Blog - Comments

Carl Knibbs comments on good decisions equate to good products

Carl Knibbs — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:19:22 +0000

Thanks for the comments. I'll take a look at your blog.

Best,

Carl

Carl Knibbs comments on bank account aggregation in the UK

Carl Knibbs — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:15:59 +0000

Thanks for the comment.

Agreed, the more I use services like these the more convinced I am that there is a future for them.

I know that in the case of Mint.com their revenues are generated from acting as an intermediary between the customer and banks/financial institutions for financial products. Their model is not unlike the 'price comparison' model in the UK where a commission is taken for passing customers on to these products.

Yes, I think both aggregated data and charging customers are both 'second phase' means of generating revenues. These rather depend on a) having lots of customers b) having a product customers are happy to pay for. (There's not much detail out there on plans for either of these two points.)

Will be interesting to see how it goes...

Best,

Carl

FS comments on good decisions equate to good products

FS — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:39:09 +0000

I've been realizing the importance of good decisions myself and have started on a journey to learn more on the subject, with help from Stanford University's Strategic Decisions & Risk Management Programme - http://strategicdecisions.stanford.edu/

I've started documenting my learnings at http://decisionomics.blogspot.com

FS comments on bank account aggregation in the UK

FS — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:33:27 +0000

I live in UK and have been using www.buxfer.com. It does not integrate with UK bank accounts directly but lets me upload CSVs which works fine for me. The insights into my finances are invaluable and I think there's definitely a market for such tools in the future. In fact, I would not mind paying a small subscription fees if there was a fully integrated service in UK.

You mention that the likes of Wesabe and Mint have not yet proven the existence of a revenue model. Any ideas on what are their revenue streams? Do they sell any of the (anonymised) aggregated data or charge consumers for subscriptions?

Carl Knibbs comments on 6 (cost effective) product marketing approaches for your site

Carl Knibbs — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:14:49 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Carl

Robert Jacksons comments on 6 (cost effective) product marketing approaches for your site

Robert Jacksons — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:56:05 +0000

I think you should also include SMS Marketing in it because it is a new upcoming sector Fort Worth Movers

Carl Knibbs comments on how we build the product

Carl Knibbs — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:41:54 +0000

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for the comment! (much appreciated!) Glad you like it. The workflow is basically 10 years of trying to get it right. The diagram itself, I drew. Hopefully it's easy to read and follow :-)

Best wishes,

Carl

Sarah comments on how we build the product

Sarah — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:12:33 +0000

How did you create this workflow, I love the style!
Keep up the good work.

Carl Knibbs comments on bank account aggregation in the UK

Carl Knibbs — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:02:03 +0000

Thanks for the post Tim.

I agree, it is interesting. Time will tell if the UK really does have an apetite for this kind of service (on any decent scale.) I have to say that I think one such service will succeed. For me, it is about taking what is fundamentally useful about a service of this kind and building on it to the point where it really is easier and more convenient to manage your 'financial life' in one (or a small group) of places. If someone delivers this, it stops being niche and becomes more applicale to 'everyone.' I wouldn't agree services like this are dying. I just don't think that anyone has fully sparked consumer imagination yet.

I agree that third party systems storing this data can make people feel uncomfortable :-) However (without going in to dull work mode) my personal take on this is that I use a few of these sites and I have no reason to believe there is any higher risk than providing your bank details to eccomerce sites, retailers etc. In fact the security levels appear to be scrutinised that much more!

Thanks again for the comment - I am interested in how it turns out too! You may enjoy the recent stuff about PFM on "ReadWriteWeb" btw...

Carl

Tim comments on bank account aggregation in the UK

Tim — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:53:57 +0000

I've been using Microsoft's Money product for years to aggregate all my information (current, savings, credit, loans, investments) in to one place. It's great being able to see everything together and track transfers between accounts.

However, products like this, in the UK at least, seem to be dying. Maybe there's no call for them? Or maybe the future is on the web.

Now, I'm a tech savvy person and work in IT, but having financial related information all aggregated by a third party on a remote system somewhere scares me. I'm fairly comfortable with it all being on my own PC, but how do I know whether I can trust these websites?

I'll definately watch with interest to see where this field of personal finance goes over the coming years.