Privacy Policy

Last updated: 26 July 2026

Spendwise is a personal-finance app for New Zealanders. This policy explains what information we collect, why we use it, which service providers help us operate the app, and the choices you have — in plain English.

Information we collect

• Account information — your email address, an optional display name, and an internal user ID. Supabase handles authentication; passwords are hashed and are never visible to us.
• Bank and transaction information — only when you choose to connect a bank through Akahu. This can include account names and types, balances, transaction dates and amounts, merchant descriptions, and enriched categories. Access is read-only: Spendwise cannot move money or make payments.
• Information you add — budgets, goals, category corrections, optional Money profile answers and notes, and messages you send to the AI Coach.
• Information we derive — categories, recurring-payment patterns, savings opportunities, spending comparisons, forecasts, your Confidence Score, Safe to spend figure, and Money brief.
• Subscription information — Apple purchase history and current entitlement status needed to provide, restore, analyse, and protect paid features. Spendwise never receives your payment-card details.
• Notification information — if you opt in, a token that identifies this installation for notification delivery, plus limited delivery records used to prevent duplicates and diagnose failures.

Demo mode uses fictional financial data. Account, subscription, and any optional notification information still relate to your real Spendwise account.

How we use it

• To provide and secure your account and the features you request.
• To categorise spending, identify patterns, calculate personalised insights, and improve future categorisation from your corrections.
• To validate subscriptions, restore purchases, prevent fraud, and understand subscription performance.
• To send private, optional reminders and summaries. Lock-screen notifications avoid merchant names and exact financial amounts.
• To respond to support, security, legal, or reliability issues.

How AI is used

AI features are off until you turn them on. The first time you open a feature that uses AI, Spendwise tells you what would be sent and to whom, and asks your permission. Nothing is sent to Anthropic before you agree. You can withdraw permission at any time under Profile → AI features, which takes effect immediately; Spendwise keeps working without it.

With your permission, Spendwise uses Anthropic's API for three things:

• Coach replies. We send your message and a privacy-minimised summary containing relevant balance totals, spending categories, selected merchant and recurring-payment summaries, goals, and optional Money profile information.
• Money brief topics and wording. We send category totals and merchant summaries so the brief can pick what matters and describe a practical change. Every dollar figure shown is calculated by Spendwise, not by the AI.
• Categorising transactions. We send only the tidied shop or merchant name of transactions our own rules could not categorise — never the amount, date, balance or account.

We do not send your name, email, account numbers, bank credentials, or complete raw transaction rows to Anthropic. Free-text fields may contain whatever you choose to enter.

Anthropic states that commercial API inputs and outputs are not used to train its models by default and are normally deleted from its systems within 30 days, subject to limited safety and legal exceptions. Spendwise keeps your Coach history in your account so conversations remain useful until you clear it or delete your account. AI can be incomplete or wrong; it is not financial advice.

Service providers and storage

• Supabase provides authentication, database storage, and server functions. Primary Spendwise data is hosted in Sydney, Australia, with encryption in transit and at rest and database rules that isolate each user's records.
• Akahu provides consent-based, read-only access to New Zealand bank data. Spendwise never receives your bank login credentials.
• Anthropic processes the limited AI inputs described above.
• Apple and RevenueCat process purchase and entitlement information. RevenueCat is linked to your internal Spendwise user ID so paid access follows your account.
• Expo, Apple Push Notification service, and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging may route notifications. Expo states notification content is kept only long enough to deliver it.

These providers may process limited data outside New Zealand under their own privacy and security terms.

What we don't do

• We do not sell personal information.
• We do not use advertising networks or track you across other companies' apps and websites.
• We do not access contacts, precise location, photos, microphone, health data, or advertising identifiers.
• We do not move, hold, or lend money.

Retention and your choices

We keep account and financial history while your account is active so the app can show trends. Disconnecting your bank revokes the Akahu connection and removes synced accounts, transactions, recurring items, and insights from Spendwise. If a paid plan ends, we also revoke the bank connection and remove imported bank data; your Spendwise profile, manual budget, goals, and Money profile remain so you can keep using the Free plan or reconnect later. Turning notifications off unregisters this installation. Some minimal security, delivery, purchase, or legal records may be retained for a limited period where reasonably necessary.

Deleting your account

You can delete your Spendwise account in Profile → Delete account. This immediately removes your operational Spendwise data and revokes any Akahu connection. Deletion is irreversible. It does not cancel an Apple subscription; manage or cancel that first through your Apple Account subscriptions. Apple, RevenueCat, Anthropic, and other providers may retain limited records under their own legal, security, and retention obligations.

Security

We use encrypted network connections, iOS Keychain session storage, server-only credentials, least-privilege database access, and per-user access controls. No online system is risk-free; please use a unique password and tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorised access.

Not financial advice

Spendwise is an information tool. Nothing in the app is financial advice, and savings figures are estimates, never promises.

Your rights and questions

You can view and correct much of your information in the app, disconnect your bank, disable notifications, or delete your account. For access, correction, privacy, or deletion questions, contact us below.

Changes to this policy

If we make meaningful changes, we'll update this page and the date above.

Contact

Questions or concerns: hello@spendwise.nz