It was back in September of 2015 when Prosper announced they had purchased the personal finance analytics company called BillGuard for $30 million. At the time this acquisition made sense, it was a way for Prosper to maintain engagement with their customers and prospects beyond just a loan transaction.
BillGuard was relaunched in March of last year as Prosper Daily with a focus on financial well-being. By downloading the app users could keep track of their spending on their credit card and bank accounts, protect their identity and track their credit score.
Alas Prosper Daily will shortly be discontinued. Prosper told me that as of August 31 Prosper Daily will be no more. I reached out to David Kimball, the CEO of Prosper to get his reasoning behind this move.
He told me that the decision was based around focus. While the app was great it was not consistent with the core focus of their business. It was more of an ancillary service and Prosper has become laser focused on their core business this year. Existing users will be notified about a similar app, called Clarity Money, where they can transition and continue to track their finances.
Prosper has retained a few people on the Prosper Daily engineering team and this move will enable them to work on creating a better borrower and investor experience. Improving the web-enabled mobile experience is a key goal for that team now as mobile remains a central part of their development efforts. David didn’t rule out releasing another app at some point in the future but it would be different to the Prosper Daily app.
I asked David about how their business was doing overall and he responded with a great deal of enthusiasm. While he couldn’t share details yet I heard on the grapevine that Prosper’s originations came in around $775 million in Q2. This would be up significantly from the $586M they did in Q1. I also heard that they were cash flow positive in Q2. No wonder David feels that Prosper is on the right track today and they are well on their way to building a sustainable and profitable company.
Despite the closure of Prosper Daily David told me their mission remains unchanged: they are looking to advance the financial wellbeing of all their customers. Today, this is done primarily through their personal loan product.
My Take
I see where Prosper is coming from, they need to make their core business successful. I thought it would be a good customer acquisition tool and while Prosper would not share their engagement numbers Prosper Daily was clearly was not pulling its weight there.
It is interesting that new companies like Upgrade are making a big push to engage with their customers through an app and MoneyLion continues to add new features to its popular app. The world is moving to mobile, that is not in dispute, but clearly there are different ways to engage customers and prospects in this medium.
Given Prosper’s challenges over the past year and a half I completely endorse this renewed focus on their core business. If they knew back in 2015 what was in store for them in 2016 I don’t think they would have purchased BillGuard. I still think that engaging with their target market through an app is a good idea and I like the efforts of MoneyLion and Upgrade in this area. But Prosper needs to become a profitable business with their core product, personal loans, and it looks like they are on track to do just that.
What a joke. Billguard was great. Prosper bought it, and less than 18 months later discontinued it.
Empower seem to do very similar things to Prosper. I have been using it for some time and really like it – https://empower.me/
If you are counting on Prosper to honor its identity protection commitments, you will be disappointed. They are no longer taking calls on their customer service line. And you have lost what you paid for a year of protection. The parent company has gone on to better things and wiped your dust from their greedy feet.
Well, to be fair, I did receive a prorata refund for my one year identity protection subscription.
Very surprising that Billguard could not be integrated in core business
Does FinArt has flagging feature similar to Prosper?
We are working on the flagging feature. Will be happy to take more suggestion from you, please get in touch at finart.app@gmail.com
Prosper was amazing, and I can honestly say I’m going to miss it.
Had nothing but bad accounting with Prosper
There is unfortunately no app as far as I can see thst will let me manage transaction like Prosper Daily could. They should find a buyer for it or something so it can continue living. I wish they never would have bought it because thry have ruined it for those of us that rely heavily on it
Seriously. I am absolutely floored and reeling. What a move to just cut it like that! I can’t believe it. That thing has become a vital part of my life, enabling me to keep track of what I’m spending, on what/who/where. It helped me stay on top of security too. I’ve been spoiled by Amazon’s customer service. I definitely feel tossed aside here– like two winks weren’t even given to consider the customer.
Does anyone know of another app that lets you “approve” or “flag” individual transactions like Prosper?
Can’t seem to find one.
FinArt looks to be on similar track, lets c if they will add flagging feature too.
Thanks, Jason. Is FinArt available for iPhone? I can’t find it.
Hannah, Even I can’t find it for iPhone. It looks to be only on Android as per their site.
finart looks gud, though not as much as I liked billguard. Finart works on bank SMS alerts, anyone has any idea how can I enable these SMS alerts?
Well. I hated the Prosper Daily name. It sounds like a fly by night company name from 1950s. Personally I never saw a natural connection between them, or maybe I was suspicious about, a mortgage company buying a consumer protector app. I’ll check out some of the substitutes you folks have mentioned
There is a reason why it sounded fly by night. It has flown!
I use Geltbox Money app (www.geltbox.com).
What makes Geltbox Money special and unique?
No need to use online financial aggregators, which are limited to certain financial institutions.
Record your own downloaders and have them run automatically in your device.
Can work in most countries in the world.
Data and credentials are stored and encrypted locally.
No need to give away your user names and passwords.
No need to store your personal financial information online
Prosper could have kept this service which was basically the best budget app around. I fail to see how maintaining some software prevents you from “focusing” on the “core” practice of lending money in another department. That’s nothing more than business double-speak for failure. That you would invest that much money to buy Billguard as a lure for your “core” and possibly strip it of resources suggests a cavalier attitude with use of your financial reserves or poor business planning. In either situation I’ve been played as the client and that makes me very leery of using a peer-to-peer loan service like Prosper. Oh, and the referral to Clarity Money is a farce. That was one lousy application the two weeks I put up with it.
I liked Bill Guard the best thr new name sounded weird and you didn’t even know what the app was about and sounds like a religious app.
The new app you download sucks. I can’t even use one of my banks with the app as its adds it then a few minutes later is unable to verify. I contacted support and they said due to my authentication that I’m unable to use that bank? What kind of crap is that? It worked fine with Bill Guard and Prosper Daily.
The only interesting thing about the new app is it let’s you link your acorns account to keep track of that too.
Man I missed it as bill guard with the other security features!
I think we all feel tossed in the garbage as a customer
When Prosper acquired Bill Guard, I knew this was going to happen. I stopped using it. On two occasions, Bill Guard saved me from fraud. It was a great service.
“Laser Focus” translates to we failed! Proper failed at its attempt to diversify. They didn’t even have to create a product. They bought one with a userbase. Obviously, businesses diversification isn’t in this companies future as long as they are lead by David Kimball.
Absolutely furious this app is closing! I have used it everyday for over 3 years!!!!! I do all of our accounting with this app! I have now tried 4 other apps since hearing PD was stopping service and can’t find a single one that even compares with Prosper Daily! The one they recommend is a joke !! I really can’t believe they would just stop services on Aug 31– couldn’t they at least waited till the end of the year so at least the people who used the app could close out the year .. I would never do business with a second part of their business after this .. any suggestions to another app that is even close would be appreciated– Apple App please…
I couldn’t even get the app to export my data yesterday after nearly two years of using Prosper Daily. What a completely disappointing end to what was an amazing tool. I look forward to the day Propser goes belly up…
Couldn’t agree more. After the way we’ve been treated as customers, I hope they are a big fail. I loved Billguard/Prosper- to buy it only to kill it shows a complete lack of consideration to the many users who relied on the app. If you’re going to do so anyway, give people more advance notice and take it through end of year, so we’re not left hanging mid year. Has anyone tried Empower? I read on another thread that it’s the closest app to Prosper- although not nearly as robust- lacks flagging functionality.
I just found out the app, and my data, are gone today with a “goodbye” message when I opened it. I had no idea this happened; no email, no in app message. Nothing. Three years of history, gone…. thems the breaks huh
The original group was made up of young, talented people. At the sad end, whoever was left in charge had lost all sense of ethical behavior. And the end came at a terrible time as 143million people have been tossed under the bus by Equifax. It is a digital jungle we find outselves in.
Does anyone known what happens to our personal data? Has it been deleted and safe from a Corp. Hack?