Nedbank launches financial management play

Wow. Talk about coming back from behind. A month after its late entry into the world of smartphone banking apps Nedbank has announced an online personal financial management tool.

The South African bank claims that the tool, called My Financial Life, is an attempt to help people manage their finances. Running off the back of its online banking platform, the tool won’t only be restricted Nedbank customers.

Non customers will be able to access My Financial Life via a standalone site.

According to Nedbank’s group managing executive for retail and business banking Ingrid Johnson, the bank wants My Financial Life to be the single hub and place where everything comes together for people’s financial lives. “We would love the service to be the one place you go for everything you need financially,” she said.

The service basically scrapes your financial data from the last 90 days, categorising it into spending and income. You can also get free email and SMS reminders, while Nedbank customers will be able to see their data pulled onto the service as a live feed.

Nedbank says the service “helps you create a budget and stick to it, track your spending against your budget and alerts you when you have exceeded it.”

The bank claims that it’s been cooking up the service since mid 2010, neatly sidestepping any accusations that it might be copying the current darling of the online financial management landscape 22seven.

That said, the bank does seem to have stolen a march on its big competitors. And, by the looks of things, it would rather it kept that advantage.

“Because of the power of this service, it would be very unfortunate if other banks blocked their customers from using it,” said Nedbank managing executive for client engagement, Anton de Wet in reference to 22seven.

There are, however, similarities. Both for instance makes use of financial aggregator Yodlee.

“My Financial Life allows clients to link accounts from various banks and non-banking financial service providers in a highly-secure environment, which is enabled through an innovative digital security solution called Approve-it,” says De Wet. “Nedbank clients can access My Financial Life directly from within their electronic banking, providing an additional security layer.”