Suncorp Bank offers online budgeting app

Suncorp Bank’s Internet banking suite now has an integrated online financial management application that allows people to set budgets and monitor spending patterns.

The bank implemented the BankFast Budgeting application from local software company Sandstone Technology.

Bankfast Budgeting displays graphs of an overall position for a current month and projected savings for future months.

The application also automatically suggests savings targets based on a customer’s previous expenditure to help plan a realistic budget.

Choosing to increase or decrease spending in a category will show the impact on savings over time.

Suncorp is marketing the free service as “Budget Tracker” within its Internet banking portfolio, which suffered technical glitches back in September.

Earlier this year Suncorp entered into a three-year mobility contract with Telstra and CIO Jeff Smith is pushing for more adoption of agile methodologies in non-IT areas of the bank.

To get access to the app customers need to register through Internet banking and three months of Suncorp Bank account transactions will be imported into Budget Tracker.

According to Suncorp, customers need to use Budget Tracker at least once every 90 days to keep the registration active.

Sandstone CEO Bob Hall said more banks will offer online financial management tools as part of their online banking service.

“Previously customers were primarily attracted to banking institutions offering the lowest home loan rates or the highest term deposit rates but responsible banking practices through tools such as online financial management are now seen as an important acquisition and retention tool,” Hall said.