Are Banking and Budget Apps Useful?

The use of smartphones such as the Apple iPhone, Blackberry and Android-based phones has grown significantly in the last few years. One of the things that attracts many consumers to these devices is that in addition to being useful as communications devices, smartphones can also be used to run apps that can entertain the user or make their life simpler. Out of the thousands of different apps available, those that deal with banking and personal finance are starting to gain traction with many users. The functionality of these apps varies greatly. The most simple ones are just banking apps that are made available by financial institutions to their clients. They allow the user to do the common transactions that they could normally do on the bank's online banking platform, such as verifying account balances, making transfers, paying bills, etc. The difference is that the user doesn't have to open the device's web browser and manually go to the bank's website. The app simply makes it a lot more convenient by letting the client do the transactions through a specialized app that presents the information in a format which easily fits on the smart phone's screen. While apps that are released by financial institutions may be convenient for some, they suffer from one limitation: they can only show information related to accounts at that particular institution. But there are applications that have been made to overcome this, such as Pageonce Money & Bills. These apps can aggregate information from different sources to give a more complete picture of the user's finances. They can show the cash balances of all the user's bank accounts, balances on credit cards, amounts remaining on loans, bills that are due soon, etc. This is obviously more convenient than having to use several different apps to keep tabs on accounts with various institutions. General budget apps, which are quite common for the PC, are now making their way to smart phones as well. Here, the user not only gets a clear picture of their finances (data can be entered manually or pulled automatically from online banking sources), but can also create budgets to track how much money they spend. Apps related to banking are very useful for two reasons. First, they can simplify the way common banking transactions are done. The user no longer needs to manually type in a website in their phone's browser, but rather has the information available through an app they can put on their home screen. Second, these apps can motivate people to keep better control of their finances. Creating a budget with a pen and paper demands some time and effort, plus there is the inconvenience that balances would have to be manually calculated and updated. Apps take out most of the “work” and make budgeting a lot simpler. Since users of smart phone usually interact with their devices several times during the day, they are a lot more likely to remain motivated when it comes to budgeting.