It is getting easier these days to use a third party app to monitor your credit usage. Banks in Europe are opening up channels to authorized third parties but is it a solution in search of a problem? Tech Crunch covers upstart Vota in today’s read.
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But linking a credit card and automating the process will likely give users pause, especially at a time when our personal data has been slurped up repeatedly for unscrupulous To get regular folks to try an app like this, they’ll need a better reason than it being
a “useful journal of transactions” or a way to explore what friends are doing.
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The company is considering those other paths. In fact, Kubo says the original idea was to develop a personal finance insights app, but user behavior during the beta led them to focus more heavily on the social
The app does little more than Clarity Money, a recent application acquired by Goldman Sachs. I recently joined Clarity Money out of curiosity and it does let me review credit card activity when I authorize access. One nice feature of Clarity and Vota is that they highlight recurring payments to ensure that I did want to continue with Netflix or Hulu, but I didn’t find the value was significant enough to authorize third party access to my cherished payment cards..
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However, Vota aims to roll out other features that could broaden its appeal. For example, it may work on features to help people find ways to save — like by highlighting subscriptions you forgot about; or it may automate expense reports for businesses.
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The goal is to roll out a set of premium features like this, rather than use the data to target you with ads or offers to monetize Vota (which is bootstrapped and not making money today).
For now, I will put this one on the back burner. My favorite strategy is to add in alerts so I get a push message every time a transaction hits. With my Chase card, the notification will hit my phone in almost real time, and will be waiting on my computer when I return home.
With so many apps clogging my cell phone, I can save the space.
Overview by Brian Riley, Director, Credit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
