Moneyio

If you are a frequent Money IO user you may have noticed nothing has really changed of late. This is set to change going forward.

I am planning on releasing an iPhone and Android version of Money IO in the coming months which should contain most (if not more) of the functionality you will find in the current web version. I feel that the mobile version will offer a better experience as it will always be with you and is a bit more private. To get a sneak peek at how it may look head over to http://dribbble.com/kulor/tags/moneyio.

Further along the line I would like to then introduce a timeline concept to allow you to plan/project and analyse your finances over time.

If you have any thoughts of how I could improve Money IO, I would really love to hear them. You can suggest ideas by emailing me direct at moneyio@kulor.com or adding to the ideas at https://getsatisfaction.com/kulor/products/moneyio_salary_calculator.

Thanks, James

For Money IO I am always thinking of ways of how to streamline the experience of getting your finances into the website. The ideal situation would be to contact your bank, prove that we have a trusted relationship with you and then obtain your data (balances and transactions) through an API. As it stands, not many banks will offer a mechanism to do this and will actively discourage you from attempting to do so, which is upsetting to say the least.

Here is a recent conversation I had with one bank (Santander) that affirms this lack of openness and warns against attempting to act on behalf of the user (automating the online banking login flow, pretending to be you).

Me to Santander:

Hi Santander, please can you let me know what API’s I could use in order to obtain a client’s financial details with their consent?

Santander to me:

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately there is no Application Programming Interface that we can recommend or provide for our site. Please be aware that we make modifications and changes to the site on a regularly basis and as such we do not support any third party applications.

I am making you aware of this due to any application you develop may be rendered incompatible with the site following one of these updates.

I apologise I am unable to help further.

The problem with this recurring story among the banks is that they stifle innovation in the personal finance world as no one else can get access to your data.

Imagine the potential if third party services could automatically to do useful things such as:

• Provide understandable graphs of your data
• Surface spending trends
• Warn you if you exceed your budget
• Offer cheaper alternative to your utility providers.

We thought we would write about this to let you know why we haven’t added the functionality to automatically pull details of your purchases or salary information.

We are hopeful however, that there will be enough demand on the banks from consumers, developers and the tinkering community to open up in the near future.

In the current financial climate that has been thrust upon all of us, a vital tool in our armory against debt is budgeting in each and every aspect of our lives. Budgeting is a vital tool and the temptation to bury ones head in the sand in times of trouble can lead to financial crisis.

It is much better to know what one is up against and a great way to analyse your financial situation is by using a financial tool such as salary calculator from Moneyio. With this vital tool, one can see straight away how much (or indeed how little) money they have left over from their monthly salary and outgoings. If this figure is in the negative, careful thought needs to go in to what things can be changed to bring one’s outgoings down. If there is an area where one believes money can be saved, for example, by lowering one’s mobile bill, salary calculator can be used to get a quick overview of what their new financial standing will be.

Have a go it is quick, it is easy to use and it may even save you money!