Why password managers are becoming so popular
The number of people globally using password managers is rapidly increasing. While the evidence and supporting data is clear in the numerous reports and analyses available online, we can see that trend even without these formal reports – an ever-increasing number of people around us are using one or other password manager or digital vault.
The primary reason for this is that the number of online tools that people use regularly is constantly increasing. Using the same password is a big security risk, so people need to keep track and manage an ever-increasing number of unique passwords. It’s not an easy task to come up with such passwords in the first place, never mind storing and tracking them.
Password managers are excellent at this job. They allow people to securely store, track, and manage a large number of passwords with ease.
The merging of digital vaults and password managers
Secure digital vaults emerged with the purpose of helping people organize and track their complex digital, financial, and physical assets. Digital vaults act as a single pane of glass, enabling people to have an overall view of their assets dispersed in various asset management systems and repositories – banks, insurance companies, neobanks, online trading platforms, digital wallets, and pension funds.
Soon after the emergence of digital vaults and password managers, there was a strong trend for blurring the boundaries and merging their functionality. Password managers started to enable users to catalog and manage other types of information, in addition to passwords – credit cards, bank accounts, insurance policies, social accounts, etc.
Secure digital vaults started to enable users to catalog and track their passwords, too. Effectively, the two types of vaults merged and currently are practically identical.
This was not a coincidence. In the grand scheme of things, passwords can be considered a type of digital asset. So why not add them to secure digital vaults?
Password managers catalog, track and manage passwords. These passwords are for various types of digital, financial, and physical assets. So why not add all the information about these assets to password managers?
It’s easy to see why these two seemingly different types of services merged. These days, whichever type you choose, chances are high that you’ll be able to manage both your passwords and your digital and financial assets.
The need for digital and financial asset protection
The very reason why password managers and secure digital vaults emerged in the first place was the increasing number of online accounts, as well as the digital and financial assets owned by the users.
This increasing number of assets and online accounts soon revealed another problem. If it was difficult for the owners to track them, this meant that it was almost impossible for the family members to track or at least be aware of them.
The secure vaults and password managers tried to solve this problem by enabling sharing. This effectively allows users to share certain information with certain people.
Unfortunately this solution is far from great.
The first big problem is that it relies on people to remember the information that is shared with them for decades to come. You are sharing the information about your assets with your loved ones to gain peace of mind, but this sharing imposes a burden on your family to remember the access details for many years to come. Chances are high that they will lose or forget the access details.
Password managers and digital vaults carry the inherent risk that your loved ones will lose or forget access details.
The second drawback of these services is that they rely on the people with whom you’ve shared details to get access to the information. These services don’t have the capability to detect unforeseen events happening to the users and to proactively notify the family members with whom the information is shared.
Password managers and digital vaults don’t detect unforeseen events happening to the users and don’t proactively notify their loved ones about previously shared passwords and assets.
Your family has to remember the access details and access the information. If they don’t remember the access details or they are lost, then all the information about the designated financial and digital assets, and the passwords, will simply be lost.
The third drawback of password managers and digital vaults is that they don’t provide support for the family members with whom the information is shared. If you have stock options, company stocks and ETFs, cryptocurrencies or life insurance, your family members have to carry the burden of identifying and locating these assets and claiming them.
It’s quite a complex task, especially if your family members are elderly parents, young children, or simply not in the financial domain. And if your family members and your assets are in different countries, the identifying and claiming process becomes even more complex, involving legislations in multiple jurisdictions and taxation differences between countries, not to mention the pure nuisance of having documentation in different languages.
Digital inheritance ensures financial and asset protection
Digital inheritance emerged as a service to bridge these big gaps. Its first big advantage is that it can detect unforeseen events. This is achieved usually through regular email confirmation or through the integration of the social network, messenger or platform of your choice, and interpreting activity there as an “alive” ping.
Digital inheritance services can detect when unforeseen events have happened to the users.
The second big advantage of digital inheritance services is that they can proactively inform your family members about the designated assets or passwords. Your loved ones should not have to carry the burden of remembering access details.
Digital inheritance services notify the family members not only by email, which can occasionally be missed or simply go to the spam folder, but also via a phone call from a real person. This ensures that they will get access to the assigned information.
Digital inheritance services ensure that the family members will be informed about the assigned assets and passwords in the case of an unforeseen event happening to the user.
The third big advantage is that they provide legal and tax advisory support for the designated beneficiaries in identifying, locating, and claiming the assets. This is especially useful if the assets are complex or in different countries, or when the family members are simply not financially proficient. In this case, digital inheritance services provide various types of support, for example, legal support to guide the beneficiaries in the process, help in obtaining the documents required to claim ownership, and tax advisory support, which is especially useful if the family members and the assets are in different countries.
Digital inheritance services provide additional legal and tax advisory support for the family members to identify, locate, and claim the assets.
Password managers and digital vaults with digital inheritance
Seeing the significant advantages of digital inheritance services, it’s not surprising that more and more password managers are extending their functionality by adding digital inheritance capabilities.
Password managers and digital vaults with digital inheritance provide the ultimate peace of mind.
This provides the best of both worlds – an easy way to track and manage complex assets and various passwords, as well as maximum asset protection, financial security for the family members, and the ultimate peace of mind.
