Budgeting for people who care where their data goes

The real problem

Your transactions say a lot about you: where you live, where you shop, who you give money to, what you’re worried about. Many free finance apps are paid for by advertising or by recommending financial products, which means that information is part of the business.

There’s a second worry: access. Some budgeting tools have asked for your online banking password, or connect to your bank in ways that are hard to see and harder to undo. And inside a household, privacy matters too. Sharing a budget with a partner shouldn’t mean every personal purchase is on display.

A practical approach: questions to ask any finance app

Before you trust any budgeting service with your money’s history, it’s worth asking:

1. How is it paid for? If not by you, find out by what.
2. Does it need your bank password? Can you use it without connecting your bank at all?
3. How do you sign in? Passkeys or two-step sign-in should be available, not an afterthought.
4. Can you see your signed-in devices and sign one out?
5. Can you leave with your data, in a format another tool can read?
6. Who in your household can see what?

Then do your part: use a unique password or a passkey, turn on two-step sign-in, and keep your email account (the key to every password reset) just as secure. Protect your money online with passkeys and 2FA walks through the setup.

How Kemback answers those questions

• Paid for by its plans. No ads, no selling data, no financial product offers. The Free plan has no time limit; Plus is planned at $79 a year or $7.99 a month and isn’t on sale yet.
• No bank passwords, ever. Kemback never asks for or stores your bank credentials. Today you download a file from your bank (OFX, QFX, QIF or CSV) and import it, so Kemback doesn’t need any connection to your bank at all.
• Passkeys and two-step sign-in. Sign in with a passkey, or add an authenticator app as a second step. Signed-in device management shows where you’re signed in and lets you sign out the rest.
• Households kept apart. Each household’s data is isolated in the database itself, not only by the application, so one household can’t see another’s.
• Privacy inside the household. Each person signs in separately. Any account can be private to its owner: its transactions stay out of others’ view, and its spending counts only in the owner’s view of the budget.
• Roles with limits. Give someone the viewer role, or the advisor role for an accountant, and they can look without changing anything.
• A tamper-evident activity log records changes in your household, so you can see who did what.
• Export everything as JSON or CSV, at any time.

See security for more on how Kemback protects your account.

What it doesn’t do

Kemback is a cloud service. Your transactions are stored on Kemback’s servers so that you can use them from a browser and your iPhone, and share them with your household. If you want data that never leaves your own computer, a desktop program or a spreadsheet is a better fit.

When automatic bank sync arrives with Plus, it will use Plaid to connect to your bank. Kemback won’t store your bank password either way, and if you’d rather not connect your bank, importing files is part of the Free plan.

Good security on Kemback’s side doesn’t replace good habits on yours. Use a passkey or two-step sign-in, and keep your email secure. For how private accounts work in practice, read private accounts in a shared budget.

Questions

Does Kemback sell my data or show ads?

No. Kemback is paid for by its plans, not by advertising, selling data or showing you financial product offers.

Do I have to connect my bank?

No. Today you import OFX, QFX, QIF or CSV files you download from your bank yourself. Kemback never asks for or stores your bank password.

What about bank sync on Plus?

Automatic bank sync is planned for the Plus plan, through Plaid, and isn't on sale yet. Kemback still won't store your bank password, and importing files is part of the Free plan.

How do I protect my Kemback account?

Use a passkey, or turn on two-step sign-in with an authenticator app. You can see your signed-in devices and sign out any you don't recognize.

Can I take my data with me?

Yes. Export everything as JSON or CSV at any time, from Your data in the app.