.

We will post the audio from the show at the end, but we hope you join us LIVE on Calliflower or Facebook.

UPDATE: the show is now finished, here is the audio:


Download MP3

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rww_live_online_personal_finance.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rww_live_online_personal_finance.php Podcasts Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:05:03 -0800 Richard MacManus
Your Money in the Cloud: Personal Finance Tool Mint Comes Out of Beta mint_logo_sep08.pngGiven the state of the economy right now, keeping a close eye on your personal finances is becoming more of a necessity than ever before. Mint, the cloud-based personal finance tool that launched in September 2007 has now come out of beta and added a number of handy new features, including an IRA Rollover tool, and the ability to add custom categories to track your spending habits.

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]]> Mint's mission is to become the central hub for your personal finance data, including your credit card data, bank accounts, loans, retirement investments, and stock brokerage accounts. Mint gathers all the information from these accounts and displays them in one central place. This not only means you don't have to log into numerous accounts to keep an eye on your credit cards and investments, but it also gives you an overview over your spending habits across various accounts that was hard to get before.

To do so, however, you have to give Mint the login data for all your accounts, which raises alarms for some users, especially because Mint is still a relatively new entity in the finance business.

mint_sshot_sep08.pngAs we pointed our earlier this month, Mint's users are relatively young, with a median age of 28, but by adding investment accounts and the new IRA calculator, Mint should be able to slowly become more mainstream, especially in these tough economic times. In the future, Mint also plans to allow for bill payment and stock trades through its site, but for now, it is only a data aggregator.

If you would like to read more about our take on personal finance in the cloud and a look at Mint's competitors, have a look at our comparison of the top 10 personal money management sites on the Internet.

Mint company profile provided by TradeVibes

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/could_banking_mint_out_of_beta.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/could_banking_mint_out_of_beta.php News Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:07:36 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
Who Really Uses Mint.com (And Other Banking 2.0) Services Anyway? Given the U.S. economic crisis, people are looking for new and better ways to get a handle on their personal finances. We recently profiled 10 money management web applications that promise to do everything from analyzing your spending behavior to saving you money by negotiating lower rates on credit cards.

The proliferation of these types of apps would have you believe there's a big demand for web-based financial tools. But is there really? We would hope so, considering how their advanced technology can provide detailed analysis about your money (or lack thereof). However, we secretly wondered if the only people logging in to sites like Mint.com and the like are the young kids of Gen Y. Do adults with mortgages, credit card debt, and 401Ks even know how to use these tools?

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]]> Are Banking 2.0 Users Really That Young?

To find out who's using the banking 2.0 tools and why, we started with Mint.com, who recently gave us a peek into their company's data. As VentureBeat noted, Mint.com's nearly 500,000 users are cutting down on expenses - they've spent an average of $300 less per month in August than in January this year, a 6% drop. However, they believed that early users of this site and those like it were sure to be younger and more tech-savvy. We believe they are tech-savvy, too, since it does require the use of computer and browser, and we know that not everyone can handle such complications. But we wondered: how young are the users really? 

Mint.com Is Slowly Aging

Although Mint.com doesn't require you to fill out anything more than a zip code and email address in order to sign up, they've conducted multiple user surveys in order to get a grasp on their company's demographic data. The end result of those surveys has given them a good idea of who uses the site.

Mint.com admits that they, as a web company, did indeed "launch young." In the beginning, their audience was primarily Generation Y. However, over the past year, their user base has been gradually aging. At launch, the average age of the user on the site was 27, the same as their CEO at the time, Aaron Patzer. Today, the average age is 28, only a year higher, a year later. So are they really growing up?

Maybe they're not aging overall as a site, but when you look at the breakdowns by age range, you can see that some of the older age groups are trending upwards. Look at the 40-year-olds and up, for example - there is some growth to be seen there. Below, you can see a chart that tracks changes between September, 2007 and July, 2008:

Another trend that points to the aging of Mint users is the fact that more users now report owning their primary residence. In December 2007, that number was 39%. Today, 43% report that they own their own home.

Why It Works: You Can Actually Save Money

When we first reported Mint.com's announcement that they had saved users over $100 million while managing $12 billion in transactions, some of you were skeptical. But the company is maintaining those numbers are accurate. This is in part to due the fact that when you take into consideration the number of accounts maintained at Mint (checking, savings, credit card, 401K, mortgages, car loans, etc.) and the number of users (now about half a million), it isn't very hard to push that number up. However, it's also high thanks to Mint.com's wealthier-than-the-average-American user base. As of July 2008, the user's average income level was over $100,000/year and 39% had investment assets over $50,000.

But that's not to say that Mint is only a tool for the wealthy tech elite - anyone can save money with the service. According to a company representative, 1 out of every 10 Mint.com users changes accounts after signing up for the service. This means that those users are tapping into Mint.com's feature where the service recommends them a better offer. For example, a person with a credit card who charges a lot of airline tickets might be offered a different card with travel points. Another person might be recommended to switch from their Bank of America savings account to ING where they would get a better rate, perhaps. And yet another person might be recommended a credit card with a lower rate. And don't be mistaken - those recommendations aren't simply taking into account the introductory period where the credit card company slashes the rate to entice you, but looks at the credit card rate over the course of an entire year before determining whether it would really save the user money.

What About The Other Startups In This Space?

Given Mint.com's user base of around 500,000 and their traffic numbers, they are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, personal finance/money management web service. They achieved this growth through smart advertising campaigns that reached out to the mainstream, especially women, in magazines like SELF, Real Simple, and Reader's Digest. That appeared to have worked - today, 40% of new users on the site are women - that's a much higher number than back in 2007, when only 15% of the users were female.

So, what about the others? We reached out to some of the other banking 2.0 sites to see what sort of data they had, too. Out of the ten apps we previously featured, only Wesabe, Rudder, Geezeo, Xero, and Expensr had data on hand. iThryv is still preparing to launch and the rest did not respond to our request.

Here's how those sites compared:

Wesabe

  • Over 100,000 users
  • 56% male, 44% female
  • Median income: $60-80K
  • Age: 60% are 30 or younger
  • Misc. - 75% have a college degree or higher, 43% are married

Rudder

  • The company just launched at DEMO last month, but already have 15,000 users.
  • They don't collect demographic info.

Geezeo

  • 30,000 users
  • 54% male, 46% female
  • 30% 18 - 34 years old
  • 38% 35 - 49 years old
  • Site attracts less affluent users
  • More info here

Xero

  • Xero has 2200 paying customers
  • Their number of customers has grown 132% since March 31, 2008
  • Xero will not disclose demographic data.

Expensr

  • 25,000 users
  • Users in their 20's: 66%
  • Users in their 30's: 24%

Great Tools, Now If Only Banks Would Tell People They Existed...

Overall, we can tell there are some general trends here - banking 2.0 sites are still young, but are starting to gain traction among older users. More women are starting to use these applications which makes sense, give that they are typically the ones holding the household purse strings.

However, we think that there should be more of a push by financial institutions to recommend these types of tools to their customers, instead of sticking with the old stand-bys that include desktop software applications like Quicken. As Alistair Newton, Research VP and Industry Services Director at Gartner noted earlier this year, "with banks coming under increasing pressure to deliver a range of short-term cost savings, the ways that banks interact with their customers will become increasingly important in managing costs downwards. There are a variety of ways in which banks can help customers save money and better manage their exposure to debt while saving the bank money by encouraging greater use of self-service applications."

Gartner also maintains that communities such as Mint.com, Wesabe, and Geezeo can be of long-term benefit to banks, especially as they help the more debt-exposed clients to manage their funds more effectively.

We couldn't agree more. Our hope is that in light of the country's economic meltdown, these apps will get the push they deserve.

Image credit: Cash, courtesy of: spcbrass

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/who_really_uses_mint_anyway.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/who_really_uses_mint_anyway.php Trends Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:19:44 -0800 Sarah Perez
Banking 2.0: Money Management Moves to The Cloud There was a time when managing finances from your computer meant you had to use desktop software. Today, that's no longer the case. There are now a number of applications that let you do your banking in the cloud, a trend we've dubbed "banking 2.0."

These sites aren't just simplified versions of our former desktop apps, either. Instead, they offer a number of features that take advantage of their "always on" status. Forget downloading updates and typing in your transactions line-by-line, these new banking 2.0 sites can offer you better insight into your financial situation with no additional effort on your part beyond just logging in.

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]]> We recently reviewed the state of online accounting, an area that also may be of interest to you if you're following the banking 2.0 trend. Since then, both the DEMO and TechCrunch50 conferences have come and gone, and at both events new competitors have now joined the online banking landscape. Here, we will look at the new companies that recently debuted as well as our old favorites.

Mint

Mint.com may be the most popular of the online banking apps today...or perhaps it's just the most hyped. The site currently claims to serve nearly 400,000 users, manages over $12 billion in transactions, and has saved $100 million+ for its users. On Mint.com, you can manage your bank account, credit card accounts, loans, brokerage and investment accounts, and more. The site also provides guides that can help you make big financial decisions like buying a new car or home. The feature which makes Mint unique is their ability to scan through your bank account and credit card transactions in order to help you find savings. They do this by matching you up with offers for new credit cards with lower rates or by negotiating a lower rate with your current company.

Wesabe

Wesabe takes what's normally a private activity - financial management - and makes it social. Like other online banking apps, Wesabe lets you see all your bank accounts and credit cards in one place. You can categorize your transactions and see spending and earning summaries. Where Wesabe is different is that it takes your data, anonymizes it, and shares it with the Wesabe community. That aggregate data is then analyzed for patterns and those results are shared with everyone. For example, Wesabe can show the cost of an average transaction at a particular merchant.

Geezeo

Geezeo is very much like Mint.com in that it offers a centralized site to access all your financial accounts including banking, credit cards, loans, etc. Where they are a bit different is in their community aspect. Instead of anonymized data, they offer community-focused areas like Groups and Goals where you can socialize and learn from others who have the same financial concerns that you do. Geezeo also stands out for letting you upload your own bank account data, if you so desire, instead of having to set up accounts to upload into Geezeo automatically. Transactions can also be manually entered. Geezeo offers a mobile app too, that lets you check your balances and available credit from your mobile phone.

Expensr

Expensr is an online personal finance application which was recently acquired by recommendation engine Strands. The site is now being integrated with Strands' recommendation technology to produce a new product, moneyStrands, which analyzes your financial history in order to recommend products and services you may find appealing. The site lets you import your bank account files into their system using a secure uploader. The app will then auto-categorize your transactions. You're presented with a variety of pie graphs and bar graphs that break down your spending to show you where your money is going. You can compare yourself to your peers by tagging yourself with keywords like "young professional" or "college student" and then look at your spending habits versus the average from that particular group. Expensr also offers budgeting tools which can help you plan for the future.

moneyStrands

After acquiring Expensr, Strands has been working to combine its technology with their own recommendation engine. The end result is moneyStrands, still in private beta. Ultimately, the site will offer you a way to aggregate your financial information in one place and see instant snapshots of your finances. Recommendation technologies will present you with services you may be interested in and you can anonymously compare your habits with others. At the moment, Expensr and moneyStrands appear as separate web sites, but perhaps they will become more integrated in the future.

Xero

Where Mint.com may appeal to former Quicken users, Xero.com appeals to former Quickbooks users. This kiwi startup offers daily bank reconciliation as well as invoicing, reporting, A/R, A/P, expense claims, and other bookkeeping tasks. For those considering the switch, a handy page on the Xero web site lets you show your accountant exactly what Xero can and cannot do so that you can analyze whether or not their service is right for you.

Rudder

Rudder made their official debut at the recent DEMO conference in San Diego. Unlike the other apps reviewed here, Rudder focuses on bills more than banking. With Rudder, you can determine how much money you have available to spend while still paying all your bills. The app aggregates your banking and credit card accounts, but the focus here is not on what's taken place in the past (historical trends, spending habits, etc.). Instead, Rudder focuses on the future by letting you know what's left in your account for spending and saving. The best feature about Rudder, though, is that it doesn't force you to log into their site to get this information. The app delivers balances, transactions, and upcoming bills directly to your email inbox.

Green Sherpa

Another app which debuted at DEMO was Green Sherpa. At first glance, the app appears to be very much like its competitors with bank account aggregation, reconciliation, and budgeting tools. However, Green Sherpa offers a combination of features which appeal to those who are making the transition from desktop apps. The app lets you input transactions manually and offers a more advanced cash flow projection than Mint.com does. However, the app's most unique feature is its sharing aspect. You can choose to give other people (like a family member or accountant) access to your data. While that makes Green Sherpa stand out, they've entered a crowded space where competitors already have solid leads, so it may not be enough to win people over.

Buxfer

Buxfer is another app offering a home to all your accounts. It will auto-download your data, categorize your transactions, and help you budget. Buxfer addresses the privacy concerns that many have with banking 2.0 sites by integrating with Google Gears. The app uses Google Gears to store your account login information on your own computer, only syncing back the data collected, not your private credentials. They also offer a groups feature which will appeal those sharing expenses with others, like roommates, for example. You can use Buxfer to track and settle IOUs with others through the site. This makes the app more appealing to a younger crowd, as does its mobile integration. You can access Buxfer via SMS, Twitter, email, on on the mobile web.

Shryk

Shryk is a company which just launched at the TechCrunch50 conference. Their two-pronged approach is designed to help kids achieve financial literacy. The first part of that approach is a service called iThryv which teaches kids about earning, saving, and managing money. This product is sold through banks and credit unions and is also available free to educational institutions. The second part of the Shyrnk platform is WeProsper.org. This is an online community where teachers, schools, and financial institutions can come together and develop new tools and methods to promote financial literacy.

Security Concerns?

For obvious reasons, some people will find the thought of banking in the cloud frightening. This is, after all, data that requires a high level of security. However, with banks themselves offering online services and bill pay, people are beginning to see that "online" doesn't necessarily mean "insecure." In fact, having your banking data stored on servers run by a business may actually be more secure than having a Quicken file saved on your laptop, a device which could be easily lost or stolen. Also, because home users don't tend to back up their data as often as they should, a hard drive crash could mean a complete loss.

Challenges

Although there are a number of sites to choose from in this competitive space, there are still some challenges to overcome. For one, because almost all these companies are U.S.-based, the banks they support are U.S.-based as well. This leaves potential international customers without a way to participate. Some of the companies state in their F.A.Q.'s that they plan to add support for more banks worldwide in the future, but that's only likely to occur if the company can first gain a foothold here in the U.S.

Another issue with these sites is that there is almost no support for small community banks and credit unions. Unless the site allows you to import your transactions manually (which somewhat defeats the purpose), you're out of luck. Why is that almost all major banks are available yet so few of the smaller banks are? This is the type of service that could help keep smaller banks more competitive with their big bank counterparts, so you would think some of them would be interested. Is the burden on the banking 2.0 sites to help smaller banks get online or is it up to those institutions themselves? Perhaps the banking 2.0 sites need to be working a way to automate the import of transactions from any bank, regardless of whether or not the institution itself supports the site. The first company to come up with a solution like that could really set themselves apart from the rest of the pack and gain a whole new set of customers in the process.

Conclusion

Banking 2.0 is still very much an emerging technology trend. Yet with the young generation of digital natives now entering the workforce and starting their careers, you can be sure that they will have an impact on this space. They will expect their banks to support not only online banking but also other online money management tools such as these. This is not a generation that's known for their brand loyalty, so you can bet that they will be all too happy to change banks if they decide they want to use one of these services and their bank isn't supported.

Banking 2.0 represents only one aspect of the growing trend that is cloud computing. Just as other desktop software is being threatened by new online apps, desktop financial management software is threatened as well. These banking sites go up against expensive and unwieldy desktop software while offering their services for free and finding you savings. In our current economy, that activity gives banking 2.0 the potential to go mainstream fast.

Image credit: Cash, courtesy of: spcbrass]]>Discuss]]>
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/banking_20_money_management_in_the_cloud.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/banking_20_money_management_in_the_cloud.php Products Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:15:00 -0800 Sarah Perez
The New Mint.com Launches: Site Redesigned, But Still No Data Upload When Mint.com launched, they were taking a big risk - would people trust a web app to manage their finances online? Web 2.0 apps don't necessarily have a reputation as offering hardened security. However, Mint's efforts to prove they were safe and trustworthy won people over as did their easy-to-use personal finance tools. Today, Mint.com serves nearly 400,000 users, manages over $12 billion in transactions, and has saved $100 million+ for its users. However, one problem the site has struggled with was keeping its users informed as to all the new features of its product. Today, the Mint.com site gets an overhaul to specifically address this issue.

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]]> The New Mint.com

One of the best things about using web apps is that you don't need to download updates, install new versions, or go buy a new boxed product every year or so. However, in Mint's case, the speed with which they innovate - they claim to implement customer-driven improvements every six weeks - meant their new features were being overlooked by their users. People who signed up to manage their bank accounts were often not aware that the site could help them manage their other accounts, too, since those features weren't offered at the time of initial registration. Calling attention to these features was the main goal of the site's redesign.

Today, the site launches with a new look and feel which brings the focus back to the major new features added to Mint since their launch: enhanced budgeting tools, the addition of brokerage and investment accounts, mortgage accounts, student loans, and auto loans. In addition, they've added six new "how to" guides that can help you with your major financial decisions. These include things like saving for retirement, paying off your student loans, buying a car, creating a personal budget, and more. The guides are the start of a new educational series for the site.

What It Looks Like

Below we have both the old version of Mint.com and the new version. Do you think the redesign is an improvement?

Before:

After:

Before (Features):

After (Features):

The New Mint: All Flash, No Substance?

For the happy U.S. customers who are able to use Mint.com, the redesign is sure to be appreciated as it really does give the site a fresh, new look and makes finding out about new features easier than before. However, Mint is still ignoring the needs of those customers who don't bank with large, national banking institutions. One of the most requested features is for Mint to allow for data uploads - that is, the importation of downloaded files be them in .QIF, .QFX, .QBO, or even .CSV or .TXT format. For those who chose to bank with smaller community banks or credit unions - a choice often made because of the typically lower fees that those institutions provide - Mint.com is not an option. That's a shame because if anyone is interested in using a service to save money, it could very well be these folks.

By keeping their niche so narrow so as to not include a good portion of the U.S. banking population, Mint.com is allowing its competitors, sites like Wesabe.com and Geezeo a big advantage. Today, both of those sites have FAQs that state "if your bank isn't available, let us know and we'll add it!" They also both support data upload. Meanwhile, Mint's FAQ, hidden away on their forums, reads "...we are adding new banks as quickly as we can," and "Mint currently doesn't support features that would allow customers to import data from another source (Quicken, Excel, etc.). We're looking to see if we can provide support for these down the road."

We hope that since Mint.com has a fresh new look now, they will focus on offering their Webby-award winning services to more people now, too.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mint_launches_site_redesign.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mint_launches_site_redesign.php Products Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:00:00 -0800 Sarah Perez