There is now a vast array of apps and online services that allow us to manage our money – whether that means saving it, spending it admiring it or fretting about the lack of it - and they are dramatically changing the way we engage with the financial services companies looking after our cash.
1 The end of cash?
You can now pay your friends and family back using just their mobile number. Launched in April 2014, Paym is a servicebacked by most major UK banks that lets you send and receive payments directly to a current account. You have to register your mobile number with your bank or building society. To make a payment, log in to your banking app as normal, and then instead of entering someone’s current account number and sort code, you select the contact you wish to pay or manually enter their mobile number. The app will ask you to confirm the recipient’s name and the amount. Once you’re happy, just press “send”. Banks are already on board include Barclays, Halifax, HSBC and Santander (with RBS/NatWest set to join by the end of this year).
2 Is Barclays leading the way?
Barclaysgot in there early: it launched a mobile payment service called Pingit in February 2012. It’s free to download and use, and you don’t have to be a customer of the bank. The average Barclays customer is said to visit a branch less than twice a month, and since, the Barclays mobile banking and Pingit apps were launched in 2012, they have been downloaded more than 5m times and are being accessed more than 17.5m times each week, with almost £5bn in payments and transfers being made each month.
3 Never too young ...
Osper is aimed atthe UK’s seven million eight- to 18-year-olds and their parents. It consists of a prepaid MasterCard debit card and a mobile banking app. Parents load money from their debit card on to their child’s Osper card account, with the app enabling them to monitor transactions. Its main rival is goHenry, which is aimed at the same age group and comes with a prepaid Visa card and an app. But there are charges: though free for the first year, Osper costs £10 a year per card, while atgoHenry, after a month’s free trial, membershipcosts £1.97 a month per child.
4 How much do you really earn?
UK Salary Calculator 2014-15 is a free app designed for iPhones and iPads that calculates take-home salary from your annual, hourly, daily, weekly or monthlywage. It also allows you to see the difference between an old salary and a new one, and can help people work out what that pay rise or promotion will really mean for them financially. It is based on UK tax rates and also takes into account things such as national insurance contributions, student loan repayments and pension contributions.
5 Not just for eBay obsessives ...
The free PayPal app is highly regarded by many. As well as allowing you to transfer money between friends, so you can pay back a pal for lunch or collect some cash for a gift you can use the app to pay with your phone in certain stores, cafes etc. “Look out for many more locations coming soon,” claims the company.
6 Monitoring your investments
It’s a fairly ‘old-school-looking’ website, but Trustnet is arguably the number one place to go for anyone who wants to do basic research on investment funds. Aimed at UK private investors and independent financial advisers, this free-to-use site is loaded with up-to-date price and performance data, fund profiles and the latest industry news.
7 What’s VAT
Businesses and regular travellers may find VAT Toolbox useful – it is a free app designed for iPhones and iPadsthat helps people to calculate the amount of VAT to add to a figure, as well as how much tax is already included in a price. It includes the VAT rates for many other countries.
8 A case of oversharing?
Online services that pull all your account data (current accounts, credit cards, savings accounts etc) together in one place, on one screen, are starting to become more popular in the UK.
One of the leading apps is OnTrees, which says it “gives you an up-to-date view of your bal ances so you’re always in the know with your money”. but some people will feel uncomfortable with the idea of connecting all their accounts to a service they know little about, and there have already been some privacy concerns raised.
9 From little acorns ...
Currently only available to US residents, but due to be released to other countries, Acorns is a whizzy free app that sweeps up your spare change from everyday purchases and invests for you. “We round up each of your transactions to the nearest dollar and invest the change into a diversified portfolio,” it says. It will recommend a portfolio based on your age, time horizon, income, goals and risk attitude. After you start investing, it charges $1 a month, plus 0.25%-0.5% of your investment annually.
10 One pound equals ...
If you’re looking to quickly find out how many Albanian leks or Vietnamese dongs you’ll get for your pound, Oanda should be your go-to website. Its currency converter tools are super-easy to use; it claims to have access to “one of the world’s largest historical, high frequency, filtered currency databases”.
