[fiveoak]

I use Mint, and of course I don't think providing your bank credentials to a 3rd party service is a good idea. That said the company backing Mint currently (Intuit) also does TurboTax, so at least they have some experience with handling sensitive customer data. Also in the event that they did get hacked, there are a ton of other people also using Mint which hopefully will give me time to change my passwords before any real damage is done. Overall it's something I'm not super comfortable about using, but I really enjoy the convenience of having all my accounts in one place, automatically updated, etc, that I'm willing to accept the hopefully small risk of getting hacked.

That said, I still have a hard time convincing others of using the service due to security concerns. I also personally wouldn't really trust a startup/smaller company with my data either since they don't have as much on the line as a larger established company does.

[ctdonath]

Yes, it's a bad idea. Bugs me frequently. But...it's so dangblasted useful; throw some social/emotional motivations in there and a bunch of problems get solved well enough to tolerate the risk. Given Intuit bought Mint, and I've trusted my taxes to Intuit for decades, I'll grudgingly take that risk to solve other problems.

A core issue is the need for a next-level financial data aggregator, somebody to pull together one's info across multiple banks, cards, investments, etc. Much as Bank X wants to provide all those services to me, and much as I may even want them to, other companies get involved and there's a need for a one-screen view of all of it, preferably updated near-live, and working on whatever interface/device I choose to use (notebook, phone, tablet; app, web browser).

Trust is the main thing. I was mad at myself for signing up for Mint (in a fit of frustration attempting to solve some problem) when it was new & independent; I'm still irritated but less so now that Intuit is taking responsibility.

[Amorymeltzer]

This. It's (somewhat) analogous to the argument about Google/Apple/other-large-company knowing everything we do or say. Yes, it's creepy, and yes, it makes me uncomfortable time-to-time, but holy hell it is really convenient.