Money Management Apps

Managing accounts, payments and investments from various providers through a single platform, like PayPal, Venmo, Mint by Intuit and Robinhood, can be a convenient way to manage your money. In order to be a single filter for multiple providers, these companies often ask for your online banking usernames and passwords to function, which causes users to pause – and for good reason.

When users provide online banking credentials to others, the risk of information being compromised increases greatly. To help keep you safe and informed, we’ve compiled a list of things to review before engaging with a third-party financial management app:

• Never give out your online banking username and password. Most financial apps only need basic information to function, like a routing or account number, so there shouldn’t be a need to provide login credentials.
• Find out what security features the app offers, like multi-factor authentication, encrypted data and other ways they protect your information. If they don’t have these basic security functions, you may want to find a different application.
• Find out what information the app collects, why they need it and if they sell your information.
• Explore the platform’s data retention policy so you know how long they’ll have your data stored.
• Find out what their cancellation policy is and what they do with your data if you cancel your service.