When two IIT-Delhi alumni, Puneet Agarwal and Sanjay Aggarwal, were developing a money-management app, they got together a group of 25 young professionals, and asked them two questions.
One, how much you have earned this month? Everyone had an answer. The second question was: how much have you spent this month? No one had a clue.
That convinced the two entrepreneurs on the need for an app that will bring some financial discipline. There was no looking back, and Money View app was born.
Co-founder Puneet Agarwal, who has over 15 years of experience in finance and consumer technology, has worked with companies like Google (Google Wallet), McKinsey and Capital One.
The other co-founder, Sanjay Aggarwal, who was one of the early employees at Infosys, has spent over 20 years in building and scaling tech-based products for consumers. He was also the co-founder of Mingle Box, one of the big education portals in India.
DATA DRAWN FROM SMS
Money View is a simple Android mobile application with a number of powerful features, that help users save money by tracking their income and expenses, analysing their spending pattern, reminding them to pay bills on time, and even helping them pay the bills as well.
The modus operandi is simple. The app draws data from the text messages. Says Puneet Agarwal, “We get SMS notification for all electronic transfers; be it ATM withdrawal, crediting of salary in your bank account, payments you make via debit card, credit card etc. And they lie dormant in users’ inbox. The app uses them to automatically track your income and expenses. You have an option to manually key in the figures when the transaction is not electronic. The app also shows you the latest bank balance.”
Users can also categorise expenses under different predefined heads like travel, gifts, dinner etc, or they can create their own categories.
There is a bit of analytics as well, based on the spending pattern so that users can track where most of their money is going. To keep a check on the spending, users can set a monthly budget, and they can see how much of it has been spent and how much is remaining.
“There is a need for financial discipline today, as spending money or taking loans is easy,” says Mr. Agarwal. “Money management is difficult because you have to collect data that from various sources, arrange them and keep updating them manually. Money View app removes that hassle, as it’s all automated.”
PRIVACY AND SECURITY
One of the first issues the co-founders had to look into was, obviously, privacy and security. “There is no way we can know your bank balance and your spending pattern,” Sanjay Aggarwal. “We have architectured our solution in such a way that we don’t have any of your personal information. We don’t ask your name or phone number. Nor we have your full account number. The only personal information we have is your email ID.”
Mr Aggarwal said email ID of the users and their financial data are stored in different sets of servers. “The only linkage between them is through the user’s phone. A human being can link the two only if you give him your phone ID.”
The co-founders said that since the app doesn’t store any personal information, no one can make any transaction on behalf of the user. The app doesn’t read the OTPs.”
Mr Puneet Agarwal said that their ultimate goal was to become a trusted financial advisor. “Besides the fact that the app is user-friendly as it doesn’t require a login ID or password, it also helps you plan your future spends. The bill reminder and the budget feature help you do that.”
