Anyone like to test a Finance App I wrote?

padraigmyers

Hi All,
I've just spent a few weeks writing a quick application that allows someone to add a bunch of online bank accounts and query the balance and statement information and then store it all in one place.
It also includes a mortgage calculator, but the main thing is the atomatic querying of you data from the bank.
Its very useful if you have your money spread over a verity of saving/deposit accounts and credit cards.
It works with the following bank's online banking:
AIB, Ulster Bank, Halifax, First Active, Anglo Irish Bank and MBNA.

It has a Adobe Flex frontend and the backend is done in PHP.
I have packaged it as a deployable web app that runs on a local web server using the package DWebPro.

Its a very early draft (there's no Help or anything, but its pretty simple to use), and I was wondering if some of you would download it and give it a test.
I have left the PHP un-obfuscated so that you can see that nothing improper is being done with your bank details.

To install it you will first have to install DWebPro using the install file here
(as I have no license to be able to package this with my application so I'm just using the free version)
and then install my application here

Please let me know what you think and how you got on with it, and also about any bugs in it (there will be loads!).

Thanks,
Padraig

Talon.ie

No offence padraigmyers, but I think the idea is flawed from the start.

I haven't looked at it and honestly don't think I will. Even if it does run locally on a box I control, I'm still not putting my bank account details into it.

Maybe I'm paranoid and don't reflect the people you're aiming at. In which case I wish you the best of luck with it.

padraigmyers

That's pretty much what I was thinking myself.
Essentially its a web app, so running it locally turned out to be a pain in the ass, but I figured that it would be a step in the right direction for user security.
To be honest I just wrote it for myself, as I had over 10 different accounts and got sick of having to log in to each one separately, this way it was all in one place.
But ya, I think your right, it has no commercial appeal unless it was packaged with some trusted app that people would trust (Sage etc.).
Ah well, its there for whoever wants it!

amen

look at www.mint.com
only usa but similar

padraigmyers

That's where first saw the idea, I wanted the equivalent of mint, but as you said it didn't do Irish banks so it was no use to me, that's why I rolled my own!

Placebo

firstly,
well done, the mortgage stuff looks great,ive worked with flex myself and the graphs etc look brilliant. The User interface is great, as is the color scheme.


Saying that, i dont even trust mint, dont think i would trust this.
If im adding offline account, is it possible for me to add my spending?

I would more so use a spending calculator type application,
i.e how much ive spent and on what, i could start every month by adding in my bank balance manually.
I tried making one myself with flex while back but never finished it, so quickly made one with php the other day, still w.i.p

padraigmyers

Hi, thanks for the feedback. Good to hear someone tried it!
What it sounds like you are looking for is a personal finance/budgeting solution.
For that try something like iexpenseonline.com, its free and is a pretty nice flex app.

The mortgage thing in may app is really only an afterthought, it is the checking and downloading of online data.
If your using PHP, have a look in 'C:\Program Files\EirFinance\www\php', you can see the screen scrapers for each of the banks in there.

Placebo

yeah i checked them already good work, knew you would have had to use curl, for safety perspective where are my details stored, dir/filename wise.

padraigmyers

They are stored in the actual Flex application.
I built an initial version in Air so I used EncryptedLocalStore, however this is not available from the flash container so I used LocalObjects to simulate an encrypted local store as detailed here

onedmc

had a go at it, looks nice, but like the rest I'd be afraid to use it as I dont know where my private data might go.

What do you want to do with it ?

ve

I don't think this is a good idea. I applaud your efforts OP, but I don't think it would be a good idea for people to beta test your software considering it works with highly sensitive data.

Someone on these forums before wrote a nice little Java app that would let you send SMS from your desktop by sending messages via your mobile providers web app and using your monthly free credits. It's a nice idea, but I decided not to use it until I had a chance to go through the source code. I wouldn't want the security of my account compromised just because I was too lazy to go to my service providers website and login. So that was just for using up free message credit and potentially having someone send messages from my mobile number (identity theft), but the scope for problems with what you're proposing is much greater.

I don't think the banks would take too kindly to it.

Perhaps you could put your skill to better use is my 2c. If your ideas are for non-commercial (possible open source) projects, then perhaps throwing your idea on here before hitting the design phase might be beneficial. If your idea is attractive enough, you could end up with a few people wanting to work with you on the project.

clearz

I wrote a similar libary a while back that let a programmer easily develop AIB online banking apps using .NET. I considered releasing it at one stage but was only gonna to release the source code for the sample apps. I would never expect someone to put their bank details into something that I wrote. Since AIB online banking has changed it dosen't work any more so there is no point in releasing it now.

padraigmyers

What do you want to do with it ?

Do with what, the app or your data?
The app: Nothing at all, just figured it was worth getting some opinion on to see if it was useful for anyone else.
The data: Its just used to log in to the website so the application can screen scrape your balance and transaction data.

I don't think the banks would take too kindly to it.

I think your right , but then again mint.com uses the same method for some sites.

Perhaps you could put your skill to better use is my 2c. If your ideas are for non-commercial (possible open source) projects, then perhaps throwing your idea on here before hitting the design phase might be beneficial. If your idea is attractive enough, you could end up with a few people wanting to work with you on the project.

I wrote this application for my own use, to be honest I had no intention of sharing it until I showed it to a friend and they were impressed with how it aggregated my bank data. So I figured I'd get some other opinions.

I would never expect someone to put their bank details into something that I wrote.

That's why I provided the unobfuscated PHP source with the download so that if someone wants to write their own frontend then go ahead.


To sum up:
Main reason I put it up here is that I wanted to check what the general opinion was....seams like its a non-runner.
I wrote it for myself, and as I was finishing it I realised that it might be something someone else would use.
The source code for the PHP code (does all the screen scraping) is there if anyone feel like using it for their own frontend.