The first time a budgeting app asked me for my bank username and password before it would do anything, I closed it. Not because I didn't trust the company. Because I didn't trust the design.
A money app shouldn't need the keys to your bank to count what you've spent. So we built Marvin from the opposite end: never require a bank login — and still be fast, honest, and genuinely useful.
Login-free is the default, and it's the way we'd still recommend you use Marvin. Here's why — and, further down, the optional connection we added for the days you'd rather not.
The login-free way (and why it's the default)
Three intake paths, no bank credentials anywhere:
- Drop your statement. Export a PDF or CSV from your bank and drop it into Marvin. Marvin Vision reads the whole thing — every line, categorized — in seconds, and hands it back for one-tap approval. A month of spending, sorted, in the time it takes to download a file.
- Snap a receipt. Photograph it with your phone and Marvin Vision pulls merchant, total, date and category in under a minute — paper, PDFs, even screenshots from your bank app.
- Type it. "Coffee 5 today", "Uber 22 yesterday" — plain English becomes a clean entry.
None of it needs your online-banking password. You decide what Marvin sees, and every entry exists because you added it — not because a script ran while you were asleep.
The friction is the feature
When an app silently imports everything, people stop looking. The dashboard tells you what you spent, but you didn't notice spending it — and you can't change a number you never saw. Dropping in a statement or snapping a receipt takes a few seconds, and those few seconds put you back in the loop as an active reader of your own money. That's not a limitation we apologise for. It's the point.
Honest, immediate data
Reading what you give it also means Marvin is honest about what it knows. No waiting on a feed that lands a day or two late, flips pending charges back and forth, or quietly duplicates a bill. The data is yours and it's current, because you handed it over on purpose.
But sometimes you just want it imported
We'd rather build the thing people actually want than be precious about it. Typing or uploading isn't for everyone, every day. So for Pro+ members in the US and Canada (more countries on the way), there's now an optional bank connection: link once, and Marvin can auto-update your balance and pull in recent transactions for you to review.
And it holds the same line as everything else. When you use it, you sign in through our secure bank-connection provider — your password goes to the provider and your bank, and we never see or store it. You can disconnect anytime, and anything already imported stays as your records. If you ever drop Pro+, the connection isn't left dangling: it stays active until your current plan period ends, then disconnects automatically at the source — no lingering access, nothing quietly reading your account in the background. Pick it back up later with a fresh sign-in whenever you like.
Why only Pro+?
Because it's a convenience, not the product — and the product doesn't depend on it. Marvin Vision — drop a statement, snap a receipt, and it's sorted — is on Starter, Pro and Pro+. The optional auto-import is the hands-off shortcut we bundle into Pro+, our most complete plan; it doesn't read your money any better or unlock smarter insights, it just saves you the upload. On another plan you're not missing Marvin — you're using it the way we'd recommend anyway.
The honest version
A one-tap connection wins on raw speed — we won't pretend otherwise. What we believe is that it should be your choice, not the toll you pay at the door. Most money apps make connecting your bank the only way in. We made it the option you reach for if and when you want it, on top of a product that's complete without it.
Use the login-free way, use the connection, or mix the two. Either way, you're never the thing we're selling, and you're always the one deciding what Marvin gets to see.
More on how we handle data — encryption at rest, deletion guarantees, and a list of things we explicitly never do — on our privacy page.