Goldmend Money

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Privacy and security for your money app: hide amounts, lock the app and keep backups

How to keep your financial data private on your phone: hiding balances in public, using a PIN and fingerprint lock, and backing up safely.

Goldmend Money
4 min read

Your spending history says a lot about you: where you go, what you buy, who you support, how much you earn. It deserves the same care as your bank login.

The good news is that keeping it private is mostly about a few simple settings and habits. This guide covers the main risks and what to do about each.

Risk 1: someone sees your screen

The most common privacy leak is not a hacker. It is someone glancing at your phone on the train, at the office or at a family gathering.

What helps:

  • Hide balances when you open a finance app in public.
  • If the app has an option to always start with amounts hidden, turn it on. You can still reveal them with one tap when you need to.
  • Lower screen brightness or tilt the phone away in crowded places.

Risk 2: someone picks up your phone

Children, relatives, colleagues and repair shops may all handle your phone at some point. A phone screen lock is the first line of defence. An app lock adds a second one for your most sensitive apps.

What helps:

  • Use a strong screen lock on your phone.
  • Add a separate PIN to your money app.
  • Use fingerprint or face unlock for convenience, with a PIN as a backup.
  • Choose a PIN that is not your birthday, 1234 or the same as your bank card PIN.

Risk 3: you lose your data

If your data lives only on your phone, losing or breaking the phone means losing your records. That is the trade-off for keeping data offline and private.

What helps:

  • Back up regularly. Once a month is a good rhythm, plus before any phone change or repair.
  • Save the backup somewhere you control, such as your own cloud drive or email.
  • Check now and then that you can find the latest backup file.

Risk 4: the backup itself leaks

A backup file contains your financial history. Anyone who gets it can read it with the right app.

What helps:

  • Do not send backup files to group chats or shared folders.
  • Store backups in an account protected by a strong password and two-step verification.
  • Delete old backups you no longer need.

Risk 5: scams pretending to be your finance app

Scammers often pretend to be banks, apps or government agencies to get logins or one-time passwords.

What helps:

  • Be cautious about any message asking you to "verify" an account by clicking a link.
  • Never share your bank login, PIN or one-time password with anyone.
  • Regulators such as MAS in Singapore, Bank Negara Malaysia, Scamwatch in Australia and the FTC in the USA publish scam awareness guidance, and each country has an official way to report a scam. Check their official sites for current advice and how to report a scam.

A useful check: an app that does not use accounts or bank links has no reason to ask for your bank password at all.

Local-first vs cloud apps

Some finance apps sync to the cloud and link to your bank. That is convenient, but it means your data lives on someone else's servers. Others keep everything on your phone. That is more private, but backups are your responsibility.

Neither is right for everyone. What matters is knowing which kind you are using, and protecting it accordingly.

Try it in Financce

Financce stores your data only on your phone. There is no account and no bank link, and nothing is sent online. Sign-in and sync are planned but not available yet.

  1. Hide amounts: tap the eye icon on Home. Balances, income, savings and spending show as ••••.
  2. Always start hidden: in Settings → Privacy, turn on Always start hidden. Amounts stay hidden every time you open the app until you tap the eye.
  3. App lock: go to More → App lock, choose a 4-digit PIN and confirm it. Turn on Unlock with fingerprint or face if you like. Financce asks for the PIN when you open it, and again if you leave it for more than 30 seconds.
  4. Back up: in Settings, tap Back up and save the file to a safe place, such as your Google Drive. Use Restore from backup on a new phone.
  5. Export: Export spreadsheet (CSV) gives you a copy you can open in Excel or Google Sheets.

One important note: a forgotten app lock PIN cannot be reset inside the app. Uninstalling removes the lock and all data on the phone. If you use the lock, keep a recent backup.

This article is general information, not financial advice.

Try it in Financce, the Goldmend Money app for everyday money. Get Financce

General information, not financial advice. Figures are examples.

Next: Set up Financce in 10 minutes: accounts, bills, budgets and your first expense