Personal Finance Management Online in the CIS

I would like to talk about personal finance management on the Internet, are there any prospects for the development of such systems and how are they better / worse than desktop products. If you are interested in this topic, you probably know that there are a lot of online financial managers on the English-speaking Internet. But, is it enough to make a Russian-language interface to repeat their success?

We have been working in the field of financial software for many years, but still do not have an online service for accounting finance. Of course, we are thinking about developing (and generally expediency) a similar kind of product, and here I would like to share my thoughts with you.

Reasons for the emergence of online systems in the USA

Desktop products for personal finance accounting appeared in the USA at the end of the 80s of the last century. Their online counterparts appeared much later, and the reason for this was as follows.

Tell me, what is the main problem of all, without exception, Russian-speaking financial managers? Correct - cost accounting. Most people cannot imagine how you can record all expenses daily over a long period of time. This takes a lot of time, effort and a lot of inconvenience.

Imagine how great it would be if we could spend money (using plastic cards, using Internet wallets), and then simply open the program and see where and how much money was spent. No need to record anything. The program itself automatically downloads all transactions on cards, Internet wallets and displays all this in the form of beautiful graphs. It remains only to analyze and draw up a plan for the next month.

So they thought in the USA, until they realized all this in the form of real financial products. But, a desktop program that constantly asks for the Internet is not a very convenient solution. If a program needs the Internet all the time, why not put the program itself on this Internet?It doesn’t matter how many plastic cards you have, all the real and current information is in one place, you just have to look at the reports . This is precisely the key feature of the online system. In order not to manually enter all the costs, online systems collect all the information on their own 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Yes, maybe you do not always have excellent high-speed access to the network, yes, maybe there is some risk of an attack on the server, but the idea of ​​full online synchronization with all banks is worth it.

What about CIS countries?

I have repeatedly talked with representatives of large banks in Russia and Ukraine on this topic. Here I would like to quote the words of the director of electronic services development at Alfabank: “ The fact is that the bank can only give any information on the client’s accounts to this client, identifying it independently. If the bank gives this information to some third-party service via API, then the bank cannot fully identify the client and thereby the bank violates bank secrecy. Therefore, we can only offer a solution so far, when a client uploads his information to a file in the Internet bank, and then he already manages this information on his own, as he sees fit ”(Vladimir Urbansky). So, you will not be able to watch all your operations with bank cards online in a third-party program or online service.

What is the advantage of online systems?

• The online system can send you an SMS notification that the plan has been exceeded for a certain category. What is the point if all expenses must be entered there manually? Foreign analogues are another matter: you pay in a store with a card for food, and then the online system receives your expense, compares it with your budget and sends you an SMS, for example, with the following content: “Attention: you spent 70% of the planned amount on nutrition". It is quite convenient. In the CIS, such a service cannot be offered. The maximum that you can do is spend money on food, then step aside, drive all the information manually into the online system, and only then receive an SMS. You must admit that this effect is completely wrong.
• Access to the online system can be obtained anywhere where there is Internet access. A doubtful advantage (especially considering all the inconveniences), if today there are many programs for mobile systems, tablets and different OSs that are synchronized with each other with the desktop version of the program.
• Perhaps there are still some advantages unknown to me.

Now let's talk about the shortcomings ...

The main disadvantage of online systems is insecurity . Let me explain my point. Information technology is one of the fastest-changing markets. New companies and products appear daily, and competition forces many companies to close.

Tell me, what will happen to your data if the company that released the desktop product for personal finance accounting disappears? True, nothing will happen. Maximum - your product support will end (bug fixing, adding new features). But, you can continue to work with the program, keep records, plan finances, etc.

If problems occur with the online service, then you risk permanently losing all your data in an instant. Further accounting will be simply impossible. You can also not just lose, but transfer your financial data to the hands of an attacker (of course, if an online service was made by a more or less reputable company, then the risk of stealing your financial data is minimal).

Let's look at some examples?

The company Microsoft in July last year has officially discontinued support and development of its personal finance software ( Microsoft Money ). Is there a more reliable company you can trust? I don’t think anyone has more money. But, this does happen. What happened to users of their product? Nothing. They can continue to work in this program, or transfer data to another similar program. Or start using any service, leaving the program with an archive of all data on your PC.

A major player in the market for online personal finance accounting systems Wesabejust recently announced that it is shutting down. In order to understand the seriousness of the situation, something needs to be clarified. Wesabe is not a service that was written single-handedly (like most Russian-speaking online systems), or by a group of 2-3 people (the rest of Russian-speaking online systems). This is a project in which a large amount of funds has been invested by such players in the venture investment market as O'Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures and Union Square Ventures .

What is the reason for closing such a popular service with big investments? According to the CEO of this company, the reason is that they cannot provide the appropriate level of security and reliability of the system (see detailsventurebeat.com/2010/06/30/wesabe-shutdown ). Is it then worth talking about the reliability of Russian-language services, for which there is no financial support (99% of the services are supported by the personal funds of the developer)?

The well-known English-language online service Zibika and several others were also closed.

All this suggests that you can not be sure of any company, especially when it comes to a single programmer, or a group of 2-3 people. Should you trust finance to such services? Of course, due to the small number of users, one should not expect big problems (though, as you know, it’s not possible to keep the service enthusiastic for a long time, and minimal server support costs money, which is very difficult to get from free online systems). On the other hand, you should not wait for a large number of users, since the main functionality of Russian-language online systems can not be offered.

conclusions

Should we enter this market? Is there any market at all? On the one hand, we could enter into a partnership with an existing system (since this does not require a cent of expenses / investments from us), on the other hand, I still doubt the bright future of such systems. No, it’s not that I was against online, or services in general, just today the legislation and the development of financial services in the CIS countries make it more advantageous and reliable to use desktop systems and clients for various operating systems.

For my part, I will be happy to observe the development of the financial instrument market, but for now we can continue the conversation in the comments.