PFM site Rudder shuts

A couple of years ago, I was very impressed with Mint's value proposition and decided to register myself for it. I stopped right in my tracks when I realized that I had to hand over the logon credentials to all my Internet Banking accounts if I were to get any useful advice from Mint. By sharing my credentials, my thinking went at the time, not only would I be ignoring my banks' constant advice to never share passwords and other confidential information with anyone, but also be putting a lot of faith on a startup to safeguard all that data from hackers. Rudder's data loss example proves that it's really asking a startup for too much in an area where even leading banks and payments processors can't boast of a stellar track record.

First Kublax, then WeSabe, and now, Rudder - their failures don't bode too well for the prospects of the scores of other PFMs out there.