Endorsement by TechCrunch and I think specifically by michael arrington told me I could use and adopt Mint.
And I did give them all of my passwords for everything.
Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
21–30 of 62 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#22SOFORT(.com) has built a strong market presence in Germany and is expanding throughout Europe. They basically do the same thing you are talking about: provide an easy "check-out" experience using customers' banking credentials and custom crawlers. The solution is well-liked by merchants. Banks generally don't like it (for obvious security/privacy reasons), but are cautious in actually preventing it. SOFORT actually u…
SOFORTÜBERWEISUNG looked sketchy as hell the first time I tried it. Imagine IMMEDIATEWIRETRANSFER.COM (in capital letters) asking you to enter not only your bank account number, but also your password, and then a PIN from your secret list. The latter is something that the bank tells you to never, under no circumstances, give out, because you can use it to transfer money.
I find it really hard to believe that SOFORT does this without support or even consent of the banks. Scraping bank websites seems like something that could get you ruined or even jailed (I don't know, for dealing with bank customer's data in an improper way or something - at least I'd assume the banks could sue you for violation of their TOS). I only started using Sofortüberweisung at all when some trustworthy looking sites adopted it, and when it appeared to me as if it was a joint venture between SOFORT and the banks.
I guess if you want to build a successful business today, you can't ask nicely and wait for permission to do things (see also Uber et al).
Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#23SOFORT(.com) has built a strong market presence in Germany and is expanding throughout Europe. They basically do the same thing you are talking about: provide an easy "check-out" experience using customers' banking credentials and custom crawlers. The solution is well-liked by merchants. Banks generally don't like it (for obvious security/privacy reasons), but are cautious in actually preventing it. SOFORT actually u…
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Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#24I use Mint, and of course I don't think providing your bank credentials to a 3rd party service is a good idea. That said the company backing Mint currently (Intuit) also does TurboTax, so at least they have some experience with handling sensitive customer data. Also in the event that they did get hacked, there are a ton of other people also using Mint which hopefully will give me time to change my passwords before an…
This. It's (somewhat) analogous to the argument about Google/Apple/other-large-company knowing everything we do or say. Yes, it's creepy, and yes, it makes me uncomfortable time-to-time, but holy hell it is really convenient.
Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#25It's a bad idea, but if you want automated access it's the best we've got. Ideally banks would provide a nice API, but without a good enough reason they're just not interested.
The "nice API" comment is something that struck me after using mint for a couple years: there are banks/brokerages out there who are set up for this sort of thing and handle it well: tokens, revocation, etc. (Interactive Brokers is one.)
Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#26My understanding is that they use http://www.yodlee.com for getting information from your accounts. That's pretty much what everybody does.
I turned it off and deleted my data because the bank or brokerage would change something and break the automatic downloads and things would get out of date.
I believe banks and brokerages should have two levels of access: one where you can move money and one where you can look but not touch. I'd be much happier using the second type of password with Mint, with the bank's own apps, etc. I'm not thrilled at all about the idea of losing my phone and having someone get "write" access to my bank account.
Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#27I'm actually curious about this. How do popular web apps store your id/pw for other sites? I know personally that Mint (Yodlee), Zenefits, TriNet Expense, and BoA all log into other sites but I'm curious how/where they store the passwords? If they create a scraper then it means they have to store the password (encrypted) and then decrypt it so the scraper can use it? What happens if a master app (let's use Zenefits as an example) get's hacked? Are my other passwords compromised then?
Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#28Get some kind of insurance. Show me that if you get hacked and I lose money (and for some reason the fraudulent transactions aren't just rolled back when I call my bank), I can take it out of you.
Also, post some info about your experience writing other secure apps. Social proof is about all we have to go on here, so play it up.
Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#29I wouldn't this is why I chose a non connected financial app on my Android phone. It took me a week of try and miss to find a good one but there's no way I'm going to trust a third party with my banking info. Heck I don't even trust my bank (but admittedly I don't have a choice in the matter).
This is also why I don't seriously use Evernote. Yeah I'd love to have all my documents and bills there, but at one point you have to stop and think about the implications of a private company (in fact 2, since they're probably using AWS) knowing everything about you.
Re: Ask HN: Why would people trust their banking credentials to a service like Mint?
#30I use Mint, and of course I don't think providing your bank credentials to a 3rd party service is a good idea. That said the company backing Mint currently (Intuit) also does TurboTax, so at least they have some experience with handling sensitive customer data. Also in the event that they did get hacked, there are a ton of other people also using Mint which hopefully will give me time to change my passwords before an…
Yes, it's a bad idea. Bugs me frequently. But...it's so dangblasted useful; throw some social/emotional motivations in there and a bunch of problems get solved well enough to tolerate the risk. Given Intuit bought Mint, and I've trusted my taxes to Intuit for decades, I'll grudgingly take that risk to solve other problems.
A core issue is the need for a next-level financial data aggregator, somebody to pull together one's info across multiple banks, cards, investments, etc. Much as Bank X wants to provide all those services to me, and much as I may even want them to, other companies get involved and there's a need for a one-screen view of all of it, preferably updated near-live, and working on whatever interface/device I choose to use (notebook, phone, tablet; app, web browser).
Trust is the main thing. I was mad at myself for signing up for Mint (in a fit of frustration attempting to solve some problem) when it was new & independent; I'm still irritated but less so now that Intuit is taking responsibility.