Mint itself, like a lot of personal/SME finance apps, started out as a layer on top of Yodlee, or a similar service, at the time providing a technology/data layer for other apps to work with, so it was less giving passwords to apps, but having them pass-through to a heavy lifter. I agree giving passwords away is not wise, however.
I could talk for hours on on changes in APIs happening over the next couple of years here if you fancied. If you'd like to know more, just reply saying so and I can drop you a mail.
I hated Mint, and Quicken, and Microsoft Money (back in the day), but for us YNAB really nails the sweet spot. It empowers you with your money without bogging you down.
For purchases, I put in less than one minute per transaction (for data entry). For bills, I set them up as recurring scheduled transactions on the same day of each month. I then verify them when they become current, shifting the date or the amount as needed, takes a few seconds for each one. I've done the same with my income (reliable, salaried, paid bi-weekly).
I only track cash assets and CCs. My investments, retirement accounts, and other assets don't get tracked because I don't consider them part of my budget (though contributions to them are). So once a week (more early on, getting the hang of things), I go to my bank and CC websites and make sure I haven't missed any transactions, clear all the ones they show as cleared, and reconcile all accounts. This takes less than 5 minutes per account if done this frequently.
All told, I'm probably spending less than an hour a week in YNAB, and half of it is updating the budget itself as income comes in and needs to be allocated, or verifying that I have the money before making a purchase.
I've been working on a POC type of project where instead of connecting to your bank account, the service would just parse the email alert that gets sent out any time your card/account is used.
There's more up-front work with setting up alerts for your accounts, but this way you get the benefits of automatic expense tracking without worrying about your bank credentials.
I have found this to be the best way for me to track my finances. I can easily get information from CSVs that I download and am able to use plain text and tools surrounding that (snippets, python scripts) in quite an effective manner.
I would say the number one reason most consumer finance software suck (especially mobile apps for budgeting or aggregation) is because they try to tackle social problems with technical solutions.
My experience of developing, securing and working with these apps is that, for the most part, they quickly reach a cap on how effective they can be without becoming very opinionated. Most apps could use more opinionated money management features. Instead, you have a hundred apps in a very crowded space, all of which try to solve your inability to budget your money effectively with a polished UI and more information than you'll reasonably use.
Ideally the gap shouldn't exist because enough people are clamoring for these services, Asset Management the umbrella term is a high touch activity and the banks and managers make a killing by going after high net worth individuals.
A lot of startups especially after the chatbot and AI craze are working on this issue.
Let's say a startup comes up with a solution, would you trust them with access to your bank account?
If you are serious about this, I would look into Plaid but I would probably recommend VC funding because I am sure integration isn't cheap (if other providers are anything to go off; they cost thousands per month)
That aside there are hundreds of competitors. It has to be the most saturated software market.