Sometimes you catch a faint glimpse at the future. And sometimes that glimpse makes you smile.

Smile at Mint Data. It is the future and it is very good.

On the surface, Mint Data is just the numbers from Mint shared. Great, so now we know which store sells the cheapest coffee in Cleveland. As if that really matters.

But to describe it as that is to completely miss the point. First, the release of Mint Data a couple of weeks ago was not the release of the final iteration of Mint Data. Rather, Mint tells Bank Innovation that it will “add additional ways to separate the data in future releases” and is “considering releasing an API” for the data. Mint offered no timetable for either enhancement.

OK, so let’s say Mint never releases a Data API. Just the additional data sets will make Mint Data more valuable. But I will go out on a limb saying that Mint will, in fact, release an API (although what degree of access it offers is a whole other question that I won’t touch). The API will, despite its possible limitations, give consumers what they truly need: access to their data, even if only in aggregate. My hunch that Mint will release an API is based on the simple fact that it must know how tremendously valuable such data will be to consumers. And Mint/Intuit is in the business of creating value.

That’s a longwinded way of – not actually answering the central question, which is Why is Mint Data a glimpse of the future? Because Mint Data is the first baby step toward allowing consumers to build their own analytical models. Right now, consumers largely can use only pre-programed analytical tools to determine their consumer finance decisions. They plug a number or two into an online calculator that was programmed in the late 1990s to figure out whether they should rent or buy a home. They calculate how much car they can afford per month, when they don’t really understand the cost pressures they currently face. But consumers cannot respond to this information handicap in any real manner, because they do not have enough data. They cannot parse down how much to budget for coffee in the 10035 ZIP. They cannot analyze the rent-vs.-buy quandary without taking into account current housing trends. If Mint Data releases the amount of data it should, then consumers will be able to make such calculations. In fact, they can take all the data in Mint, see the trend over time, and then build a simple model that calculates how housing . And if Mint doesn’t do it, another PFM will.

Can consumers really use this data in the manner that I am suggesting? Most cannot. But I suspect that someone will figure out how to build a web platform that facilitates the use of such data. You smiling yet?