Bank of Queensland (BoQ) has begun trialling a free online personal finance management tool that can be used by anyone, regardless of whether they are customers or not.
BOQ My Budget lets users view their finances, spending and savings using graphs and charts. Customers can see their financial history and trends, create automatic categorisation of transactions, view projected savings and set goals.
BoQ Internet banking customers signing up to try the service can automatically upload their transaction history. Non-BoQ users will be required to manually import their history from their bank in comma delimited format (.csv).
The provision of personal finance management tools, particularly in the US, has traditionally been dominated by independent sites such as Mint and Wesabe but banks are beginning to offer their own services.
In 2008, Wells Fargo made a grab with the launch of its My Spending Report tool, although this was only for its own customers while Wesabe recently decided to work with banks, launching GetSpringboard.com, a Web site that lets financial institutions buy and implement PFM tools online.