How to Build a Personal Finance App Like Mint

If managing your budget drives you as crazy as it does most people, and you struggle to keep track of your earnings, spending, investments, timely bill payments, and loan coverage, then you need a finance management app. And you're not alone!

Seven of ten smartphone users are turning to financial apps that ensure data security and provide personalized services tailored to their needs. This shift makes money management app development one of the most significant contemporary trends.

These applications are becoming increasingly popular each day. Therefore, we have decided to explore current trends, technologies, features, and personal finance software development tendencies to keep our readers informed. In this article, we will delve into how to create a unique finance app similar to Mint.

What is the Mint App?

Founded in 2006 as a personal budget tracking and planning app, Mint has maintained its leadership among personal finance management solutions. The application provides users with a variety of user-friendly financial planning and tracking tools, making budgeting automation and money-saving easier.

The application offers budget goals based on spending, which users can later adjust or increase. Additionally, the Mint app allows for the synchronization of credit cards, bank accounts, and other financial accounts, along with features for income tracking, automatic expense updates and categorization, setting savings goals, and much more.

That's why Mint users value the ability to view a clear and comprehensive picture of their financial situation all in one place, coupled with robust security. If you're considering creating a money management app like Mint, you should begin by understanding the current market requirements for modern personal finance software solutions.

Let’s get down to them.

Money Management Apps Market Requirements

The financial app market is highly competitive, with Big Tech companies like Apple and Google and numerous emerging startups. Developers must be prepared to face and keep up with this competition. Therefore, conducting a thorough competitor analysis is essential.

Continuous Competitors Analysis

To stand out in the competitive market, creating a financial tool that delivers real value to users is essential. To achieve this, examine and learn from products similar to yours. While every developer conducts competitor analysis slightly differently, the fundamental approach remains the same.

You need to identify your competitors and develop a product that surpasses theirs. This process will help you validate your idea's viability and investment worthiness while learning from others' failures.

Search through platforms like Google, ProductHunt, and Reddit's r/Entrepreneur or r/startups sections to identify your competitors. Evaluate key aspects of their business, including their website, core value proposition, app store ratings, and reviews. Additionally, review their social media presence and analyze their monetization strategies.

By doing all this, you will gain insight into your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and unique features, enabling you to position your product effectively within the market.

Ongoing monitoring should become a routine task, allowing you to stay ahead of your rivals with updates, innovative features, and other factors that you might miss if you don't keep an eye on them.

Chatbot Implementation

The use of virtual assistants is a growing trend in the financial sector. Integrating chatbots is essential for any application or platform. A budgeting software solution can help track expenses and offer money-saving tips, effectively reducing the support team's workload while enhancing the user experience.

Cryptocurrencies Including

Digital currencies and crypto assets are now competing with traditional fiat currencies and stocks. To meet your audience's needs, consider incorporating these into your app. For example, the Mint app allows users to manage their Bitcoin balance, and some other solutions offer cryptocurrency trading and digital wallet management. To enhance your software's competitiveness, integrate an AI chatbot.

UI/UX High Performance

A personal finance application is very private, rather sensitive, and has complex functionality. It’s very important not to make it overly complicated but intuitive and convenient.

Thus, we advise creating UI/UX with all the users' pain points and needs to be considered. To achieve this, you need to see things from your users' perspective and think the way they do. It's wise to offer a brief and engaging learning curve, including onboarding tips, and adhere to the golden "three taps" rule. Any problem should be solvable in three taps or less.

Choose a simple interface, straightforward navigation, and inclusivity. Strive to find the right balance in your UI/UX by including the essential features on the dashboard without overwhelming it.

However, keep in mind that UI/UX trends evolve, and your app design should stay current to remain relevant. Now, let's discuss the features that your finance app should include today.

Finance Management Apps Must Have Features

A cutting-edge finance manager app helps users track their income and expenses while also facilitating budget optimization, adequate personal capital and wealth management, and financial literacy. To meet the demands of the modern market, it should offer robust functionality.

Account Creating

Users must register and input their personal and financial details for effective finance tracking. Given the sensitivity of financial data, authorization, and security are critical aspects to focus on. To protect your users' data, consider implementing measures such as two-factor authentication, face recognition, voice recognition, fingerprint scanning, unique code generation, or other security protocols.

Account Access

User account access must be secure as it involves personal and financial data. Connecting user accounts in the app with cards and bank accounts requires a guarded passcode. The login/logout procedure should be enforced each time a user interacts with the application. Implementing short-term sessions with limited lifetimes is an intelligent approach to minimize the risk of the app running unprotected.

Data Security

As previously mentioned, data security is the top priority in developing money management tools. It's essential to create a secure authorization process and ensure data security at every level of the data channel. At a minimum, consider encrypting and storing transmitted data using standard SSL protocols.

Avoid using open-source and closed-source cryptographic libraries, as they may not allow proper verification of their trustworthiness and effectiveness. Stay updated with the latest security methods, test them, and implement them if they prove beneficial.

Bill Reminding

Introduce bill tracking functionality to allow users to keep and monitor all their bills in one place. Additionally, implementing notifications to remind users of upcoming payments will help ensure that no payments are missed.

Notifications

As mentioned earlier, notifications are helpful for preventing missed payments. They can also keep users informed about low balances, goal milestones, late fees, suspicious activities, and more.

The Data Synchronization

A budgeting app should synchronize all user accounts, including credit and debit cards. This enables users to get a comprehensive overview of all transactions, bills, fees, operations, loans, investments, and more for effective budget management.

Investment Recommendations

In addition to investment tracking, help your users stay informed about market benchmarks. Incorporate AI analysis to suggest the best asset allocation options, such as brokerage accounts, mutual funds, IRAs, or real estate investments.

Entertainment Element

Adding a bit of entertainment can lighten the seriousness of financial matters. Entertaining features are essential. Mint, for instance, introduced gamification to boost user engagement. You could also consider implementing reward systems, goal-setting, and marking achievements through a points system.

Fast Access to Transactions

You can offer users detailed transaction information all in one place and categorize their spending transactions to help them track expenses more effectively.

In Mint, users can select specific transactions from a particular merchant or category and set a category for them. The app also allows for hiding transactions. You can develop your approach based on your target audience's needs.

Profile Operations Analysis and App Behavior Adapting

Users can track their financial activities using the analysis feature, manage and save their means properly, and adjust spending accordingly.

A good idea is to provide daily, weekly, monthly, and annual reports that categorize and summarize income and expenses. These reports could also include estimates, advice, or predictions for the upcoming period.

Users will appreciate a budgeting feature that allows them to plan their spending for a week, a month, or several months. In your newly developed financial app, enable them to set spending limits and receive notifications to prevent overspending.

By carefully analyzing user behavior based on app data, you can identify patterns and variations, allowing for further enhancements to the budgeting features. We can discuss app features extensively, but let's now focus on the technical aspects and platforms needed to implement these features.

Mobile Finance App Development Platforms and Tech Stacks

As you can see, native development relies on programming languages, tech stacks, and tools designed for a single platform, adhering to its specific requirements. In contrast, cross-platform development enables the creation of a single app that functions across multiple platforms.

The Stfalcon team is experts in any kind of development, so the lists of tech stacks of different types of apps, like Mint, can be found below.

iOS Technology Stack For Personal Finance App Development

Android Technology Stack to Build Fintech App Like Mint

Once you have a list of features for your budgeting app, you need to decide on its type and, consequently, the tools and technologies to use for development. If you feel bewildered by all these terms, like frameworks, programming languages, libraries, etc., just contact the Stfalcon expert for a comprehensive consultation.

Meanwhile, let’s take a closer look at the process of development.

Fintech App Development Process

To create the best money management solution and outshine your competitors, you must approach the lengthy and complex development process with full seriousness and responsibility. Gathering requirements is the first step toward a fully functional solution.

Requirements

At Stfalcon, this stage is traditionally called the discovery stage. It involves user research, competitor research, and tech and business research. Our specialists aim to gather extensive information about the market, target users, competitors, and their products, trends, risks, and opportunities.

During the discovery stage, we gain a deep understanding of the market, the app’s target audience, their pain points, and requirements. We make assumptions, validate ideas, and develop a unique value proposition that helps us stand out among competitors and existing products. We then present our vision and project estimate to our client for approval.

Development

Once all the details are agreed upon, development begins. To create the best budget manager app, it is essential to implement an excellent UI/UX design. The product should be functional, intuitive, and user-friendly to appeal to your audience. Frontend and backend coding are carried out according to the app's type and specifics.

Software Testing

Software testing is one of the most crucial steps in the development process before releasing a new solution. It is essential to ensure that the app operates and behaves as expected and desired. It should run smoothly and error-free.

Testing can be both manual and automated and conducted at various levels. The details, requirements, and KPIs are discussed with the client at the project's outset. At this stage, we ensure that we have delivered a product of proper quality to our clients and app users.

Publishing App

No one will know you have the best budget manager app until you publish and market it. We assist our clients in publishing their apps on Google Play and the App Store, purchasing accounts for app publication, and managing releases.

Support & Maintenance

After the app is built and released, Stfalcon maintains its infrastructure. We address any bugs reported by the client and resolve any issues that may arise.

The scope of maintenance and support is determined and regulated by the contract, as a rule. Here, we will address some common concerns and provide insights to help you create a finance app that allows users to manage their money better.

FAQ About Personal Finance Apps

What do customers expect from personal finance apps?

Customers expect finance apps to help them track spending, set budgets, and reach savings goals. One of the most crucial aspects is security, as users need assurance that their financial data is safe and secure. Developers must prioritize security measures to protect sensitive information, including encryption, secure servers, and strong authentication. The personal finance app development team should also focus on creating a simple and intuitive user experience.

What Features The Personal Finance App Must Have?

When building a financial app, key features to include are expense tracking, budgeting tools, and bill reminders. The ability to link multiple bank accounts and credit cards is essential, as it allows users to understand their finances and make informed decisions. Additional valuable personal finance management app development features include setting savings goals and offering personalized financial advice. By incorporating these features, you can create a money management and financial tracking app that effectively helps users manage their finances.

How Apps Like Mint Make Money?

There are several common monetization strategies for generating revenue from personal finance apps. Some apps offer premium features for a fee, while others partner with financial institutions to earn referral fees. Some apps provide targeted financial products to users. Having a clear monetization strategy is crucial when creating a finance app.

Conclusion

With extensive expertise in software development, Stfalcon possesses the necessary skills, tech stack, and knowledge to create state-of-the-art products for any industry. However, Fintech is the most attractive and promising area to venture into. So, let’s discuss your project together and bring it to life.

Originally published at Stfalcon.com

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