Account aggregator Kublax has gone into administration after failing to find funding to develop their site.
Kublax sent an email to its users yesterday, explaining the situation:
It is with great regret that we announce the closure of our service as we have been forced to take the business into administration. Over the course of the last 6 months we have been trying hard to raise funding which would have allowed us to launch our enhanced new product and develop our offering further. Unfortunately we now have to admit defeat. We are sorry that we have not been able to repay your trust in Kublax and particularly disappointed not to be able to launch the new enhanced version of the service which was being shaped to a very large extent by your Feedback on the current service.
Users will be particularly worried about their bank account login information sitting around on Kublax servers, but Kublax state that as they were based on the Yodlee account aggregator platform, all accounts will be deleted, and transactional data, which is held on Kublax servers, will be deleted by 19th February.
Warning signs
The writing had been on the wall for a few weeks. I noticed a thread in the MoneySavingExpert forum from a user who was having problems getting in touch with Kublax following a problem they had with the service. A normally responsive company had suddenly become difficult to contact, which is never a good sign.
Sadly, their website has yet to be updated with the news, and it seems that the registration pages are still available, so unsuspecting new users could still sign up for the site without realising it’s about to shut. Frustrating.
Some alternatives to Kublax: Yodlee, MoneyDashboard (launching soon), Lovemoney Online Banking
Irony
As @TomSessions pointed out on Twitter, it’s ironic that a site that was designed to help you look after your money failed to look after its own. It looks like any monetisation of the essentially free service was too late in arriving.
Kublax were the UK pioneers, they probably took too much development pain and were the first UK Yodlee client. The service is not faultless, many UK banks are not listed, and customer service is passionate and powerful when you are dealing with peoples banking transactions. I think these reasons, coupled with the hyper competitive UK distribution battle in personal finance probably undid all the efforts that had come from the Kublax team.
Theres a more in depth post on our thoughts at our blog http://bit.ly/bSv5Xo
Saul Devine MD – lovemoney.com
Man, that sucks! I hate when companies go under :(
Money Dashboard fully appreciates the difficulties Kublax have faced with fund raising and are sorry to hear of their misfortune.
Money Dashboard offers an alternative to Kublax. We are very secure and well financed – we’ve already received £1M in funding at the tail end of 2009.
Given the trust our users are putting in us it is important for us to ensure that the product is thoroughly tested and well executed before launch.
Our free online personal finance software tool, also using Yodlee technology is currently in the process of beta testing. Currently we have more people subscribing than we are able to welcome to Beta but look forward to inviting you to join in staggered groups over the next few weeks as we continue to polish our feature rich service.
Money Dashboard not only enables you to tag your transactions but also helps you to set up budgets, allowing you to track your spend using our monthly tracker.
With Money Dashboard you can build a realistic picture of your spending, identify where savings can be made and set a budget you can actually achieve.
Closing a business is never easy and I think Kublax was really disappointed that they were not able to deliver all that they have promised. This is the reason proper planning is so important in starting and managing any type of business venture. The company must be able to make calculated projections of costs and revenue,with some room for unforeseeable circumstances.