banking posts

Filed under: Finance, Web

BillShrink now helps you find the best bank accounts, CDs

by Brad Linder Sep 29th 2009

BillShrink is a web service that helps you find the best deals on cellphone service, credit card accounts, and even the best gas prices. Since launching a year and a half ago as a wireless comparison engine, the BillShrink team has steadily continued adding new services. Now BillShrink has added bank accounts to its lineup.

In order to find the best savings accounts and CDs, you enter the amount of cash you have saved, an estimate of how much you expect to set aside each month, and where you live. You can also choose additional details like the services you need from a bank including online bill payment check writing, nearby ATM access and direct deposit.

Once you enter all that info, BillShrink will spit out a list of options for your area that should help you save money. For instance, BillShrink may recommend opening a new bank account or a bank account at one institution plus a CD at another.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: banking, billshrink, money

Filed under: Finance, Productivity, Web services, Mobile, Web

Track your spending online with TextHog

by Jay Hathaway Jun 25th 2009

There's a lot of great financial tracking software out there now. Sites like Mint and Rudder that link up to your bank account and track your spending automatically are great, but what if you don't want to give your account information to a finance site? Texthog is a lot like old-school DIY checkbook balancing, except replacing pen and paper with SMS, email and Twitter.

You can send a transaction to Texthog through one of the aforementioned mobile methods, or just log into the site and add one later. Logging in is also good for changing dates and such if you text a transaction to Texthog after the fact. You can also tag and organize your expenses, and generate spending reports. It might be more work than letting some automated service track your account, but it's also more accurate, because you're recording expenses as you charge them, rather than when they eventually clear your account.

Tags: banking, finance, money, texthog, tracking

Filed under: Internet, Web services

SmartyPig: Online bank account designed to help/make you save

by Brad Linder Apr 3rd 2008

Want to save up for a new house, car, or computer, but don't have the self discipline to set aside a bit of your paycheck every month? SmartyPig is an online banking service designed to help.

Here's how it works. You set up an account, tell SmartyPig how much you want to save, and when you want to save it by, and the service will tell you how much you need to set aside each month. You can then set up an online savings account with a pretty decent interest rate to start saving. Like ING Direct, HSBC Direct, and other online bank accounts, SmartyPig offers higher interest rates than your typical neighborhood bank because the company doesn't have the same administrative overhead costs as a bricks and mortar operation. SmartyPig also partners with a real bank (West Bank), and the accounts are FDIC insured.

In addition to helping you setup a savings account to reach your goal, SmartyPig offers one more feature. Other users can pitch in to help you save. Say your friends, relatives, or coworkers really want you to have that big screen TV so that your football parties aren't as dull as your charades shindigs. They can transfer money from their accounts to yours for free, or make contributions with a credit card, which will be subject to a 2.9% processing fee.

[via Somewhat Frank]

Tags: banking, money, saving, savings, smartypig

Filed under: Finance, Internet, E-mail, Web services, Social Software, Beta, web 2.0

PageOnce eliminates the need to login to a hundred web sites today

by Brad Linder Feb 14th 2008

How many web pages do you login to every day? There's your email accounts, social networking sites, bank and credit card web sites, online stores, and entertainment web sites. That's a lot of passwords and URLs to remember. PageOnce aims to make things a lot easier by letting you view all of your online accounts in one place.

The site is in private beta, but if you visit TechCrunch, you might be able to score an invite today.

As soon as you've got your account up and running you can start adding online services to your PageOnce homepage by clicking the "Add Content" button. Up pops a window with a handful of popular services like Facebook, MySpace, Gmail, Yahoo!, Blockbuster, and Netflix. But PageOnce doesn't stop there. You can also associate your login information for airlines or travel services like American Airlines or Travelocity. And you can add your bank account information too.

Tags: banking, email, pageonce, social-networking

Filed under: Business, Finance, Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Spendview lets you track your spending in a beautiful way

by Chris Gilmer Oct 16th 2007

The key to saving money is knowing what you're spending it on. If you can keep track of every cent, you can discover exactly where your money is going and act accordingly.

Spendview is an online application that enables users to track and visualize balances and expense data in one place. This is done through an engine that tags and categorizes spending in order to make your finances somewhat exciting. Spendview also uses tag clouds and a dynamic chart instead of old fashioned pie charts and bar graphs. This way you can see all of your data at a quick glance instead of mulling over numerous columns and categories.

Users start out by registering for a free account and adding bank, credit card information and tagging transactions with keywords. How secure is the data you enter? Spendview says that its 'secure', and they do use 128 bit SSL Security. However, you should always be cautious when entering private financial data online.

Other comparable online financial tracking software options include Mint, Quicken, Freshbooks and Gastus.

Tags: banking, finance, money, spendview, tracking

Filed under: Business, Finance, Internet, Web services

Quicken to go Online

by Chris Gilmer Aug 15th 2007

The leader in personal finance is getting set to launch a strong presence online. All startup finance applications start shaking in their winter boots.

Intuit is getting ready for their winter launch of Quicken Online, a web based version of their personal finance application. If you have worried about security in the past with the recent slew of online financial software, Quicken should ease your mind. Intuit has a strong following due to their consumer trust for desktop applications, and they have been working hard to build that same trust for their web based application. So far it is known that this application will hold basic balance charts, reports, and bill payment services.

Quicken Online is currently in closed testing modes, with beta set to open the middle of September. Look out for further discoveries closer to September.

[via webware]

Tags: banking, business, finance, intuit, online, quicken

Filed under: Finance, Internet, Utilities, Mozilla

Automated bank data with Wesabe

by Chris Gilmer Jul 25th 2007

Banking online is a touchy subject. Many old-timers still don't want to touch it with a 20 foot pole due to a ton of privacy concerns, but many of us gravitate towards doing banking on our own time, and at our own convenience.

Wesabe, a company that helps its members by sharing information about where they spend their money and linking to a dedicated community where they can help each other make smarter financial decisions has released an interesting new Firefox extension. This open source extension available for Firefox browsers lets its members automate the secure uploading of bank data to Wesabe accounts, keeping them up to date. Sometimes banks do not provide an automatic method for data downloads like American Express, Chase and USAA. Wasabe now provides this automatically through the extension. Members would then enter a username and password and the extension would auto record the login and download sessions from their bank.

The Wesabe Firefox uploader should allow for automatic uploads from any financial institution. Wesabe says it does not store or have access to any of your banking records.

Tags: banking, extension, financial, firefox, wesabe

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