PFM site Rudder shuts

Houston-based personal financial management site Rudder has shut down, telling members "business has simply become unsustainable".

Launched in 2008, Rudder hit the headlines last year when a security lapse saw it inadvertently expose the private account details of hundreds of individuals.

Now, in a notice to members, the company has confirmed it is the latest PFM site to shut up shop because "Rudder as a business has simply become unsustainable". All user data on its servers was permanently deleted this week and "will not be shared, sold, or divulged in any way".

Despite much hype and the $170 million acquisition of market leader Mint by Intuit last year, several PFM sites have struggled to make money. In July, pioneer Wesabe was forced to shut down its operations after running out of cash while UK-based start-up Kublax has also closed due to cash-flow problems.

Channels

Retail banking

Keywords

Personal finance

Comments: (1)

Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 09 November, 2010, 10:56

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A couple of years ago, I was very impressed with Mint's value proposition and decided to register myself for it. I stopped right in my tracks when I realized that I had to hand over the logon credentials to all my Internet Banking accounts if I were to get any useful advice from Mint. By sharing my credentials, my thinking went at the time, not only would I be ignoring my banks' constant advice to never share passwords and other confidential information with anyone, but also be putting a lot of faith on a startup to safeguard all that data from hackers. Rudder's data loss example proves that it's really asking a startup for too much in an area where even leading banks and payments processors can't boast of a stellar track record.

First Kublax, then WeSabe, and now, Rudder - their failures don't bode too well for the prospects of the scores of other PFMs out there.