What happened to Mint?

#1

Post by vontzy » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

Re: What happened to Mint?

#2

Post by sct202 » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

Mint is still useful even though the core features have been basically unchanged for the last decade, but that said I've been de-linking accounts from my Mint because they don't synchronize right or fail a bunch. I've mostly degraded it to just being for spending tracking and it seems reliable at connecting to Chase.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#3

Post by brighton36 » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

I switched to http://plaintextaccounting.org/ and couldn't be happier.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#4

Post by decasia » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

It sounds like the answer is pretty straightforward — Mint was acquired and then semi-abandoned for want of providing sufficient revenue/having a sufficiently profitable business model.

The question in my mind is: What is the matter with global banking institutions such that this has to be a third party service instead of a service that a well-organized banking consortium could provide to its clients? I would totally switch my checking account if it came with a good Mint clone.

Is it asking so much for an interface from my bank that can classify transactions, include basic budgeting features, and pull in some data from other accounts?

(I know, I know, it's one of those things that sounds like a pretty simple CRUD app until you look into any of the industry-specific technical details.)

Re: What happened to Mint?

#5

Post by jeremiahlee » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

Mint became a loss leader to sell tax preparation software.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#6

Post by alexfromapex » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

It still exists, I just refreshed my account a few months ago and now it sends me 6 notifications every month whenever my student loan payments are due because I entered all 6 sub-loans which are part of my main loan.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#7

Post by mikece » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

I had forgotten about Mint the financial company... I thought the headline was talking about Mint Mobile (who I use for my cellular service).

Re: What happened to Mint?

#8

Post by tfandango » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

jeremiahlee wrote: post #5

Mint became a loss leader to sell tax preparation software.

Now Quicken and Intuit are different companies. I am assuming Mint went with Quicken. I use Quicken and was hoping that would result in a better product, still on the fence. However, they are definitely focused on Quicken and not Mint.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#9

Post by brownbat » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

The Flash requirement in 2020 kills me. Account synch gets stuck and never finishes. Correctly categorizing transactions usually involves pulling up my bank website to see how the charge was really originally described. Mint pulls some info on this but it's often truncated, so you can try to set up rules but there are often collisions because of that bad incoming data.

Somehow in an era where personal data on spending habits is supposed to be extremely valuable, they can't afford to fix the product, and this is the best we can get.

Re: What happened to Mint?

#10

Post by kcmastrpc » Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

mikece wrote: post #7

I had forgotten about Mint the financial company... I thought the headline was talking about Mint Mobile (who I use for my cellular service).

I immediately thought about the Linux distro. Sad.