PFM pioneer Wesabe to shut down
Wesabe, the pioneer of personal financial
management (PFM) has been forced to close down after running out of
money.
In a note to customers, the firm’s chief
executive Marc Hedlund, said the 5-year old business will be shut
down as of 31 July, after months of operating on a shoestring
budget.
Hedlund said that, while the company’s website
has remained online and received positive feedback from users,
Wesabe has been unable to provide the support people need have
required for “something so central as financial
management”.
“I’ve felt especially terrible that some
members have had a good initial experience but then hit a problem,
often after investing many hours, and aren’t able to get help with
it. That’s obviously a bad experience, and not what we want to
offer,” Hedlund said.
Hedlund admitted that accepting new accounts
and continuing to store highly sensitive information on a limited
budget was not acceptable.
The company will continue to run its online
forums with the financial support of one of its users.
The demise of Wesabe comes just four months
after the closure of UK-based personal finance start-up Kublax,
also due to cash-flow problems.
Mint, however, has been one of the rare success stories of the
PFM market, selling to Intuit for $170m in September last
year.