Wesabe USV: YOUR Financial Data Belongs on the Web!
Layered Technologies has been targeted by malicious hackers who may have stolen passwords and other personal details on as many as 6000 of its clients, the Web host warns. NOT very reassuring the day that a Web-based personal financial services startup got all the Web 2.0 attention!
BUT, who says Mint.com SHOULD get all the attention, just because the First Round Capital backed Web-based personal finance play was annointed the Web 2.0 startup of the season by Michael Arrington, Jason Calacanis and TechCrunch40 and company? NOT VC competitor Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, on behalf of portfolio company, competitor Wesabe.
Seizing the opportunity to turn the spotlight from a Mint only one, to a Wesabe “category” issue, Wilson hails at his A VC blog, “Who owns your financial data? THAT’S the question we should all be asking now’!
REALLY? Because Mint.com won $50,000 and got its servers overloaded?
Wilson’s answer to his purportedly urgent call to financial arms is apparently a philosophical one:
It is time to discuss what it means to take your personal financial data out of the hands of your bank and credit card company (who thinks they own it but do not), and put it on the Web.
How comforting? Wilson’s seeming indignation against the financial services companies that process our transactions sounds like a Wesabe slogan. Moreover, it makes no sense.
Wesabe actually hopes people put their bank and credit card account information in ITS hands–i.e,. “upload accounts”–but that would do nothing to change the presence or status of the accounts at their true host location, the bank and credit card companies which actually transact on behalf of account holders. In other words, even by using Wesabe, one’s financial data will still be “in the hands of the banks and credit card companies.”
What’s more, allowing one’s financial data to be accessed by an additional third-party Web site, such as Wesabe or Mint, will undeniably dilute an indivdual’s absolute proprietary interest in and control of the data, no matter what hi-falutin data “bill of rights” or tech security strategies are waived.
Additionally, Wesabe and Mint are dependent on the very bank and credit card companies Wilson maligns, if they are to have the transactional data they need for their super-duper meta-data aggregation!
Adding a Wesabe or Mint layer to one’s financial services mix, in and of itself, will do nothing to change an individual’s relationship with his or her banks and credit card companies. Implying that the use of a Wesabe or a Mint will reduce bank and credit card company absolute power is not acurate and the suggestion that one’s financial data becomes more secure once it is also put ”on the Web” is non-sensical.
While Wesabe hopes to one-up Mint with its “data bill of rights,” discerning consumers will remember one basic point: If ETrade and Ameritrade can fall victim to tens of millions of dollars of online financial fraud and massive identity theft, putting ones financial records in the hands of the likes of a Wesabe or a Mint IS most definately risky personal business.
And, while Wesabe may have a data “bill of rights,” its public FAQ for prospective users is woefully inadequate and NOT reassuring; It is not clear what actually transpires between Wesabe and an individual’s bank and credit card companies.
In other words, a Web 2.0 crowd-pleasing “your financial data belongs on the Web” just won’t hack it!
ALSO: Wesabe: MySpace For Your Checkbook and Mint.com: TechCrunch 50,000 Winner or Loser?
PLUS: Web 3.0: Madison Avenue Money Trumps TechCrunch40 Cool Apps and Mint.com: Can Arrington and Calacanis Really Set Web 2.0 Trends?