Strong UK demand for online money management tools - Yodlee

I am sure that this "base research" is all true, as it matches what we already know, BUT, if you read the Yodlee user agreement, Section G, Rights You Grant to Yodlee, you are giving in effect an open licence to them to use your personal data.

Was that fact/question part of this research and, if so, what was the response? Surely if we use services like this it should be on the absolute basis that we are anonymous, our usage data is free from interrogation and data mining activities, and we are not continually pestered by un-solicited advertising?

You raise an interesting point Nick - who has the liability when a third-party aggregator enters the picture? Should online bank T&Cs routinely deny liability when another service or app is used to access accounts? 

This is an interesting story and is obviously one for debate! I can understand the desire from consumers to use an online money management site and, indeed, any site that makes it easier for consumers to interact with their bank, such as regularly checking statements, has significant possible benefits.

However, I would be interested to understand further how sites like this interact with the banks' security systems. Preventing fraud over the online banking channel is an imperative for banks, and to do that many are implementing intricate security processes and checks at the authentication stage. The risk is that these aggregator sites may pose a weak link in the security chain, for example if they can't fully facilitate so called 'out-of-band' communication, or the necessary IP address information for IP checking.

I would also highly encourage consumers to check with their banks about any potential liability shift through the use of sites - for example it may be that if the consumer ‘gives' their login details to a site like this, they in turn become liable for any subsequent fraud losses.

Saying that, however, it will be interesting to see how this technology develops. If any potential security threats can be mitigated then there is the potential that these sites could, in turn, actually provide an additional layer of transaction monitoring for banks across different organizations, rather than the bank only having its own data as a way of identifying potentially fraudulent transactions. I will watch with interest.

Much of the customer's security concerns would get addressed if only either (a) banks agree to issue 'read-only' credentials that can be shared with the Personal Finance Managers, or (b) the PFMs find a way of using a trusted third-party to let customers provide onetime access to their bank accounts - similar to the manner in which merchant websites use Mazooma, BillDesk or iDEAL to let account holders log in to their Internet Banking websites by themselves instead of disclosing any personal information to merchant websites.