Ed over at Wells, asks about Mint, who were at TechCrunch40 this week.
Pertuity | another way to look at your finances « The Bankwatch
What do you think of Mint, the latest “Communal Finance” tool in this space?
I had thought I would give them time to get some customers, and see how they do. It seems kind of like a Quicken with a touch of Wesabe. We know that Quicken was too complicated, and appealed to only a narrow group, so its refreshing to see Mint promote simplicity.
After all the aggregation talk in 1999, we also know that its not automatic, that everyone wants to see all their finances in one place, either because it scares, them fear the IRS/ Revenue Canada, or whatever.
So on balance, nice idea, and we will have to wait and see. It doesn’t feel groundbreaking to me, just yet.
Technorati Tags: mint, financial+managent, aggregation
Bankwatch 
For the bankers that read this blog, sites like Mint and Wesabe are not there to be your partner! Despite what they say, they are holding a veil in front of the banking industry’s face. These new players are going to change the landscape and quickly.
If you are an FI worried about customer retention and product penetration now, think what is going to happen when these guys ramp up; and ramping they are!
The slow moving FI industry better step on the pedal, fast!
Did anyone see the press about Lending Club, the facebook extension app, that shot to $1,000,000 in loans in the first 100 days of its existence?????
This is no novelty! Better rates through the people.
Get on the ball, banks!
Yay Tom!
I posted about this myself and I fall on the side of Tom. There is too much interest, and where there is interest – there is money.
Many people are unhappy or indifferent about their FI. Making it easier to compare and soon (thanks to BankSwitch) change over quickly and easily.
I signed up to Mint.com on day one. I’ll let you know how it goes.
@Tony …. don’t get me wrong. Mint has value. I just don’t see it as industry changing. It will be fun to watch how it evolves.
Signed up for Mint just to evaluate some of their claims. As users in their forums have noted, the program needs a bit more flexibility to be really useful. Then too its claims of money saving remind me more of the proverbial used-car salesman(Buy this car today and save $2000. Hmmm, just think how much I can save if I don’t buy it at all) than what actually occurs in real-life. The claim of saving money by switching credit cards may be true at face value but often other considerations enter into play that prevent one from switching. It was recommended that I switch to Amex to save interest charges. That would be fine except that I do not pay interest on my current card. I pay off the balance each month and as I recall Amex charges a fee for its card. Then too it was recommended that I switch to Verizon for all my phone and cable needs. That too would be fine except that my satellite provider provides a series of channels that are not generally available and I am reimbursed for them anyway. A computer program would not of course know this so as they say “keep all your eggs in one basket, but watch that basket”. Financial decisions require some emotion as well as sound judgment and making a decision based solely on raw financial data is not always the answer.