As you know, I really advocate to track your expenses! How else do you know where your money is going and how much you have left? 22seven (not
twenty two seven lol) is a great budgeting app that will link to your bank account and help automate the process, but is 22seven safe to use?
I did some research on it and wrote the following piece for their blog. (It’s not a full 22seven review, rather just a look at security aspects of 22 seven)
How safe is my info at 22seven?
We’ve all heard horror stories of cyber-attacks. Whether it be hackers that bring down systems, steal credit card details or use phishing-tactics to transfer money from someone’s bank account. It’s no wonder we’re all becoming more security-savvy and seeking assurances from our service providers regarding the safety of our information, and money!
As you know, 22seven is a free budgeting app in South Africa that tracks your various bank accounts and investments and helps you see the overall view of your finances. PS – it’s 22seven as one word and not 22 seven. Just saying.
So after that scary introduction, how safe is it to use 22seven?
In short; very safe. But that’s clearly not a good enough answer.
Without getting too technical, your money and investments are absolutely safe as linking your accounts with the app only allows for “read” access. This means that the app, or anyone that gains access to your info, can only read information. No transactions can be made, and no money can be touched. Not even by you.
That sounds good but what scares many is the fact that you need to enter your internet login details when connecting to a service provider through the app. Be it your banking password or log in details for investments.
These account login details however are immediately encrypted and sent to a world-leading financial data aggregator to store in their secure data-vault. Yodlee uses a fully automated system to update your account transactions in the 22seven app when you authorize it to. In simple terms, it logs in to your internet banking or investment account profile, reads transactional data, and updates 22seven. This happens securely with no human intervention. Also note that there are no data-sharing agreements in place with any service providers. No banks or financial institutions send data or allow the app access via another way. The transactional data that you see in your app is simply taken from what is found when viewing your bank or investment account online.
This may give some level of comfort, but the two areas of concern are still:
- how secure are the account details for all my linked accounts that are stored, and,
- how secure is my personal information with 22seven?
Taking it further
With over 33 million users worldwide Yodlee is an expert in their field. They manage account authorisations and the scraping of transactional details from thousands of financial service providers. As you can imagine, they undergo constant scrutiny and have passed almost 200 independent audits from financial institutions over the past 24 months. They take security very seriously!
Closer to home, 22seven adheres to the same procedures and standards used by banks, military, and governments around the world. All data is encrypted, physical servers are stored in secure facilities and access is highly controlled. The security of your information is of utmost importance and any breach or potential mishap would not only affect you, but it would affect the integrity and public image of 22seven.
Having been in operation for over 8 years now, 22seven continue to prove their focus on data security.
Read up more
It’s good to understand the security procedures and practices of companies that you deal with; especially when it comes to the safe keeping of your personal and financial information. You can be rest assured though that 22seven is doing everything it can to secure your data.
To find out more about 22seven’s security you can visit: https://www.22seven.com/security or download the 22 seven app from your local app store.