If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Buy ‘Em

The big news today was Mint.com being bought by Intuit.  My guess is Intuit was worried about this new upstart that had astronomical growth in an area they assumed they had on lock.  It makes you wonder whether the threatening letter Intuit sent to Mint was just a way to gauge Mint’s success.

I see this as a great move by Intuit.  FinanceWorks is, well, not as good as the other web PFMs that are available.  A year ago, Mint, Wesabe and Jwaala all had features that I don’t think FinanceWorks has to this day.  From what I’ve seen in my usage, Mint really gets the whole web PFM space.  With Intuit, I see the small business demographic really being helped.

Pay Now Or Pay Later

A court has allowed a suit to be brought against a bank for lax security with their online banking.  I guess one could say it was only a matter of time.  As financial institutions keep encouraging their customers to use electronic channels, security has to be a top priority.  There have been more than enough security breaches in the credit card industry to serve as a warning.  Software glitches, such as the one suffered by Rudder, hasn’t helped either.

Customers want to feel that their money is safe, which is a primary reason that people use banks.  With online banking, bill pay and PFM usage growing, lax security is not something the financial industry needs.  In some cases I’ve read, lower levels of security seems to be a choice because of the associated costs.  Everything sounds expensive until you have that first major breach.

With Citizens Financial, I don’t know whether their online banking vendor didn’t have a more secure option, or they chose to not  add a more secure service.  If they chose a less secure option because of cost, I bet that choice looks a lot less expensive now.  If their vendor didn’t offer a more secure option, I imagine that will come to light very quickly.

Hopefully, FIs have come to the conclusion that security is just included in the cost of doing business.  If they decide to roll the die and take a chance, the odds are some hacker will find out about it.  This is even more so for smaller FIs because they don’t have the resources.

With mobile payments on the horizon, security is something that can’t be skimped on.  A little more customer confidence in the industry wouldn’t hurt either.

Picture from The Lockhorns