Personal financial management refers to "ways" or "methods" of managing ones own personal finances. It is also known by its acronym, PFM, which refers to the type of software used for personal finance apps. Simply put, PFM refers to

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

that helps users manage their money. PFM often lets users categorize transactions and add accounts from multiple institutions into a single view. PFM also typically includes data visualizations such as spending trends, budgets and net worth.

History

PFM started in 1983 with the founding of

Intuit Intuit Inc. is an American multinational business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparati ...

. Scott Cook and Tom Proulx, the company’s founders, witnessed the rise of the personal computer and saw an opportunity to develop personal financial software. Their flagship product, Quicken, became a standard for many households and was eventually followed by

QuickBooks QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. First introduced in 1992, QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer on-premises accounting applications as well as ...

, which helped small businesses manage their finances. Around the same time, a similar competing product introduced by MECA Software, conceived by MECA President Gerald Rubin, and designed by author

Andrew Tobias Andrew Tobias (born April 20, 1947) is an American writer. He has written extensively about investment, as well as politics, insurance, and other topics. He is also known for writing ''The Best Little Boy in the World'', a 1973 memoir – origin ...

called Managing-Your-Money (MYM) came out, first running on the Apple-II, and later the IBM-PC. Later in 1990 Microsoft released their own PFM platform called Microsoft Money. Microsoft worked with Intuit and CheckFree in 1997 to create Open Financial Exchange (OFX), which allowed financial institutions to exchange data with web users, paving the way for online PFM software.

Yodlee Yodlee is a web application software company that provides consumer-permissioned data aggregation, consolidating information from multiple accounts (credit cards, bank accounts, investments, etc.) by using open banking APIs. Origins and history Y ...

was founded in 1999. Originally a site that let users view email, banking, news, travel, and shopping in one place, it soon pivoted to focusing exclusively on banking, allowing users to view their financial accounts from different institutions all at once. A wave of online PFM tools launched around 2006, with

Wesabe Wesabe was a personal finance management website established in December 2005 that analyzed a user's financial data to provide appropriate advice on how to save money. The site went live in November 2006. The company behind the website announced on ...

and

Mint Mint or The Mint may refer to: Plants * Lamiaceae, the mint family ** ''Mentha'', the genus of plants commonly known as "mint" Coins and collectibles * Mint (facility), a facility for manufacturing coins * Mint condition, a state of like-new ...

at the forefront. Mint was acquired by Intuit in 2009 for $170 million, and Wesabe went under in 2010. Wesabe’s CEO cited the fact that Mint automatically aggregated accounts and transactions as a key reason that Wesabe lost market share to Mint. Since 2008, PFM has expanded in scope. Financial advisory companies such as

LearnVest LearnVest was an American financial planning company founded by CEO Alexa von Tobel. It sold personal finance software. History Alexa von Tobel entered Harvard Business School in the fall of 2008, but took a leave of absence and launched Learn ...

Personal Capital Personal Capital is an online financial advisor and personal wealth management company headquartered in Redwood Shores, CA with offices in San Francisco, CA, Denver, CO, Dallas, TX and Atlanta, GA. History Personal Capital was founded by Bil ...

and

Credit Karma Credit Karma is an American multinational personal finance company founded in 2007. It has been a brand of Intuit since December 2020. It is best known as a free credit and financial management platform, but its features also include monitori ...

integrate PFM into their software. Other companies providing personal financial management platform products for banks and fintech companies include

Meniga Meniga is a financial software company founded in Reykjavík, Iceland in 2009 by Georg Ludviksson and brothers Asgeir Asgeirsson and Viggo Asgeirsson. Meniga provides digital banking solutions. Meniga was founded in 2009, and has offices in Londo ...

, Moneythor, MX, Strands, Coinscrap Finance and Tink.

References

{{reflist Personal finance Financial management

History

See also

References