Personal finance tools now online, but are they safe?

Traditionally, personal finance and computing met at programs like Microsoft Money and Intuit Quicken. Both are desktop personal finance software programs that consolidate financial data from multiple institutions. The user gives the software his or her online banking user names and passwords, then the software will download the data on loans, investments, credit cards, and bank accounts.

The user can access his or her current net worth, set up budgeting, forecast, and view pie charts with spending habits based on auto-categorizing of credit card transactions. The future of personal finance is Web-based. When an application is online, features and updates are simple to implement. The user can access information from any Internet connection, and no desktop software needs to be installed. The innovator within free Web-based personal finance management is Mint.com.

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