This guy just won a “mint”

Is anyone else a bit leery about giving Mint your username and password to bank and credit card accounts?

Mint looks great! Another “why didn’t someone think of that before” product! Another service I like, and use often, is Sharebuilder.

Yes, Kevin. I didn’t sign up because I’m a bit leery of giving them all of my bank info. My biggest concern is how well they protect the information. A breakin at their site would be a lot more damaging than a single bank site if I have everything stored there.

Um: didn’t Wesabe already “think of that before”?

After Fred Wilson blogged about Mint… I called my credit union and asked them to get their act together. So far no joy. @Kevin above… my answer is “I’d trust them in a freakin heartbeat!” The exposure these solutions providers and financial institutions assume is real and large. No worries here.

Hi there, long time reader first time commenter
Just Adding the same comment I left at techcrunch, because i think this is very scary!:

unless Mint gets bought by say, Google, Yahoo or Microsoft, (or partner up with all the big banks) there is NO CHANCE that I will put ALL my users and Passwords to all my financial information into some unknown website, Jeff Atwood (codinghorror.com) just posted about this issue a couple of days ago, and I quote :
“…This is a deplorable state of affairs. We’re teaching users that their credentials are of little value and should be freely handed out to any passing website that catches their fancy. It’s an incredibly dangerous habit to inculcate in users; it makes them far more vulnerable to phishing”

Corrxn… Fred was talking about Wesabe (one of the Union Square portfolio companies). One of the commenters on the post was talking up Mint. Important tidbit to get right and on the record.

The service looks pretty fascinating. I’m looking forward to trying it out.

I have nothing to add except to say that I’m not really someone who is afraid of risk as far as on line ventures are concerned but even I have to admit I probably won’t give Mint a try. It looks great I just can’t bring myself to put all my financial records in the hands of a company who I have no experience with.

As was said above, I think getting acquired is their best bet. Being a small company is just too big of a draw back in the financial space.

After an incident where a thief gained access to one online credit card account, sucked all the cash out of my checking account, and then charged a pile of stuff on my Amex — all 72 hours before I was about to leave for Europe — I am VERY VERY cautious about online financial transactions. I do not link online accounts, and I only do online payments via push from my bank’s website.

Mint sounds interesting, and no offense intended to their team, but I’m just not willing to trust them until they’re a more proven commodity. Once burned…..

It is so sad that society has this archaic *winner takes all* attitude

It is not who won – but how may EXCELLENT services were displayed

Why should there even be a winner????

Why cant people enjoy excellence in a non competitive fashion?

Does EVERYTHING have to be a competition?

Hi Folks,

I actually work for Mint as a consultant & some of the concerns about passwords can be addressed here:

http://forums.mint.com/showthread.php?t=703

Additional note: Having worked for PayPal in the past, I think that most folks should know username & password issues actually occur due to phishing.

Very high concerns about giving all my bank & credit card infos to such a new player…

It’s time to wake up, Folks. You share your friends on Facebook, you share your intimate thoughts on Twitter, now you share your finances on Mint. What’s next ? Sharing your p*nis ?

My concern with mint.com isn’t that I need to share my login info with the service (I already need to do that today with Microsoft Money).
My concern is that it apparently doesn’t scale:
http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-not-ready-to-scale.html

I am very cautious about putting my financial record online, but I will wait and see before giving Mint a try.

The Mint concept is very intriguing, even compelling. A lot of folks have expressed concerns about privacy and their personal financial info (is it safe?). These concerns are top of mind in my book too. I wonder if the solution is subscribing to Lifelock before signing up with Mint?

My concern is this: how do they prevent the biggest player in the space (Intuit) from directly competing? There is no technology barrier to entry, nor is there a first mover advantage (as they aren’t first-mover). Further, Intuit generally has a positive reputation by “regular folks” who most certainly aren’t going to trust some new Silicon Valley startup with their personal finances.

I agree with the commentor above – this is an acquisition play only, where a “big player” (Yahoo, Goog, etc) must come in and buy it up. Getting to mass adoption will be next-to-impossible independently.

I’ve been a Mint beta tester for a few weeks. It works pretty well. The only thing though is that I’d like to track more than just my savings and spending, but my investments as well.

What happens when Intuit brings Quicken online? I can totally see Mint being acquired by a Yahoo!, Microsoft (though they have Money), eBay (tie in with PayPal?) or Google.

Mint is proof either that knowing the right people counts for a lot, or that the other submissions were really lame.

They’re using the same software that all the major US financial institutions use. It’s called Yodlee, and it’s been available for years, for free(as long as you’re comfortable using beta software to manage your finances).

The comparing your spending to the average spending of the aggregate of others’ accounts is a neat idea, but hardly something that would provide a barrier to entry by a large corp. like Microsoft. I hope the VCs are prepared to take the hit.

I am surprised nobody has mentioned Yodlee- Yodlee does account aggregation, transaction reports, etc and has been around for a while, and it even has been offered as a free “add-on” service through many banks.

Have you seen our Electric CheckBook entry for RailsRumble07? It was completely designed and built our 3-man team during the 48-hours Rails competition.

ElectricCheckBook – http://electriccheckbook.com
RailsRumble07 – http://vote.railsrumble.com

Its flexible double-entry ledgers can be shared within a group enabling remote partners, your accountant and spouse can share access to the appropriate accounts without emailing files back and forth.

Mint is obviously a bit more mature, but ours was designed, developed and launched in 48 hours. It has already replaced Quickbooks for our small distributed team and handles our accounting, project budgeting, and contractor timesheets. We’ll continue to add features that we need to manage our personal and business finances.

Two concerns about Mint:
1. It will have a very hard time getting out of the US: money is managed very differently here and elsewhere, and unless their hire a cultural consultant very early (like Google did) there are in for a “What the fµck is PayPal for?” and local competition.
2. It doesn’t appear to be a social service: unless they set up BillMonk-like features, you don’t have any interest in having it adopted by your relatives, and attacks are increasingly likely if it grows (Safety will probably increase too).

Therefore, certainly a great stuff. I probably won’t ever use it.

Ignoring the potential threat of an Intuit, MS Money solution doesn’t seem wise, but as someone who’s worked for several large internet companies I don’t imagine that they will be able to act quickly enough to curb Mint’s potential growth.

I’ve also been using the private beta and having used Quicken and MS Money before it just seems simpler, nicer and easier to set up. Good luck Mint and please add the ability to incorporate investment accounts.

Mint had a hospitality suite with placards posted all around the Plaice Hotel.

This competition was not about start-ups, it was about VC’s.