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8 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | MAY 2017 By Steve Benoff Let's talk about financial apps. Banking and investment apps are helpful in many ways. I use them to check balances, pay bills, transfer money, and make investments. But financial apps can leave your money vulnerable; so you need to protect yourself. Most apps don't require any login. For apps and websites that do, I usually use relatively simple passwords using seven or eight letters and numbers. But financial apps and websites all require passwords, and for them I use pretty complex passwords comprised of 21 upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Such passwords are great for security and are hard to enter on a computer. On my phone, they're almost impossible. That's why I only use financial apps that employ fingerprint ID. If you have a late model iPhone or Android phone, you have fingerprint ID. If you're not sure, just check under settings. On an iPhone it's called Touch ID. It will take a few minutes to set up, but once you've entered one or more fingerprints, you'll be able to unlock your phone without having to enter a code, make Apply Pay and Walmart Pay easier, and enable fingerprint ID on some of your apps. Many financial apps allow fingerprint ID so you can have a complex password and easy access to your app at the same time. You will, however, need to enter the complex password once to enable fingerprint ID, but that will be the last time for that app. I use four financial apps in particular, but all the major institutions have them. I use Capitol One to track my credit card activity. I'm a little disappointed that the app isn't quite as up to the moment as the website. But it does come in useful sometimes. And, even though the most recent charges aren't shown, the balance is up to the minute. It has a very useful Alerts feature. For example, right now it's showing some double charges. The app is alerting me to the fact that there have been two recent charges to Amazon for the exact same amount on the same day. In effect, the app wants to know if I intentionally charged the same amount twice or if there was a mistake. When I press the alerted item, I'm given two choices to the question "Are these charges correct?" – "No, Help Me Fix This" or 'Yes, This Is Correct." I press yes because on the day in question I bought two e-books for the same price. I got a similar alert for a double subscription charge that occurred because I paid for a magazine for myself and also for my daughter. I'm sure some people find these alerts annoying, but I appreciate being given notice to a possible incorrect charge on my credit card. Don't do what I do. Every investment advisor will tell you the same thing. Don't check your investments frequently. It leads to anxiety and bad decisions. But I'm a market junkie. I use the Stocks app that comes with iPhones(see inset photo) several times a day to watch the direction of the market. Listed there are the Dow, NASDAQ, and the S&P 500. I can include individual stocks by adding them to the list by their ticker symbol and even the price of a Euro in dollars. Since all of my investments are through Vanguard, I can see their state on the Vanguard app. With this app, I can buy, sell, and exchange. Admittedly, going to the Vanguard website makes these transactions easier. But if I'm not at home, I can do any website transaction on my phone. I use my Chase Bank app less often than the others because I find it easier to bank at home on my computer. But if I need to know my account balance or transfer money, I can access my account on my phone thanks to the app. There are a couple of other financial apps I use in addition to these main ones. Since my investments are limited solely to the S&P 500 index fund, there's no earthly reason I should follow the prices of oil and gold. Nevertheless I do, and I use an app called Black Gold for current prices of oil and gold and many other energy and metals commodities. If I want to know how exchange rates are doing, I use the XE Currency app for current prices of the Euro, British Pound, Israeli Shekel, and any currency I want to add to the list. These apps demonstrate the power, convenience, and diversity of apps available to all of us. Since they're free, I can indulge any interest. If I had to pay for them, I'd quickly whittle down my list of apps. So take advantage of the limitless world of apps. Do you use an app you'd like to share with others. Let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. FINANCIAL APP$ THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! iPhone Stock App

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