The reason Mint is doing so well is quite simple: it's so damn easy to use.
I just signed up now, and I was expecting to have to go through a number of loops to get it to grab the data from my multiple bank accounts, but it was a breeze. Just another step in the sign-on procedure - truly great work on minimizing the number of people that default from linking their bank accounts.
And the UI is goal-oriented with a deep understanding of common tasks people want. I saw my transactions and renamed one of them..... and was about to groan how stupid this going to be, renaming everything else to match, when I saw the "rename all other instances of xxx always" option. I was floored.
Is that why they can make dubious security/privacy claims like:
Mint uses only your account login credentials for access to your account information and Mint does not store these credentials.
Clearly that information needs to be stored somewhere, but Mint can make it sound to the users that it is magically not stored (because it's technically not stored by Mint).
I haven't actually used the service. I have a general aversion to services that ask me for my password to a 3rd party account. The import-your-contacts types are bad enough, but bank account access is just too much for me to potentially give up.
Maybe not a bad division, from a business model perspective. Some companies are better at developing the "tech", that then can be licensed to multiple user facing companies whose expertise is customer relationships and UI.
But the risk for the back end company is that the user facing company owns the customer relationship. It is probably easier for them to replace the tech than for the tech company to replace the customer relationships.
I just signed up now, and I was expecting to have to go through a number of loops to get it to grab the data from my multiple bank accounts, but it was a breeze. Just another step in the sign-on procedure - truly great work on minimizing the number of people that default from linking their bank accounts.
And the UI is goal-oriented with a deep understanding of common tasks people want. I saw my transactions and renamed one of them..... and was about to groan how stupid this going to be, renaming everything else to match, when I saw the "rename all other instances of xxx always" option. I was floored.
Great work, Mint!