3 minute read
When Microsoft announced updates to its Office365 suite in March, the forthcoming Money in Excel feature received little attention.
This add-in is powered by Plaid, a FinTech now owned by Visa, which claims to have the ability to connect 11,000 “institutions” worldwide. Whilst a UK version may be far off, if at all, it is not an entirely new idea.
This is not Microsoft’s first venture into supporting personal financial management. It launched Microsoft Money in 1991, but the last UK version was in 2005 and it was put into sunset mode from 2009 as part of a cost-cutting plan which saw Encarta and OneCare being axed too. It provided online updates, including fund and share price valuations, but these finished in 2011.
Part of the reason that it was discontinued was the popularity of rival Intuit’s product, bolstered by the $170 million purchase of Mint in 2009.
With 13 million users and backed by the TurboTax and Quickbooks brands, Mint seemed unstoppable. But in January 2020, Fast Company ran an article called “What the hell happened to Mint?”, tracing the product’s decline. Mint’s founder, Aaron Patzer, lamented that it seemed to have been in maintenance mode for eight years. At least it was upgraded to use a more secure OAuth sync, like Open Banking in the EU, in which Mint no longer stores a password. But perhaps Mint suffered more because of its business model than the technical issues – chasing commissions and advertising revenue at the expense of customer experience. And that is what counts in the end – how useful, relevant and trustworthy the service is to customers.
“And that is what counts in the end – how useful, relevant and trustworthy the service is to customers.
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Moneyhub clients value not just the combination of payment and aggregation services, but also the added value of data enrichment and accurate categorisation. They value a consent-driven approach, which respects users and their data. They value personalised nudges towards saving money and building financial capability, on a daily basis. They value moving seamlessly from budgeting today, to long-term retirement planning and pension modelling.
To be a financial planning coach takes more than being able to view data in a spreadsheet. That requires the insight; the real-life use and practical benefits unique to Moneyhub.
Author
Vaughan Jenkins
Vaughan is an experienced Sales Director with senior industry experience in financial services, especially the life and pensions, asset management and wealth sectors. He co-authored ‘The Insurtech Book’ and has worked as an associate and consultant to a number of businesses.