Kolkata, December 5: Today, we use the smartphone for almost everything. While smartphones can be a distraction, it does have its uses. Using certain smartphone apps can help you manage your finances better. In a study by Google in 2016, it was seen that people between the ages of 18-64 had an average 2.5 finance apps installed on their smartphones. We take a look at five types of financial apps you can have your smartphone to make your financial life simpler.

1. Wallets: When we talk about wallets we think of Paytm, GooglePay, PhonePe. These apps are useful for making cashless payments, sending money to others and also paying telephone and utility bills. They have rewards and cashback offers to lure customers, but you do not bank on those to make substantial savings. Choose 2-3 such wallets which you find easy to use and which covers all your needs. What’s more, through UPI you can link multiple bank accounts to these apps and pay directly and receive money to your bank accounts. This means you can check all your account balances too without needing to log into internet banking or going to an ATM.

2. Budgeting apps: There are a host of budgeting apps out there. Some of those are Walnut Expense tracking app, Money View and Perfios, to name a few.These apps come with a lot of budgeting features. They help them track your expenses according to different categories, set a budget and also read messages you receive so that you do not have to manually enter transactions you do through wallets or cards. These apps are free to use, but some have a paid version with added features. Using one of these apps diligently will help you know how you spend your money and make necessary adjustments to your spending patterns.

3. Bank apps: It is also a good idea to have apps of the banks you use on your phone. While banks also offer UPI-based wallets, they are not very common. If you have the banking app of your bank on the phone, you can use it for mobile banking, checking balances, sending money, requesting for a new cheque book and so on. Banks also let you directly invest in FDs, mutual funds and apply for loans through their app.

4. Aggregators: Banking aggregators like BankBazaar and insurance aggregators like PolicyBazaar let you check quotes and do comparison shopping before you apply for a loan or want to buy an insurance policy. So you can get to see what’s on offer by different service providers at a glance. These apps also let you apply for loans and credit cards and buy insurance policies right from the app. What’s more they have lots of useful articles on their blogs which can help you know more about banking and insurance products and how to use them.

5. Investment apps: A number of apps let you invest in stocks and mutual funds directly from their apps. While brokerage houses will have their apps for investing in stocks, apps like Kuvera, Scripbox and Groww let you invest in direct mutual funds and are hence cost effective. Investing through these apps is easy since the KYC process is simple and paperless.Plus you will they come with advisory services, helping you pick the right stocks and mutual funds. You can view all your investments in one dashboard and redeem funds directly from the app.