MyBudget

MyBudget is an Australian financial services company based in Adelaide, South Australia, which provides personal budget management services.

MyBudget

Company type	Private
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1999
Founder	Tammy Barton
Headquarters	Adelaide, South Australia
Key people	Tammy Barton
Services	Personal Budgeting

History

MyBudget was founded in 1999^[1] by Tammy Barton.^[2][3] Their first office was located in Adelaide, South Australia.

Criticism and malware

In December 2013, MyBudget was named in a national current affairs television report as "profiteering at the expense of people who are struggling with debt".^[4] MyBudget issued a statement responding to the report, claiming that "the segment was an unbalanced attack on our industry and that many of the comments made are inaccurate".^[5]

In 2017, MyBudget was the object of a class action due to withholding interest accrued by clients.^[6] In September 2018, the courts dismissed the proceedings, with Judge Lee stating that "MyBudget obtains and suffers the pluses and minuses of the bank accounts necessary to discharge its obligations to provide the services," and, in addition, "The Provision did not cause an overall detriment, financial or otherwise, to clients".^[7]

In May 2020, MyBudget was the confirmed target of a cyberattack. As a result, the company quickly moved its employees into work-from-home arrangements amid the coronavirus outbreak.^[8] Automatic transfers were interrupted, but progressed manually. Customers expressed concerns as to whether the significant personal data held by MyBudget had been leaked or hacked.^[9] Later, hackers claimed to have stolen data from MyBudget using ransomware and threatened to publish it unless paid.^[10] During the ransomware attack "users were unable to view their account balance for at least seven days."^[11] In a statement to the media on 15 May 2020, MyBudget stated that there was "no credible evidence that significant data was accessed or will be misused [h]owever we can't rule this out and are taking all cautionary measures".^[8]