Intuit Inc. recently launched its first India-focused product, Intuit Money Manager, an addition to the personal finance software market.
This is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) based product, and available on www.moneycontrol.com, the key difference being that there is no software application which you need to download to your computer.
It is a money management tool that allows you to view all your financial transactions and records in a centralised location. This allows you to consolidate data from multiple bank accounts, credit cards, budgets and helps with expense management. It is also supposed to help with taxes, though I’ve yet to confirm that.
It uses 128-bit encryption and SSL technology to ensure that sensitive data remains safe. The actual exchange of data between the bank and this software is via the OFX (Open Financial Exchange), an online platform meant for transmitting financial information used by several banks.
Once you log in, you are allowed a free trial for 90 days after which you can select from two plans;
3 months – Rs.225 + service tax or 1 year – Rs.365 + service tax
This price of Re.1 per day is quite attractive and may pull in a lot of users. How long this price stays like that is of course another matter. Intuit Money Manager supports integration with 20 banks, the list of which is available on their website.
I’ve used Microsoft Money and Vault, the former of course no longer developed and supported now, but I’ve got totally used to it. Its other shortcoming was that it was US specific, so taxation issues were always a problem. Vault is a local product made by a Pune company and fits on a USB pen drive, through which it is run as well. (review on that later).
All in all, the Intuit Money Manager it seems like a usable product though personally, I’m somewhat wary of allowing it to access my bank accounts. There is no integration with any demat/trading account or any bill payment mechanism. The company also says they plan to have a mobile version out soon, which should be interesting.
One fact I wasn’t aware of is that this software is also developed in India, at the Intuit India Development Centre in Bangalore, which was established in 2005 and houses over 300 employees.
Will post more details once I sign up for a free trial. Till then, watch this space. 🙂
