The Infinite Kind Blog

Do you enjoy using beta software on your precious financial records? Yes? Well, then we’ve got some news for you! We’re preparing Moneydance 2017 (yes, skipping right over 2016) and are looking for some brave souls to put it through it’s paces before it’s released to the wider world. We’d like it to be used by a smaller group of people who are interested and able to report any problems.

If you’re interested please join the #moneydance2017beta Slack channel where you can get the download link and report any problems directly to our development team.

Here at The Infinite Kind we respect your privacy. Most financial software these days “phones home” to report information about yourself or your environment. Many apps even upload your online banking log-in information to their, or a third party’s, servers.

I’d like to clarify something straight away: Moneydance never sends any financial information, statistics, or online banking credentials to any service other than your own financial institution. Your financial data and online banking passwords are only stored encrypted on your computer. If you have enabled syncing, your financial data, but not your online banking passwords, are encrypted before being uploaded, only to the syncing system that you use. Your information is never accessible to anyone unless you copy it and explicitly share it yourself.

This may sound like common sense, but it’s actually unusual. The current trend is personal finance tools that require the sharing of your private financial information with advertisers, unrelated financial services, or simply third party aggregation services. We can assure you that Moneydance will never require such sharing to work. We fiercely believe that your financial information should be secure and only accessible to yourself, your financial institution, and anyone with whom you explicitly choose to share it.

Backstory

Back in the old days (well, the late 90s and 2000s) the predominant method of downloading transactions from a bank via OFX Direct Connect. I’m proud to say that Moneydance was the first indie app to support online banking and bill payment via OFX, and is still one of only a handful that support it.

Open Financial Exchange (OFX) is a standard protocol supported by many banks in the USA. It allows installed apps, such as Moneydance or Quicken, to talk directly to the bank’s servers, download transactions, and manage bill payments. OFX also provides a mechanism for online bill payment: managing payees and creating, modifying or canceling payments.

Some banks provided a more lightweight system in which a desktop app opened an embedded web browser through which you logged into your bank’s web site and downloaded an OFX-formatted file with transaction data. That downloaded data was then intercepted and processed by the app.

The key point is that your passwords were stored locally on your computer and sent only to the bank when a download was requested. There was no middle man and your login credentials stayed private to you and your bank.

Modern Online Banking

Not all banks support direct OFX connections, and some are dropping support for it. In fact, many banks intentionally make it harder for customers to access their data in any way that is readable by software. As a result, companies such as Yodlee have appeared. They thrive on accessing and aggregating financial data and translating it into a software-readable form. They upload and store the user’s online banking credentials and connect to banks by pretending to be the customer, often using a simulated browser. Mint.com was one of their most famous early customers. Mint was subsequently purchased by Intuit, the makers of Quicken. Soon after, both Mint and Quicken were converted to use Express Web Connect, which was Intuit’s version of Yodlee’s service.

These services frequently pretend to be a human sitting at a web browser, logging in to each bank’s web site. They extract the transaction data from the web site or download it directly to their servers where it is aggregated and available to download the next time you connect.

The Problem

These third party services admittedly are convenient; however, there is a huge weakness: you must give them your online banking password, to be stored on their servers. That last statement will set off alarm bells for anyone experienced with online security. Web sites - even the ones to which you login directly - should not be storing your passwords. This is why services with reputable user account systems (Google, Facebook, Twitter, most banks, etc) can never send you your password if you forget: they simply don’t have it. Properly secured services will only store a hash of your password on the server side, not the password itself. I’m confident that third party financial aggregation services such as Intuit’s Express Web Connect and Yodlee encrypt users’ passwords and take security seriously; however, the fact remains that they must possess those passwords in order for their system to work.

I believe there are three main problems here: Lack of privacy with too many people having access to your financial information Potential security problem with third party services holding on to your online banking credentials The fact that customers are often completely unaware of the existence of these third party services and the information they have

Conclusion

Wouldn’t you feel better knowing that the only people who have your bank login details and knowledge of your financial transactions are you and your bank?

Moneydance does not upload your online banking passwords to any service aside from your financial institution. All of your financial information is stored encrypted on your own computer and never shared with any other party services. We mind our own business so you can mind yours.

At our finance-themed hackathon hosted at the Deloitte office at the beginning of the month we saw 8 teams make it through to the Sunday night presentations.  It’s amazing what a bunch of talented strangers can create in 48hrs when left to their own devices and provided with some mentor support to help guide them when requested.  Here is a list of the teams and descriptions of the products designed.

WINNING TEAM

Team Sustainably worked on a charity funding app to allow users to donate to any charity easily and flexibly.  A user simply chooses a cause, adds a round-up amount, adds a credit/debit card to the app, and a donation is made automatically with each purchase. Users would get real time updates, impact points, and rewards from partner organisations; and they’d be able to follow favourite brands and celebrities to see which causes they support.  The app is targeted at socially responsible, celebrity/brand/fashion-influenced millennials.

OTHER PARTICIPATING TEAMS

Team Undefined - who were only seven weeks into their coding training at skills academy CodeClan - came up with a visual and social savings app to help millennials meet specific savings goals.  Users upload a picture of the item they are saving for to serve as a regular, visual reminder. The app links to a user’s bank account and provides a snapshot of savings progress - in the form of a progress bar beneath the image that also displays the percentage saved and number of days remaining until the savings goal is reached. Users share their goal with the network of people who use the app and get advice from the community.

Team Save Gen

Team Save Gen worked on an app that would be like a close friend and finance mentor.  The app aims to increase financial confidence in the user, walking them step by step out of debt and towards better financial management habits.  Progress is judged by monitoring changes in a user’s feelings and attitudes towards debt, savings etc by using surveys periodically to see how confidence is improving.  After judging a user’s state of wellbeing, the app asks the user about financial goals to focus on right away, and offers rewards for positive behaviours. Their app identifies patterns, triggers and influences - not individual amounts.  Challenges are issued according to a user’s confidence levels and financial goals: eg. debt reduction or increasing savings etc.  Challenges are reduced in scope and scale when a user struggles to pass them.

Team Foreman’s Formulas

Team Foreman’s Formula also worked on an app to address personal financial management. Their product, called Receipt Manager, tracks a user’s spending and provides information allowing users to make informed decisions about their spending/saving.

Team Smart Budget:

Team Smart Budget gave a live demo of their app in action that had everyone on the edge of their seat!  Their app was also aimed at improving personal financial management.  It works by tracking spending, providing instant insights, making projections based on spending habits and offering rewards for good behaviour.  During their demo they scanned a receipt and their app displayed information about the expense: how much was spent, the name of the store, when, where etc.  They also demonstrated syncing across devices.

Team: Pitch Plan Put

Team Pitch Plan Put designed a product that aimed to provide young entrepreneurs with access to funding from local investors.

Team: Urbank

Team Urbank worked on an app designed to educate millennials about personal finance by providing relevant content, and create a savings culture by rewarding good financial habits.  Users set a savings goal and arrange to have a set amount of money transferred into their savings account each day. The user is rewarded for this ‘good’ behaviour by accruing base points which would go towards increasing their interest rates. Interest rates would then decrease if the user were to withdraw money from the savings account.  This app is designed to work with a banks existing infrastructure but not rely on it.

Team: Scrooge

And finally, Team Scrooge worked on a personal financial management app with two main parts: a dashboard to provide users with visual feedback about their finances, and a ‘brain’ providing predictions of spending on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

As Kent Mackenzie (Deloitte Scotland) points out in his post-event blog post, we saw the following themes emerge:

• The incorporation of gamification and product simulation into financial products aimed at millennials
• The need for increasing financial confidence and providing financial guidance
• The age of the digital receipt

If you want to see more comments and pictures, check under the hashtag #EdinFintech on Twitter.

This was a terrific collider event and would not have been possible without support from a variety of organisations.  Once again, many thanks to:

Our sponsors -

• Deloitte
• Administrate
• MBN Solutions
• The Data Lab
• miiCard
• Finmeccanica

Our mentors: John, Troy, Jacek (Administrate), Kent (Deloitte), Kate (Freeagent), Devon (Glasgow City Council), Waqas (FindMyPast), Sean (The Infinite Kind)

All those who provided much needed hands-on support : Karen & Rhian (Deloitte), Scott (MBN Solutions), and Michelle (The Data Lab).

What happens when you put people with a diversity of skillsets (programming, design, data, marketing) under one roof to work towards an objective,  turn up the pressure by adding constraints such as time (48hrs) and team size (3-7) and add heat (you’ll be assessed in front of your peers by a select panel of judges)?

You get an awe-inspiring display of talent and creativity such as the one seen at The Infinite Kind’s second finance-themed hackathon held in Edinburgh just over a week ago (1st-3rd April).  

Our event was held at the stunning Deloitte office thanks to Kent Mackenzie. He was a sponsor at our inaugural finance hackathon in November 2015, and was impressed enough to be the first to offer his - and his wonderful team’s - support by offering to host us for this one.

The design of the space was spot-on with a beautiful communal area for socialising, relaxing and filling up on refreshments….

…as well as…

…lovely surrounding rooms for privacy and focussed work, and a large working area for teams that wanted the buzz of working alongside other teams.

The event officially started on the Friday evening at 6.15pm but people came bounding into the venue much earlier, quickly filling the air with an excited buzz as they exchanged ideas over beer and pizza.

Chatter, chatter…buzz buzz :)  Happy hackers

The themes for the hackathon were financial products designed for (1) millennials, and (2) the ‘under-banked’ (i.e those excluded from accessing basic financial services).  

The evening kicked off with Kent talking to a packed audience about the opportunities for fintech in Scotland followed by some lightning talks to set the scene:

• Mirren Fisher, UX Designer for Sapient Nitro, (currently on project with Scottish Widows and previously on a project with Royal Bank of Scotland) gave a passionate talk about UX in finance with some great examples.
• Devon Walshe, working with Glasgow City Council on their 100+million transformation project, addressed financial inclusion and urged attendees to think about the ‘under-banked’ right under our nose in the UK.
• Kate Ho, Senior Product Manager at Freeagent (previously Head of Product at a digital team in the Scottish Government) talked excitedly about designing for millennials.

Shortly afterwards, some attendees took turns to pitch ideas at the audience, and this concluded with people quickly self-organising into teams and brainstorming.    Nine teams formed although one of the smaller teams was unable to complete the weekend.

By midnight, teams had planned what they were going to work on over the weekend and left the venue for some rest (hopefully) to prepare them for the intense weekend ahead.

On Saturday morning, the first team arrived at 7.45am!  Once again, teams worked until midnight, fine-tuning their ideas, creating designs, writing code, coming across obstacles and chucking out work that had already been in done in order to try another approach etc    

Saturday was also the day that most of the mentors were around to help in a variety of areas: from programming to design and business…

…and teams put them to good use….

…repeatedly!

Sunday evening presentations

Most of the teams worked on ideas around personal financial management aimed at millennials; oftentimes this involved tracking expenses but with variations around how to incorporate social/community elements and how to use any information gathered about a user to meet the following objectives:

• educate users about themselves and their spending habits
• make projections and recommendations based on past/current spending behaviour
• educate users about finance and use rewards to nudge them towards positive financial management habits
• improve financial self confidence and take a step by step approach to walk users out of debt and towards the creation of savings
• meet very specific savings goals taking a highly visual and social approach
• use community support to strengthen positive habits

A couple of teams went in a different direction: one worked on providing young entrepreneurs with access to funding from local investors, and another worked on providing an easy and flexible way to automatically pay donations to charities with each purchase a user makes.

A list of teams and description of their ideas can be found here.

Teams were judged by Sean Reilly (The Infinite Kind), Kent Mackenzie (Deloitte) and Michelle Galea (The Data Lab).

And the winners of The Infinite Kind’s Award for Most Developed Concept/Prototype went to Team Sustainably for their charity payments platform. The winning team (below) got on quite well during the weekend which is just as well considering that one of their prizes was to be locked in a room together with the only way to escape being to solve specific challenges.

The evening ended with final drinks and fond farewells to teams who were still smiling at the end.

Many thanks to:

Our sponsors -

• Deloitte
• Administrate
• MBN Solutions
• The Data Lab
• miiCard
• Finmeccanica

Our mentors: John, Troy, Jacek (Administrate), Kent (Deloitte), Kate (Freeagent), Devon (Glasgow City Council), Waqas (FindMyPast), Sean (The Infinite Kind)

All those who provided much needed hands-on support : Karen & Rhian (Deloitte), Scott (MBN Solutions), and Michelle (The Data Lab).

More reading:

• Deloitte's perspective on this hackathon
• MBN Solutions' perspective on this hackathon

I’m happy to report that we’ve released the seventh update to Moneydance 2015! We’ve made quite a few improvements in this version, including:

• Improved support for non-western fonts
• Various fixes to the transactions reports
• Option to allow the confirmation popup window to be docked next to the register, a la Moneydance 2014
• Upgraded security settings for connections
• Performance improvements in the budgeting interface

If you’ve purchased Moneydance 2014 or 2015, then this update is completely free. Anyone who purchased an older version of Moneydance gets a 50% off the regular price when upgrading through the website; just a small thank you for being a loyal customer. As usual, we never force you to upgrade Moneydance: old versions will continue working for just as long as you like. We never “sunset” features or services, so if you purchase Moneydance you won’t end up on a never-ending upgrade treadmill.

You can download Moneydance 2015 from our website to get the latest release. If you don’t mind a few minor restrictions (such as not having the extension/plugin installer) you can even purchase Moneydance on the Mac App Store once this update has made its way through the review process.

As always, we welcome your feedback as we work to make Moneydance more amazing! You can get in touch with us by email at or online at infinitekind.com/help.

Last month we organised our first hackathon and it was awesome!  Software developers and designers converged one cold weekend in November to pitch finance-related ideas for making life easier for people and businesses.  At the end of 48 hours, four teams, of people who had either previously not met or worked together, presented prototypes and designs which impressed our select panel of judges consisting of industry professionals.

Friday night kicked off with attendees eating their fill of Illegal Jack’s tasty burritos whilst listening to a series of short talks by our speakers and sponsors.

This was followed by ideas being pitched and teams beginning to assemble. By the end of the night four teams had formed and submitted their teams names and product ideas.

Teams arrived at the venue 9am on Saturday morning to continue on the work they’d begun the night before.  Mentors from miiCard, Deloitte, Freeagent and Workpro were made available to teams at various times throughout the day.

Hungry hacking and early learning:

Teams ate a delicious rice and chilli lunch from Illegal Jacks - dished out by the man himself!  With tummies full of food made with love, the teams got back to work taking a break later in the evening for a pizza dinner.

Presentations began around 4pm on Sunday afternoon.

Up first we had Team Sneaky Little Bee who created a Chrome extension to help consumers divert money into their savings account during each purchase on sites such as Amazon and ebay.  The extension would allow the consumer to set the amount they’d like to save as a percentage of each sales transaction.  Users would be able to see amended prices of products on their browser (without requiring the merchant to change their prices).   There would be a one-off set up effort at the start but that’s all.

Judges’ verdict:

• Rob (Standard Life) thought it was a fantastic idea as consumers wouldn’t have to think too hard about saving; he called it ‘friction free saving’.
• Kent (Deloitte) thought that companies like Amazon would love the ‘Save while you spend’ message.  
• James (miiCard) said the team had taken a the charity giving concept, a concept which works, and applied it to savings.

Next up was Team Karigoru:

These guys also worked on an idea for helping people save money with their app called Savey.  It works by requiring customers and businesses to register with Savey; when a customer makes a purchase with a registered business that is offering discounts on their products, the customer pays the full amount for the product but the amount of the discount is then sent directly to the customer’s savings account.  

Judges’ verdict:

• Rob (Standard Life) could see Standard Life use cases already e.g.  the potential to create a marketplace with their 37000 businesses and 4million customers, and ability to negotiate discounts with the businesses.

Team Null were the third team to present

This team were aiming to take us to a future of paperless banking and paperless receipts. Their product CashFlo uses NFC to send receipt info into mobile phones; the information would be stored locally.  Where contactless can’t be used i.e when transaction values are >£30 then users would just scan a QR code.

Judges’ verdict:

• James (miicard) thought it was a brilliant idea.
• Kent (Deloitte) liked the clean, green aspect of their solution and could see wider applications e.g. making it easier to submit expenses at work.

Team Willow Vixen were the final team to present.

Their product called Glance allows users to get an overview of their personal finances and a visualisation on greater breakdowns of their financial situation.  Users connect their accounts to the app and can set goals for themselves e.g. for saving.  Users would have to login to the app with their Facebook login information and this would make it possible to make inferences (over time and as the user base grows) about the income brackets of a user’s wider social network.

Judges’ verdict:  

• Judges could see wider applications e.g shared savings goals with groups of friends wanting to go on holiday together.  

Awards and prizes

Whilst the event was open for talented individuals to come together and explore any idea or build any product related to financial services, there were prizes available for those teams who met certain criteria.  There were two award categories:

Best insights app category was sponsored and judged by Kent Mackenzie (Deloitte Digital) and James Varga (miiCard).  

This was awarded to Willow Vixen for their product ‘Glance’ - because of their use of data, tying their product up with a user’s social network, and the product’s potential to disrupt the credit industry and the established players such as Experian etc.

Most developed concept and prototype category was sponsored by Standard Life but judged independently by Jess Williamson, Director at Techstars, and Sandy McKinnon, Partner at Pentech Ventures.  

This was awarded to team Sneaky Little Bee for taking a simple idea, and developing it to the point where if they kept working on it, they could probably launch it commercially within a week.

After a fun weekend of hard work, the evening ended with pizza, drinks, and playing with prizes.

This hackathon was organised by The Infinite Kind, sponsored by miiCard, Deloitte and Standard Life and supported by Startedin, Workpro and Freeagent, Techcube and Amazon Web Services.  A massive heartfelt thanks for all who were involved and supported the event.  We’re looking forward to the next one in February 2016!