Finacle Blog

While I suppose the PFM tool is an improvement, it falls short in some ways. First, I can't combine both my accounts in different banks into a single complete financial picture. Second, because I can't access it on my mobile phone, I'm at the mercy of my laptop and Internet connection.

It seems that many people, particularly from the younger generations, share these concerns. In a study of the financial priorities of about 1,000 U.S. consumers, respondents belonging to Gen X and Y said that they really needed advice on managing their day to day finances and still trusted their banks to provide it, despite the crisis and all. However, they wanted this help over mobile, video and social networks, rather than across the table at the nearest branch. So, while there is an opportunity for banks to make inroads into Gen Y, they can't exploit it without the right tools.

The good news is that we're seeing some real innovation of existing PFM tools to scale the next level of expectations. Going by the name of Online Financial Management (OFM), this solution aims to fill existing gaps to enable users take most financial decisions with confidence. Therefore, OFM's mandate is to:

• Enable all the activities in financial management - categorisation of expenses, budgeting
  and tracking, comparison of equivalent products, designing investment portfolio, and
  decisioning
• Allow users to consolidate information from accounts in different banks
• Allow users to connect with bank advisors or peer communities for their recommendations
  via the OFM solution
• Automatically customise the solution depending on the user's profile, and also enable the
  user to personalise it further
• Make the facility available on as many channels as possible, including ATMs, kiosks and
  mobile
• Also address the needs of Corporate and SME customers

Unfortunately, since every silver lining has a cloud, there are a few challenges here:

• The few PFM tools that do permit account consolidation, use a technique called 'screen
  scraping' which is not perceived as being secure, especially, when the tool is from a third
  party non-bank site. Banks have a distinct advantage in that their portals are trusted more,
  but even so, there is a definite need for a safer standards-based technique.
• Present day solutions are not real-time. That needs to change.
• OFM must be flexible, so that it can be quickly modified to keep pace with ever changing
  market needs.
• And the biggest challenge is to get regulators to prescribe strict guidelines to ensure
  security, integrity and privacy.

So until then, I'll have to live with my current PFM tool. I suppose the only other thing I could do is curb my spending behaviour!