Balancion

Yesterday morning I was a guest at the Good Morning Finland (Huomenta Suomi) TV show again.

The overall topic was adult usage of the Internet, privacy and people's rights to their own content.

Language handicap: unfortunately the talk is entirely in finnish again, sorry. Here's the embedded video:

Taneli Tikka in Huomenta Suomi at 11.2.2010 from Taneli Tikka on Vimeo.

Couple of things concerning this: I don't talk about the usage of the Internet for entertainment purposes - because that's a given. Everybody does that. So only focusing on the differences of usage. With adults its much more official and serious -toned, while the younger age groups simply have all aspects of their life online, one way or the other.

I mention insurance and finance product comparisons as one of the uses adults have. That's linked to www.vakuutuskone.com

The end segment is about banks who do not provide XML feeds of people's own data to the people, while it would be technically simple and while they simultaneously do provide it for companies. That's linked to www.balancion.com

Banks have intentionally decided to stand in the way of progress and disable the XML feeds for private accounts. I have understood that they would have the infrastructure in place already because of SEPA and the way their backends are build. In some banks enabling the stream would be almost like flipping a switch, some others would have a small amount of work to do.

Why do they disable it then? Because they have failed in their strategic thinking. They have made the false conclusion that by being protectionist they would somehow run a better business - while in fact they are missing out on a huge opportunity for growth and new revenue generating services, entire new business models, etc. Opening up the feeds would grow the entire market and increase the size of the pie for the whole sector. Their decision is cowardly, showcases weak leadership and communicates fear and lack of self-confidence from their part.

Finland had it's first telephone line in the year 1877. Back then the printing press, the "newspaper men", were afraid of this modern form of progress; and protested against the telephone by arguing that it will kill out the print media because now news can travel faster. While in fact the opposite happened; faster communications and the telephone is a big reason why the print media grew to be bigger than ever, as gossip spread faster and people were even more focused and interested about the news they provided. The telephone increased the need for their newspaper products and grew the entire market size.

When ever I see this kind of fearful and weak resistance to change with false logic behind it, I most certainly remain unimpressed. Banks should do better than this, way better. And we as their customers should actively demand them to do so.

Banks have opened up their XML (and various other formats) feeds in Estonia. Finland is the backwater hillbillytown of progress. A country of fearful weak banks that would rather fall behind in progress than go for the huge opportunities ahead and grow their businesses. Not progressing a vital infrastructure the like the banking system makes us fall behind even on a national level, which makes it even more sad and reprehensible.

Few links about the Balancion discussion:

http://www.tietoviikko.fi/taustat/apaja/article370344.ece

http://www.arcticstartup.com/2010/02/01/osuuspankki-says-no-to-balancion/

http://twitter.com/#search?q=balancion

http://www.kasvua.org/~toivotuo/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2010/01/29#banks-and...

http://www.tarkkamarkka.com/blogi/2010/01/osuuspankki-kielsi-balancionin...

http://www.sombiz.net/content/osuuspankki-says-no-balancion

http://www.pinseri.com/2010/02/01/balancion-ja-opn-oma-talous/

http://tweetmeme.com/story/513122620/osuuspankki-says-no-to-balancion

http://onespot.contentnext.com/paidcontent-uk/2010/02/01/a/572900074-osu...

I have joined the board of directors of Balancion (www.balancion.com), a company on a mission to help you save money and organize your personal finances.. Actually I joined the board a while back, blogging about it now because it will soon be grand opening time for Balancion's service.

Probably the most famous startup in this space is Mint (www.mint.com), that has been very successful in attracting customers (they had 1.2 million users in June, according to their CEO as interviewed by PaidContent.org), Mint is focusing on the US markets. There are other players in this field as well, to name a few: www.wesabe.com, www.rudder.com, www.geezo.com, www.xero.com, and Expensr.. All of which are almost solely US-focused.

Balancion is not only bringing the same concept to the Finnish, Scandinavian and EU markets, but also looking to enhance it quite a bit in the process. Currently the company is looking for beta-testers into the Finnish test market launch (go sign up at www.balancion.com), which will be around October this year. Balancion also has a Facebook page with some additional info in there; http://www.facebook.com/balancion

Antti Akonniemi has some (finnish only, sorry) thoughts on Balancion in their "Binesmiehet" site, here.

ArcticStartup just recently wrote an article on Balancion.

Balancion is CEO'd by Mr. Jussi Muurikainen and implemented with the help of the good folks from Idean. The company is financed and BoD-governed by owners & executives from the footwear company Jalas.

The central idea is to offer a service that will automatically keep track of your finances and offer you plenty of help and guidance in how to sort it all out, save some money, and quite probably end up in a situation that is much more financially well off. Naturally its also about more intelligent spending; saving money and using it for the kinds of things that you really want/need; like a good holiday every once and while. "Automatically" in this context means that the service has the capability to read in your credit card, bank account etc statements automatically and build the analysis on those. The targeted use-case here is that after some initial info and registering the user needs only to spend money and the service will be able to sort it all out. Balancion is certainly well on its way in implementation towards this.

Ever heard some rich people say that it's not really in how much you earn, but rather in how little you spend? There's real wisdom in that thought and the evidence of it actually working is quite overwhelming.

The truth is that the personal finances of most people are out of control today. Somehow people have confused being in debt with actually owning something. Many who claim to own their own homes, businesses, cars etc, are in fact up to their ears in debt and the bank is never very far from de facto owning their possessions. People are brought up with this idea that credit and debt equals money from almost since birth. They enter the working life and society with all kinds of funny notions on this topic, and the results of that we see everywhere; bloated housing prices, everyone and their dog up their arses in debt, and you still wonder where the financial crisis did come from? It would do a world of good if people actually bothered to find out how money mechanics work, or even arse themselves to as little as googling what is a "Fiat Currency"....

People desperately need to start loaning less, saving more and living a financially sustainable life.

This would also be a better deal for the banks: financially stable people taking educated risks and well positioned to pay back everything they loan. And they still should loan; where it makes sense, and where they can pay it back, in a sustainable way.

How much debt I have? About a 1000 euros, and its all in my credit card. Why do I even have credit cards? Because I travel and they give you better exchange rates on foreign currencies than the rip-off bereau de change. Plus they have insurances and stuff..

OK enough for the rant there ;-)

Solutions like Balancion are in high demand, and I hope services like these would have some impact on society and people would start to think about financial sustainability, savings, debt, etc in a more educated and successful manner.

It's been a pleasure to be involved with developing another well-backed startup full of enthusiasm and great ideas. Consider joining the beta and checking it out - it's not like you wouldn't need to be more financially successful, right? ;)