4 ms·
Recently my local bank (Kiwibank in NZ) launched a free online financial management service that I've been very impressed with. It automatically categories all
by NZ_Matt 16y ago
Recently my local bank (Kiwibank in NZ) launched a free online financial management service that I've been very impressed with. It automatically categories all my expenses and makes it easy to see where my money is going and set a budget. It also has an intuitive interface which is rare for a bank.
This page gives an overview of its features: http://www.heaps.co.nz http://www.heaps.co.nz
Aside from that banks should be aiming to make as many of their services as possible available online. Little things like setting up a new account should not require me go in to the bank just to fill out a form when the same process could be done online in only a few simple steps.
- nodata 16y agoHow does the categorisation work? Say I spend 1000 dollars at Walmart on a TV, what category does it show up as?
- maushu 16y agoEntertainment, I would guess.
- NZ_Matt 16y agoIt sets the category based on the name of the company that it recognises. For example if I buy a tv it would recogise the name of the electronics store and put it under the Computers and Electronics category. It's simple to manually categorise purchases from companies that is doesn't recognise and it remembers the category the next time.
- nodata 16y agoSo for companies that sell lots of different stuff, like Walmart, the categories are wrong? i.e. it will list my Walmart TV purchase as groceries? or my amazon TV purchase as books? This seems like something that will break as companies diversify...
- NZ_Matt 16y agoYou can set the categories with the expense manually. It generally works pretty well. New Zealand doesn't really have a Walmart type company that sells TVs with your groceries.
- nodata 16y agoThe reason I ask is that a bank in the UK also does this: and you can't do anything useful with the information it produces because you can never be sure if it got the categories right. Amazon is a good example.
- sw1205 16y agoIf it categorises it correctly this could be a great tool. I could set a budget for say my food shopping and get push notifications when I am about to go above my budget.
- maushu 16y agoI specially like this goal idea, it allows users to organize their budget and allows the bank to know how/when the money will be moved.