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It seems to me that many of the banks' concerns are legit. I personally am not particularly keen on yet another API being made available to a bunch of rapaciou

It seems to me that many of the banks' concerns are legit. I personally am not particularly keen on yet another API being made available to a bunch of rapacious VC-funded startups that facilitates my intimately personal financial info being spread around. Personally I bank with metro bank in the UK, they're new, competitive, and frankly pretty darn good, all for free. Do I need even more "financial services" thrown at me when there are apparently zillions of bricks and mortar operators already offering me everything from credit cards, subprime, insurance, car finance, re-mortgaging, yada yada yada yada ad infinitum? I would argue that in this case, the banks' and my interests are somewhat aligned. They're protecting my privacy! How many profit seeking entities on the internet can say that? I get it that fintech would dearly love to get its hands on people's money, but is there actual demand from said people for even more financial services? Or does this post simply amount to self-interested regulatory lobbying for a zero sum transfer of economic rents to the fintech space. Because you just know that if these APIs come about, fintech will find all sorts of dubiously "persuasive" ways to get people to allow access, possibly against their own interests.

nimish 10y ago
I bank with a major bank in the UK whose app is basically trash. I have a credit card with a different provider If I want a quick assessment of my accounts, either I need to log in to multiple accounts and add them together, or I can use an account aggregation service like yolt Unfortunately nobody supports secure delegated auth, so you risk compromise.
dharma1 10y ago
You should be able to own your financial data, and access it in various ways. Incumbent banks have been incredibly bad at creating modern digital user experiences. To analyse my spending, I have to login to my online bank with a fob and various passwords, download statements in .csv format (month by month, no batch download) and plot them in excel. It's not great. I am really looking forward to more open banking API's. Monzo have one, a couple of others, but very few. I have been working on a side project for the kind of banking experience I would want [1] - but it won't be possible without banks opening up API's. [1] http://bixtr.com http://bixtr.com
- lhnz 10y ago
  You should take a look at Teller [http://teller.io http://teller.io].
  - dharma1 10y ago
    Looks good - but it's just a mailing list? Also not sure I want to give r/w access to my transactions to someone I don't trust
    - sjtgraham 10y ago
      Teller founder here. Bixtr looks cool. Would love to grab a cup of tea. sg at teller . io
- aembleton 10y ago
  That's a good looking webpage and phone shots.
  - dharma1 10y ago
    Thanks! Building the front end and ML layer at the moment and starting to show it to people
- Silhouette 10y ago
  Incumbent banks have been incredibly bad at creating modern digital user experiences. To analyse my spending, I have to login to my online bank with a fob and various passwords, download statements in .csv format (month by month, no batch download) and plot them in excel. It's not great. That is certainly true, but it's not as if the shiny new fintech startups are necessarily any better. You'd think it would be business finance 101 to be able to reconcile money that a payment service collects from your customers and then deposits in your bank account with the money you expected them to be collecting, but unless there's been yet another API change lately, none of the services we use support a simple, reliable way to do this.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
The real WTF is that it seems to all be about APIs for third parties. First of all, they should provide an API for me, the customer, so that I can use the data and automate my banking.
- rocqua 10y ago
  There is very little difference between an API for you and an API for third parties. Unless the API just for you requires full credentials, and has no tiered access control, you could just give someone else the same API. Eula's would be the greatest difference. It is sad though, that no start-up would consider building a self-hosted version that'd keep all data local, instead wanting to offer it in SaaS form.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
    > Eula's would be the greatest difference. Or more generally contracts and regulations, yes. If you need to be registered with some regulatory authority with security audit requirements, say, in order to be able to gain access to the API, then you cannot use the API, whether you would technically be able or not.
  - stefs 10y ago
    > It is sad though, that no start-up would consider building a self-hosted version that'd keep all data local, instead wanting to offer it in SaaS form. i don't think that'd be automatically true. if there were enough security conscious users to create a market for a product like this, someone would provide.
    - rocqua 10y ago
      The buisiness model really sucks though, because its hard to get people to pay for self-hosted stuff. On the other hand, people seem more amenable to a subscription. This has the added benefit of possible adds and even gathering data of users. The issue is exacerbated by the almost sure to be available open-source gratis software. Presuming the software is under-maintained.
jasiek 10y ago
Currently, you'll need to be licensed by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK to be able to use any of those APIs. That's a very high barrier to entry.
- vegabook 10y ago
  not high enough if it's prepared to licence usurious b-tards like this: http://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/wonga-wins-fca-authorisation-under-new-pay-day-lending-rules/a874668 http://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/wonga-wins-fca-aut...
adrr 10y ago
Its about efficiency. One Example: Being in the financial industry i have submit monthly reports with all my statements and activity. Luckily compliance software can automate this for me.

nimish 10y ago

I bank with a major bank in the UK whose app is basically trash. I have a credit card with a different provider If I want a quick assessment of my accounts, either I need to log in to multiple accounts and add them together, or I can use an account aggregation service like yolt Unfortunately nobody supports secure delegated auth, so you risk compromise.

dharma1 10y ago

You should be able to own your financial data, and access it in various ways. Incumbent banks have been incredibly bad at creating modern digital user experiences. To analyse my spending, I have to login to my online bank with a fob and various passwords, download statements in .csv format (month by month, no batch download) and plot them in excel. It's not great. I am really looking forward to more open banking API's. Monzo have one, a couple of others, but very few. I have been working on a side project for the kind of banking experience I would want [1] - but it won't be possible without banks opening up API's. [1] http://bixtr.com http://bixtr.com

lhnz 10y ago
You should take a look at Teller [http://teller.io http://teller.io].
- dharma1 10y ago
  Looks good - but it's just a mailing list? Also not sure I want to give r/w access to my transactions to someone I don't trust
  - sjtgraham 10y ago
    Teller founder here. Bixtr looks cool. Would love to grab a cup of tea. sg at teller . io
aembleton 10y ago
That's a good looking webpage and phone shots.
- dharma1 10y ago
  Thanks! Building the front end and ML layer at the moment and starting to show it to people
Silhouette 10y ago
Incumbent banks have been incredibly bad at creating modern digital user experiences. To analyse my spending, I have to login to my online bank with a fob and various passwords, download statements in .csv format (month by month, no batch download) and plot them in excel. It's not great. That is certainly true, but it's not as if the shiny new fintech startups are necessarily any better. You'd think it would be business finance 101 to be able to reconcile money that a payment service collects from your customers and then deposits in your bank account with the money you expected them to be collecting, but unless there's been yet another API change lately, none of the services we use support a simple, reliable way to do this.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago

The real WTF is that it seems to all be about APIs for third parties. First of all, they should provide an API for me, the customer, so that I can use the data and automate my banking.

rocqua 10y ago
There is very little difference between an API for you and an API for third parties. Unless the API just for you requires full credentials, and has no tiered access control, you could just give someone else the same API. Eula's would be the greatest difference. It is sad though, that no start-up would consider building a self-hosted version that'd keep all data local, instead wanting to offer it in SaaS form.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
  > Eula's would be the greatest difference. Or more generally contracts and regulations, yes. If you need to be registered with some regulatory authority with security audit requirements, say, in order to be able to gain access to the API, then you cannot use the API, whether you would technically be able or not.
- stefs 10y ago
  > It is sad though, that no start-up would consider building a self-hosted version that'd keep all data local, instead wanting to offer it in SaaS form. i don't think that'd be automatically true. if there were enough security conscious users to create a market for a product like this, someone would provide.
  - rocqua 10y ago
    The buisiness model really sucks though, because its hard to get people to pay for self-hosted stuff. On the other hand, people seem more amenable to a subscription. This has the added benefit of possible adds and even gathering data of users. The issue is exacerbated by the almost sure to be available open-source gratis software. Presuming the software is under-maintained.

jasiek 10y ago

Currently, you'll need to be licensed by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK to be able to use any of those APIs. That's a very high barrier to entry.

vegabook 10y ago
not high enough if it's prepared to licence usurious b-tards like this: http://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/wonga-wins-fca-authorisation-under-new-pay-day-lending-rules/a874668 http://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/wonga-wins-fca-aut...

adrr 10y ago

Its about efficiency. One Example: Being in the financial industry i have submit monthly reports with all my statements and activity. Luckily compliance software can automate this for me.