Money Dashboard Crowdfunding - Am I Missing Something

Reaper

Repeating eskbanker's useful quote:

We keep the app free for consumers by generating revenue from insightful market research based on anonymised banking data. This gives our data clients critical insight into how businesses like Deliveroo or Uber are performing. We’re already generating over £970k in annual revenue 2018/19 FY(EBITDA -£958,966), but the more users we attract, the more valuable our data business will become (with a market set to be worth $7bn by 2020).

So far they are using anonymised data, but just think what they could do with targeting advertising in future since they know exactly where your money is going.

Imagine Virgin say they want to advertise a TV package to everybody who is currently on Sky paying more than £50pm. The site could start showing you such targeted ads in future.

You belong to a gym? Nike want to advertise trainers.
Your account balance getting low? Payday companies want you to take out a loan.
Just started getting child benefit? Mothercare want to send you ads for nappies.
Often go on holiday to Spain? Timeshare ads
And so on. Maybe Money Dashboard will start sending you these in email form too.

Your personal data is incredibly valuable and through the app you are giving it away for free. That's why I don't use them. As they start out they give you something for nothing as a loss leader, but that won't carry on forever.

Malthusian

Reaper wrote: »

So far they are using anonymised data, but just think what they could do with targeting advertising in future since they know exactly where your money is going.

Identify high net worth and sophisticated investors who are a suitable target audience for an invitation to invest in a loss making startup, as opposed to mass mailing your entire customer base?

Imagine Virgin say they want to advertise a TV package to everybody who is currently on Sky paying more than £50pm. The site could start showing you such targeted ads in future.

While I agree this sounds potentially attractive, the main problem is that everyone you target with this campaign already has satellite TV. Ah, but I'm going to offer it cheaper. Yes, but most people are lazy and aren't going to switch to save a few quid a month. So I am running what has to be a very expensive advertising campaign, given that this data is supposedly worth over £100 a customer, to snare a few misers who will be off in twelve months when BT runs the same campaign.

Perhaps I am being cynical and only time will tell whether bank-statement-based targeted advertising is viable. Except that time has already told, because this company is almost ten years old.

They have had ten years to start selling personalised ads and suchlike, and thus far haven't managed to find anyone willing to pay for it. Which is why two years ago they resorted to CrowdCrap after their VC backers refused to put in any more funds, two years later they resorted to tapping up their own customers, and two years from now they will be bust.

If I've got a new baby on the way then Mothercare don't need to pay for my banking data to find that out. Pretty much everyone who has a baby on the way and uses social media is already bombarbed with adverts for nappies. The value to an advertiser of knowing whether someone is receiving child benefit is therefore nil. They already know.

[Deleted User]

Reaper wrote: »

Repeating eskbanker's useful quote:

So far they are using anonymised data, but just think what they could do with targeting advertising in future since they know exactly where your money is going.

Imagine Virgin say they want to advertise a TV package to everybody who is currently on Sky paying more than £50pm. The site could start showing you such targeted ads in future.

You belong to a gym? Nike want to advertise trainers.
Your account balance getting low? Payday companies want you to take out a loan.
Just started getting child benefit? Mothercare want to send you ads for nappies.
Often go on holiday to Spain? Timeshare ads
And so on. Maybe Money Dashboard will start sending you these in email form too.

Your personal data is incredibly valuable and through the app you are giving it away for free. That's why I don't use them. As they start out they give you something for nothing as a loss leader, but that won't carry on forever.

But they still have the cookie that you can buy ads against, I haven't checked the web site but if they dropping a demdex cookie (adobe) then that is very powerful
The big companies can then buy third party data against that cookie
Ever wondered why credit agencies offer free credit checks, I can buy household income against the cookie
I can also buy tribes of browsing history against this as well
But as you say we are sleep walking into a personal information minefield

Malthusian

This reminds me a lot of Phorm. Phorm was touted as the next big thing in targeted advertising about ten years ago (funny that). The idea behind Phorm was that it would analyse your browser history, in fact all the data that went in and out of your Internet connection - not just what you put on social media - and send you targeted advertising accordingly.

Phorm's detractors said it was far too intrusive and people wouldn't stand for it. Phorm's backers said that ship sailed with Facebook, and anyone who didn't want their packets sniffed was probably a !!!!!phile or a terrorist.

After some secret trials with BT, Phorm was driven off by a PR crapstorm and regulatory concern. After some desultory hawking of its technology around Turkey and other backwaters, it finally went bust in 2016.

While it involved broadband data rather than bank statements, the idea that Money Dashboard can turn a profit relies on the same idea. The strategy is that people don't care about their personal data anymore and personal data + advertising = money. The problem is that Phorm already showed ten years ago that it's not true.

Phorm showed there are limits and I suspect that advertisers reading your bank statement falls into the same category as your browser history.

If my hunch is wrong then Money Dashboard would have figured out how to make money from its goldmine of personal data within the last ten years.