Both apps – like nearly all UK banking apps – run on a US-based platform called Yodlee, a major data-cloud service provider to global banks. Money Dashboard is another free app offering a similar service. The free iPhone app aggregates credit card, loan, billing and current account data to show users how they are spending their money. While some app providers earn money by charging you to use their services, 'free' app providers earn money by essentially selling your data.īritain's most popular personal finance app is OnTrees. A look at the most popular UK smartphone banking apps reveals that while all seek to collect large amounts of financial data on their users, not all companies treat your data the same way. But there's no such thing as a free lunch, and this may explain why they're not catching on as quickly as they might. The apps aim to help you answer basic questions about your finances - Am I overspending at Waitrose? Do I need to cut back on eating out? Has joining Amazon Prime been a false economy?īesides providing useful insights, the free apps are easy to set up – just enter your online banking credentials and you're done. It's been around in the US for nearly a decade but is now making a splash in the UK thanks to a plethora of new – and often free – apps for iPhone and Android devices. The formal name for this service is 'account aggregation'. It is becoming possible for users to see – in real time, on one screen – all their account data at different financial institutions. You might be pleased to hear that this situation is beginning to change. But when you hold accounts at different banks – not to mention credit cards, store cards and all the rest – the usefulness of these services pales. Others will send you text reminders when your funds drop below a specified level.

Some banks offer fancy online visualisations of your current account. Keeping a record on paper or on a spreadsheet and manually noting every single purchase and expenditure is time consuming. A merican billionaire oil magnate J Paul Getty once said, 'If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.' Yet even for us non-billionaires, keeping a handle on how much cash we have can be difficult.

Best personal finance software 2014