Show HN: Lannister – open-source wealth manager app | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Lannister – open-source wealth manager app

lannister.capital

102 pointsandresousa58 comments

Slick promotional website but not a single privacy disclosure or terms of service for an app that gathers financial data?

This is not something you push out after the MVP has shipped.

All the info is stored either on the device itself or synced via Blockstack if you wish to do so. The project is also entirely open-source - https://github.com/lannister-capital

I understand your intention, but you have a bit of an uphill battle. Users have to trust you on many levels:

1) The app running on your phone is powered by the software on github.

2) This will not change.

The only way I would use an app like this would be if it were offered by a financial institution that holds my assets. If your app caused me to lose money, I would be SOL. If their's did, they would be required to answer for it.

Lannister only holds references of your holdings at the moment. It doesn't store your holdings/assets directly, so there's no chance to be stolen, since they're not there. Lannister is not a bank account or crypto wallet, it's a portfolio management app only. We don't ask or store private keys or any personal banking information of any kind.

Interesting. I personally use https://outbankapp.com/en/.

The app is closed-source; everything is locally stored.

It allows me to track my bank accounts, including portfolios, etc. from most German and Dutch banks, credit cards, etc..

Additionally it can track BTC, ETH wallets, connect to Coinbase and a few other exchanges and membership programs.

I would never use a wealth management app requiring manual entry. That`s just slightly better than a spreadsheet. Keep up the work!

Caveat: Only supported in Germany and the Netherlands at the moment (IIRK).

Edit: A similar offering I just remembered: https://www.numbrs.com/en_uk/. Might be some good inspiration as well.

Looks nice. How does this app authenticate with your various financial accounts?

It stores your credentials locally. The whole situation should improve with PSD2 (EU perspective).

Give a closed source app my bank credentials? No thanks.

How real is the risk of a registered and legit business selling a banking app taking your banking credentials and stealing your money? I’d estimate it to be 0.

They’re extremely juicy target for hacking though.

It stores the data locally, so first you have to break into the system, then the encrypted container of the app. If someone does that then you are probably a pretty high value target and have different problems.

An open source, non audited app, that’s not even compiled yourself (iOS app) isn’t much different than that.

> The app is closed-source.

> It stores your credentials locally.

Can you confirm this?

My understanding of PSD2 was that it allows third party services to access bank records of customers who authorise them, not allowing customers themselves access to the API. As a result I assumed PSD2 wasn’t helpful for a totally local application. Am I misunderstanding that?

Thanks for the support. Outbank looks like a great app. With Lannister we would like to make sure that the data is not available to a third party by focusing on security and making the code auditable by anyone. This leads to less features or integrations being supported but it also provides a more secure environment. Nevertheless we will work hard to add more features that make managing your personal finance and wealth easier.

I wish we had apps like this for the US market; unfortunately we’re stuck with Personal Capital and Credit Karma.

Another caveat of that app, even though the website hides it pretty far in the T&C, is that it appears to be owned by "Verivox GmbH" : https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verivox

Translated to English the Wikipedia page says: "Verivox is a company that compares tariffs for telecom, electricity, gas, insurance, finance, vehicles, and commission-free real estate and brokers contracts for these services"

So they're using consumers to do their jobs, which probably harms consumers in long run by preventing a healthy competition amongst those services.

I think it's a great name! It is recognizable and well-associated with what you're building, even if the name-story accuracy isn't 100% - I think that would be serious nitpicking and you can always rename it something else later when the cost / benefit makes sense.

Thank you so much, we also believe that is the best approach. I wouldn't describe the context of naming the product and why we did it better than you just did :)

I'd have called it Iron Bank.

Game of Thrones spoiler ahead:

I am not wild about that name. The Lannisters are the bad guys throughout the run of the GoT story and by later seasons it is revealed that their wealth has mostly wasted away. They are only able to keep up appearances of wealth through taking on large amounts of debt and by looting their enemies. Yes, the single primary characteristic you would assign to the Lannisters is wealth. I am just not sure that is worth associating your product with all their secondary traits like deceit, fraud, selfishness, and ruthlessness.

I would also be worried about trademark/copyright issues.

I don't know enough about those laws to know the legal status of this, but that would definitely be a concern for me too. Also the lion iconography rules out any argument that the name isn't 100% GoT inspired.

Copyright is for non-commercial use, IIRC. If you’re not selling anything, it doesn’t apply. Not sure if that’s the case here.

> If you’re not selling anything, it doesn’t apply.

That's not even remotely true.

This is simply not true, sadly. Copyright applies regardless of intentions or outcomes; it’s only in certain limited fields that some activities are somewhat exempted (i.e. backups). This is clearly not one of them.

Can you copyright a person's surname (as it was used before GOT)?

Trademark is different.

That I agree. I was just correcting the view of the parent comment, which was wrong on its own.

Was referring to this:

https://www.expertlaw.com/library/intellectual_property/fair...

“The less commercial the use, the smaller the portion used, the lesser the import of that portion of the work to the whole, and the lesser the effect on the market for or value of the work, the more likely it will be that fair use doctrine will apply.”

I understand your point. Our goal was to name it after a person, like "Alfred" the productivity app for Mac (https://www.alfredapp.com), but we found that Lannister would be more appropriate as a reference to wealth management. Hope it does not lead you into thinking about the secondary traits.

Maybe it is just the ages of the references, but I think "Alfred" is a more general name that is less associated with the character. But more importantly he doesn't have the negative secondary traits associated with him that completely conflict with how you want people to think of your app. Using Lannister for a wealth management app is almost like naming your nutrition management app after a character with an eating disorder.

What about Mana Musa?

Maybe the "Iron Bank" or "Master of Coin" would be more appropriate than this..

Obviously it's so you don't end up like the Lannisters, broke and indebted to the Iron Bank :)

Let me lead off by saying I'm not a lawyer, but "House Lannister" is trademarked[0]. I would not be surprised if you receive a C&D notice.

[0]: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87704402&caseType=SERIAL_...

I wonder if this is allowed regarding copyright.

If it isn't, I'd suggest a GoT metaphore that is slightly less obvious (but still obvious). E.g. Golden Lion or My Golden Lion.

Will this app helps me to always pay my debt?

Lannister always pays its debts. Unfortunately, not yours :) In any case, we have on our roadmap some features such as setting financial goals and financial advice. We have a public roadmap here: https://github.com/orgs/lannister-capital/projects/1 any feedback is highly appreciated

Thank you for all the feedback and support. If you'd like to continue the discussion and helping with development join us on Discord at https://discordapp.com/invite/6SrsfUf.

Lannister is completely open-source and the code is available at https://github.com/lannister-capital

I've thought about building something similar to this for the US, but getting the data into the app is a difficult problem. What is the general opinion on using a device like Plaid?

Alternatively, I could support manual import of statements, but that would dramatically reduce the number of institutions that I could support.

To clarify, does this automatically fetch updated crypto/stock/etc prices so that I can see my exposure changing over time, or do I have to manually update the amount of money in each holding?

As far as I could see there is no way to add certain stocks/crypto/funds etc. basically just a slightly better spreadsheet, you have to enter all by yourself. That’s a pitty, I would like to have one where I just enter which stock I bought and when and it shows me the win/loss over time.

We're supporting 2 crypto (BTC and ETH) and 12 fiat currencies at the moment. And their prices get updated every time you open the app. If you have created several currencies, you'll see the total balance of your portfolio get updated. Today is a very good day to observe it growing if you have BTC or ETH :) Regarding stocks and other funds, we're not supporting them yet, but it's certainly on our roadmap.

Great idea an iphone. I might have a look at it on my daughter's iPod if she allows me to install :)

Or I'll just wait for the web version!

Thank you! We also have a public roadmap here: https://github.com/orgs/lannister-capital/projects/1 any suggestions or ideas for future development are very welcome!

Yeah +1 that this becomes more of a thing based on name alone.

You might need to explicitly state in company policy that:

- Crossbows not allowed at board meetings.

Yes, and we won't have armchairs!

Umm I am not sure if I am missing something, but where is the self hosted or source code I can compile for myself?

The iOS project is here: https://github.com/lannister-capital/lannister-ios

There seems to be a github link at the bottom of the page.

I couldn't see it from Chrome on my Android Galaxy S10+. Thanks!

Can I host this on my own system?

You can clone the project (https://github.com/lannister-capital/lannister-ios) and run the app on your device. We're working on a web version now, which is still WIP, but is also open-source (https://github.com/lannister-capital/lannister-app).

What's the main difference between this and GnuCash?

I don't see any information about the source code... No mention of Open source on the website.

We have it at the bottom of the page, but I agree that it's not very visible. We'll add it at the top of the page. Thanks for your feedback! Appreciate it!

Thanks!

This can pivot to an app for dating your sister

Low effort slow clap

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