My opinion is that you’re safer with a secure portal like Mint or Yodlee than trying to manage a large collection of separate accounts you have to check independantly. Mint (and Yodlee) can generate alerts for many of the fraud transactions that might occur and allow you check all of your accounts every day. If there are fraudulent transactions, using a portal makes it easy to catch quickly!

It’s also worth noting that while scraping through web pages is one the ways Yodlee can retreive data, Yodlee also gathers a large portion of its data through structure feeds that don’t rely on the consumer web site.

..Jordan, Yodlee Inc.

MS Money also uses Yodlee, honestly I hate that, but if you want online updates you need to use it. I have some accounts that aren’t online updatable (manual) but since they are mostly savings accounts I don’t do much with them (other then automatic deposits).

-X

I am yet to see any bill reminders. These would be quite handy. But the first of all - fix that Chase Credit card transactions bug and I will be your happy customer. Until then half of my spendings goes unaccounted for, a MAJOR problem!

Thanks for a very comprehensive review. I’m glad you see the benefit of Mint in aggregating all your credit cards, debit cards, and savings accounts in one place, and showing you where all your money goes.

Surprised you didn’t comment on alerts (bill reminders, low-balance alerts, large transactions) which you can get through email or SMS.

We’re working on our “Ways to Save” page to ensure that we accurately account for your current credit card rewards before recommending something new. You might be surprised how hard it is to get that information into a consistent format from the 5,000 credit cards out there.

On security, I’ll make a bold statement: You’re safer on Mint then with online banking. On Mint, you’re completely anonymous. We never ask for a name, address, or SSN - just an email. We know about your finances…but not about you. We’re also independently verified by Verisign, TrustE, and Cryptography Research.

Perhaps more interestingly, 90% of all fraud actually occurs offline, not online (e.g. someone swipes your card at a restaurant or from your mail). Because Mint sends proactive alerts for low-balance or unusually high spending, you’ll know right away. It’s better than logging into 4-5 different banks every day, or waiting 30 days for a paper statement before finding that something went wrong.

I’d be happy to address any other concerns you or your users have. And keep up the great writing.

Aaron Patzer
Founder & CEO, Mint.com

Bill pay would probably add value to Mint however I like it the way it is. Somehow I don’t feel confident giving my bills to Mint just yet. For pure analysis though Mint is perfect and not having to go back very often is one of the things I like.

Dean:

Well, my bank doesn’t categorize transactions. Also, aggregating your financial data in one place is something no bank offers. It is always there no matter what bank/credit card you use!

Many online banks already allow to your categorize your transactions. I hope they are able to improve their recommendation also.

Great job as always. I have used Mint for a few days and like yourself I am quite impressed with the graphics and ease of the site but I fail to see what long term benefits I will gain by continuously returning to the site?? Am I expected to switch cards or bank account every two weeks? Are my spending habits going to change so every 3 weeks?

If they add a bill pay service or a Paypal like service they would really be on the way to killer app.

I just most visitors are blown away by the ease and beauty of the site.