I am worried. This time it isn't inflation, interest rates or markets. It is you and your financial data. Since the Facebook crisis, most of us grasp that data is an asset one that can be sold to advertisers and promoters. But still not enough of us grasp quite what that means for financial apps.
In our new world of "open banking" which requires banks and building societies to make your account data available to other companies, at your request lots of new apps, promising to help you manage your finances, are springing up. You sign up (free!). You link all your accounts, assets and borrowing to the app. You can see everything in one place (no more manually updating your own spreadsheets!). The app, be it Moneyhub or Yolt in the UK or Clarity in the US (which has just been bought by Goldman Sachs for an undisclosed sum), then gives you "powerful insights" into your spending habits and the tools to help you manage better "nudges" to pay bills, and to save when you can.
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