I have no idea why it is called heaps, but Kiwibank’s new offering to personal customers looks superb. It really throws down the gauntlet to the other banks. The product lets you semi-automatically categorise your spending, and then track your spending against a budget. It’s the sort of thing previously only available with an aftermarket product, or on some high end credit cards.
Right now it is, apparently, in very limited release. I’d be clamoring for this if I were a Kiwibank customer.
BNZ has partnered with Xero, and are apparently launching Xero Personal in the new year, which I imagine and hope will have a similar set of features.
Congratulations to Kiwibank and to developers Made from NZ and @nzkoz – it looks like a great product.
Lance Wiggs 
It does look pretty good and as a Kiwibank customer I’m pretty excited about it.
With that said though I’m pretty confident Xero Personal will be a more complete offering with a better user experience, after all, I absolutely love Xero for my business.
The question is, now Kiwibank have launched ‘heaps’ does that mean I can expect them to never truly integrate Xero Personal?
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If Kiwibank are savvy they will work with Xero, Pocketsmith and whoeverc else offers useful add ons.
There is a gap in the market for business banking hopefully that will be next.
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So *that*s what those guys have all been up to.. Wonder if it was the reason Kiwibank were down at SummerOfCode too ? Looks awesome!
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ASB launched a similar think a few months ago though I dont think it is as comprehensive as the Kiwibank offering.
The problem with it is it ties you to a bank. If you change banks, you will lose all your historical data.
That is why the Xero offering will be better if all the banks support it. It will also allow you to have more than one bank. Eitehr than or a worldwide roll out of Mint.
I have been using MSMoney till now so am looking for a replacement now that it has been discontinued (not that I need to change).
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The killer line is “your Kiwibank accounts”. Personal finance has moved on from the days of being tied to one bank. I have most of my accounts with Kiwibank but still have a credit card and Kiwsaver with another company (amongst other things) which rules out having a real comprehensive overview of your finances.
Thanks, but along with this offering (which looks like it is aimed at the teen to early 20’s market) it would be great if they could offer API access to my details to third parties (Xero personal say) who can aggregate all of my financial data and allow me to share this with the rest of my family. What I’m really looking for something that will let me expense split amongst friends, family and my small business, track my retirement savings and make sure I pay things on time.
Overall this does look pretty good but a little underpowered for the real world.
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Thanks all for your comments about heaps!. We’re really excited about offering this new service. Kiwibank and Social Capital are developing this together and Kiwibank customers will be able to view other banks’ transactions on heaps! next year.
Kiwibank and Social Capital
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if other banks are supported, will this only be provided if you have a Kiwibank account or an you take your data with you if you leave kiwibank.
Will heaps! include investment details (shares/bonds held)?
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You do need to be a Kiwibank customer as you can only get to heaps! through Kiwibank internet banking. If you leave Kiwibank you can’t take categorised data with you, but you can get 18 months of statements from Kiwibank internet banking.
We are planning to increase the number of products we offer through heaps! throughout 2010.
Kiwibank and Social Capital
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Thanks for the post Lance,
We’ve come along way over the last 9 months, with heaps! and have worked to make a personal finance website that plenty of Kiwis can get their head around and even have some fun getting on top of their finances and into getting more out of life.
@Glenbarnes – I have half a dozen businesses and Xero accounts to match and are pumping with them, and it’s the way to roll in business, but the market for personal finance in New Zealand stretches along way beyond people like you and me, and we are the minority. We need to hit the market from both ends of the spectrum and everything in between in order to turn New Zealand into a country of savers, investors, owners of business… this is a big mission, and there’s room for several organisations to do something significant that has a big impact.
It’s very early days for personal finance management in New Zealand, and it’s time to start helping more kiwis get on their A Game!
Cheers,
Tim – Social Capital
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@Tim Norton – I’m not saying that Xero has to be the only game in town but I think it is important that banks do not align themselves with just one personal finance provider. Providing API access to account data is critical if we want to achieve what you have mentioned above so several organisations can do something significant.
Imagine a maashup of bank data, fly buys receipts and other purchasing data. Now that would be powerful.
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The problem I have with these cloud computing systems, is what happens if the company ever goes under, or if for some reason the data is hacked or the data lost. I see in the terms, they are not responsible for data loss, which gets them off the hook if the data is lost for any reason. Also you have to be online to actually use them, so if you go on holiday into the bush, you can’t use it. I would like a system that works when you are both online and offline.
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heaps! looks pretty great. The personal finance data & management space is definitely getting some action in NZ now.
Thought I’d mention we’ve been working with wwww.sorted.org.nz to launch a new Money tracker product with them, replacing a 2 yr old Cashflow calculator that had some basic functionality in this space. Just out this week too.
http://www.sorted.org.nz/calculators/money-tracker/
Anything that gets people on top of their money and getting more from it is good. Nice to see heaps! happen.
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If you’re right into this space you’ll see Sorted’s just added the “Money tracker” to their calculator arsenal. With categories consistent with Xero there’s heaps of potential here.
http://www.sorted.org.nz/calculators/money-tracker/
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That looks great. Congratulations.
Really cool to see the innovation happening in this space right now.
Rod
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Thanks & Cheers for the heads up Rod!
@Glenbarnes – I hear what you on that, We definitely have the interest of helping as many kiwis as possible at the heart of this, so there are no closed doors.
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