Having a Mint, btw what’s a good bank.
September 19th, 2007 Ryan Jones
Like millions of other people right now I’ve been trying out Mint – the online finance manager. It looks like it has lots of cool features, but so far I’ve been unable to get it to add any of my accounts. They all just time out and say “try again.” I’m sure it has to do with their traffic.
On a side note, I managed to lock myself out of my credit union account because I can’t remember what street my business was on years ago when I set up my account, nor if I entered James or Jimmy for my sibling’s name.
Not only does my bank not work with quicken, money, or mint – they don’t offer me a way to unlock myself out of their online banking. After calling the office they told me “we’re not sure, we think it unlocks after a few hours.” To me, that’s just not acceptable. If you need some help to ease your mind about your finances, you must want to check out this new post to learn the secrets of bookkeeping management.
Needless to say I’ll be writing myself a check for the entire contents of my account… the question is where should I put it?
I have an ING account, but I like having an actual branch account for all of it’s other benefits. Is anyone offering free ipods or $50 or what not? Where do you bank? Why?
Entry Filed under: Main
6 Comments
1. Aaron Patzer | September 19th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Ryan,
Sorry you ran into issues adding your account yesterday (or this morning). In the last 24 hours, we won TechCrunch 40, and were featured in PCWorld, Digg, and San Francisco Chronicle all on the same day. Apparently nearly 100,000 people really needed to get their finances organized immediately!
In the next 2-3 days things should be dramatically faster. Until then, it may take 20-30 minutes to link to your bank accounts (instead of the usual 30-90 seconds). It might also indicate that it “could not connect” but actually worked during a later retry.
My suggestion: Enter a few accounts simultaneously, put it in the background, and (later in the day) enjoy Mint!
Aaron Patzer
Founder & CEO, Mint.com
2. Ryan | September 19th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Hey Aaron. I still haven’t got it to work, but I assumed it was from the techcrunch traffic. That can slow things down quite a bit. I’ve been there before (not techcrunch, but others)
I’m really enjoying what I see on mint though.
For future upgrades, have you thought about letting it handle my ameritrade, fidelity, principal, and other stock market / mutual fund / IRA type accounts?
It’d be neat to have all of that in one spot.
3. Ryan | September 19th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
OH ya I forgot.. Great job on customer service. I’m always impressed when a CEO or developer can take time out of their day to post on blogs. Not many companies understand how important that can be. I’m glad you do.
4. Andrew | September 19th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
I mostly use Citibank because they are global and always have someone in the branch that speaks english. Also they are pretty savvy to internet banking, fraud etc…I see they work with Mint too.
Great for travellers.
I just wish this “Mint” service was available in Australia…it is exactly what I am looking for.
5. Cap | September 19th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Hey Ryan,
Just wanted to respond to your question on brokerage type accounts for Aaron. We’d be rolling out with features to support those account type in the future, as they are definitely an important component of financial picture. There’s a list of features that we’ll be rolling out on the mint blog, so if you’re curious you can check that out.
Andrew,
Yes, Mint is only for the US right now…but in case you have friends in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, we’ll be expanding there next year. If you know a software engineer, or a product manager familiar with Australia’s (or countries in the EU) financial services industry, major banks, and any relevant regulations, send a note to [email protected]. We can definitely use the help to expand to Europe and Australia!
6. Jeff | September 27th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I have been using Yodlee for a few years. Mint is simply using Yodlee as the conduit to manage your accounts aggregation. Should be interesting to monitor its progression over the next few months.