Skip to content
All posts

Product · 5 min read

Why we didn't connect to your bank

Automatic import looks strictly better on a feature list. It isn't, and the reason is about attention rather than technology.

Every review of a manual budgeting app eventually says the same thing: why am I typing this in when my bank could send it?

It is a fair question with a real answer.

Automatic import moves the work, it doesn't remove it

A bank feed does not produce a categorised ledger. It produces a list of merchant strings that need reviewing, correcting and splitting. The work becomes reconciliation — a chore with no feedback, done weekly, easy to fall a month behind on.

Typing an amount at the till takes ten seconds and is done. Reviewing 140 imported rows on a Sunday takes forty minutes and is never done.

The ten seconds are the product

There is a well-worn observation in personal finance that the act of recording a purchase is what changes behaviour, not the report you read afterwards. A feed removes exactly the moment that does the work.

If you never feel the $4, the $4 does not change.

And it keeps the privacy story simple

No credentials, no aggregator, no read access to your account. The honest trade is that you type things in — and in exchange the app has nothing worth stealing.