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It's an irony that Kublax has managed to get media spotlight only when it has shuttered down. It would be interesting to know if MoneyDashboard and the other new P2FM service providers in UK plan to collect the userid and password credentials of Internet Banking accounts of their subscribers so that they  access and download their transaction reports periodically. If yes, what are their plans to protect all this sensitive information from hackers and cybercriminals.   

Maybe it's time for someone from a bank's technology / infosecurity team to step in and clarify. But, as far as I've gathered from the websites of Mint and other P2FMs about how this works, once a P2FM obtains a customer's credentials, it can access the customer's account without needing to enter into any arrangement with the bank in question. So, I don't believe that banks are actually signing up to permit P2FMs to access account information. Of course, banks might be able to block proxy access from P2FMs (as the Nationwide/Wesabe example illustrates), but that calls for additional efforts from their side to "close a gate" that they haven't opened in the first place. As a matter of fact, in two countries that I know of, namely India and Germany, banks advise their customers to "never open that gate" by proactively warning their customers never to share access credentials with anyone, not even to a bank employee.  

Agree that it should be relatively easy for banks to provide read-only access to accounts. But, I am not aware of any bank that provides such a differentiated access at this point. Until that happens, the fact is, the credentials shared with P2FMs are for read-write access, and the point is, banks can't be held responsible for any cybercrime arising out of that.  

More and more people are sharing their Internet Banking credentials with Mint, Wesabe and other P2FM services who then seamlessly access bank accounts to download transaction statements on a daily basis. While people sharing their credentials trust these services enough not to misuse their privileged access into their bank accounts, surely banks can't be held responsible for any frauds that might happen if cybercriminals hack into these startups' databases and steal usernames and passwords?

My company is interested in becoming a commercial partner. Would appreciate any pointers on who to contact at ISIS Innovation.

Talking about competition in the UK, Kublax is another personalized personal finance management service already in existence, though seemingly not very well known.

Services like Wonga - and the eBay-owned BillMeLater - testify to the availability and successful adoption of realtime credit decisioning applications. Of course, it's a another matter whether one should seek instant gratification on a matter like taking a loan that can prove to be as costly as Wonga's.  

SQUARE mitigates the risk of loss of sale when the seller is unable to accept a credit card. It is assumed that the buyer anyway trusts the seller enough to buy. SQUARE merely facilitates the transaction by enabling the seller to accept a credit card, which wouldn't be possible without SQUARE.  So, I'm not sure if the issue of buyer-seller trust comes in the way of adoption of SQUARE. Only time will tell if the size of the market that SQUARE seeks to facilitate in this manner is big or small.

As regards availability, SQUARE might have launched only on the iPhone but its card reader device works on the audio jack which is available on Nokia, Samsung and most other handsets - even of the non smartphone variety. I think the SQUARE promotional material makes a specific mention of this.

Thanks for all the good work. Season's greetings and best wishes for a happy new year!

Banks are looking for a quick and low-risk way to adopt Web 2.0 technologies to retain existing customers, add new customers and acquire new revenue streams. Finacle Advizor is an interesting packaged offering to address this need provided it can be bolted on to Temenos, FLEXCUBE, FiServ, et al, and not be restricted to its own core banking product.