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As a German it is hard to believe that such things do not exist yet in other countries. We have a standardized protocol called FinTS which is implemented by mos

As a German it is hard to believe that such things do not exist yet in other countries. We have a standardized protocol called FinTS which is implemented by most banks. This results in a huge amount of desktop and mobile applications for banking.

markbnj 9y ago
As an American who founded a software company in the online banking sector 20 years ago I can tell you that my experience at that time was that banks here had no interest in making it easier for 3rd parties to get between their customers and their own branded offerings. Microsoft and Intuit tried to promote a standard "API" for banking back then (OFC/OFX) that got very little support from institutions at the time and since. I think basically the only way this would come to pass in the U.S. is through regulatory action, which seems unlikely in the current political environment.
- dnm 9y ago
  Concur. My credit union recently switched the backend processor for their credit card. Now, the only option for transaction download is csv or xls. Welcome back to the 90s.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I used to use MS Money and it was really great while it worked. Then slowly banks dropped their support and at the moment there is really no easy way to get all your accounts into one database (especially one that you own yourself) other than giving all your password to something like Mint. There definitely seems to be a trend for more and more proprietary protocols instead of standards. And we all know that any kind of regulatory action is anti-freedom and job-killing so I wouldn't expect any regulation to happen.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    Some banks (Cap One 360 formerly ING Direct) allow you to generate a site-specific passphrase, so you would limit your exposure if Mint got hacked. However, the whole concept of something like Mint is really read-only access, and I wish that site-specific passphrase had that as well.
    - ghthor 9y ago
      Mint is readonly, but the possibilities explode when you are given RW and event processing access to your money. You could already do some cool things of you buffer your accounts between 2 cards. But you can't straight up sent transactions with code, or you're own "automated" savings plans, or social graph triggers/input based on transactions. So many cool possibilities, banks need to step up or collaborate on an engineering effort to produce a secure ApI system and infrastructure.
      - r00fus 9y ago
        Mint is read only but it's not clear the site-specific password is likewise readonly.
mistermann 9y ago
You should come visit Canada, the level of service we get from our oligopoly of banks would make you cry. They would NEVER support a service like this as it would possibly make their customers happy.
- jessriedel 9y ago
  Although I agree that this criticism of Canadian banks is probably broadly true, note that the banks did manage to coordinate on Interac, a quite serviceable standard for sending money electronically between private parties.
  - jasonsync 9y ago
    Canadian banks have been quietly dropping the Interac network in favour of co-badged cards that use the VISA network behind the scenes. Your interact card says Visa on it now, because the debit transaction might be routed through Visa's network instead. I'm guessing the benefit to banks is lower fees or perhaps even monetization through transaction data sharing with Visa? This of course breaks Interac features like Interac online. Last time I opened a bank account and got a co-badged Interac card I immediately asked them if I could get an "Interac Only" card. At first they had no idea what I was talking about, but a few phone calls to head office later, and they were able to re-issue new debit cards without the Visa co-badge. Interac online works, and I feel better not sharing purchase data with Visa.
sparkling 9y ago
FinTS (formerly known as HBCI) is horrible and serves as a great example of how not to design a API. The non-machine-readable german-language-only API specification consist of >800 pages spread across various PDFs[1] full of gibberish. There are no official client libraries, no minimal examples, different banks only support certain versions etc. etc. etc. [1] https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fintsv4/FinTS_4.1_Formals_2014-01-20_FV.pdf https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fint... https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fintsv4/FinTS_4.1_XML-Syntax_2014-01-20_FV.pdf https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fint... https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/FinTS_Rueckmeldungscodes_2017-05-11_final_version.pdf https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/FinT... https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fintsv4/FinTS_4.1_Data-Dictionary_2014-01-20-FV.pdf https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fint...
- duiker101 9y ago
  That sounds like a standard enterprise implementation.
- fkistner 9y ago
  Enterprisey APIs with adoption beat nicely designed APIs without adoption anytime. Besides, that does not explain, why none of the other banks can get their act together. If FinTS is too difficult to implement, how come they are not offering something simpler?
  - pc86 9y ago
    > Enterprisey APIs with adoption Your conflation of "bad" with "enterprisey" is unfortunate. Also, is it really adoption if different banks only support specific features/versions? > If FinTS is too difficult to implement, how come they are not offering something simpler? Well banks aren't really in the business of APIs, are they? Nobody is graduating #2 in their class at Stanford with a CS degree and going to work for a bank as a web developer.
    - 9y ago

markbnj 9y ago

As an American who founded a software company in the online banking sector 20 years ago I can tell you that my experience at that time was that banks here had no interest in making it easier for 3rd parties to get between their customers and their own branded offerings. Microsoft and Intuit tried to promote a standard "API" for banking back then (OFC/OFX) that got very little support from institutions at the time and since. I think basically the only way this would come to pass in the U.S. is through regulatory action, which seems unlikely in the current political environment.

dnm 9y ago
Concur. My credit union recently switched the backend processor for their credit card. Now, the only option for transaction download is csv or xls. Welcome back to the 90s.
maxxxxx 9y ago
I used to use MS Money and it was really great while it worked. Then slowly banks dropped their support and at the moment there is really no easy way to get all your accounts into one database (especially one that you own yourself) other than giving all your password to something like Mint. There definitely seems to be a trend for more and more proprietary protocols instead of standards. And we all know that any kind of regulatory action is anti-freedom and job-killing so I wouldn't expect any regulation to happen.
- r00fus 9y ago
  Some banks (Cap One 360 formerly ING Direct) allow you to generate a site-specific passphrase, so you would limit your exposure if Mint got hacked. However, the whole concept of something like Mint is really read-only access, and I wish that site-specific passphrase had that as well.
  - ghthor 9y ago
    Mint is readonly, but the possibilities explode when you are given RW and event processing access to your money. You could already do some cool things of you buffer your accounts between 2 cards. But you can't straight up sent transactions with code, or you're own "automated" savings plans, or social graph triggers/input based on transactions. So many cool possibilities, banks need to step up or collaborate on an engineering effort to produce a secure ApI system and infrastructure.
    - r00fus 9y ago
      Mint is read only but it's not clear the site-specific password is likewise readonly.

mistermann 9y ago

You should come visit Canada, the level of service we get from our oligopoly of banks would make you cry. They would NEVER support a service like this as it would possibly make their customers happy.

jessriedel 9y ago
Although I agree that this criticism of Canadian banks is probably broadly true, note that the banks did manage to coordinate on Interac, a quite serviceable standard for sending money electronically between private parties.
- jasonsync 9y ago
  Canadian banks have been quietly dropping the Interac network in favour of co-badged cards that use the VISA network behind the scenes. Your interact card says Visa on it now, because the debit transaction might be routed through Visa's network instead. I'm guessing the benefit to banks is lower fees or perhaps even monetization through transaction data sharing with Visa? This of course breaks Interac features like Interac online. Last time I opened a bank account and got a co-badged Interac card I immediately asked them if I could get an "Interac Only" card. At first they had no idea what I was talking about, but a few phone calls to head office later, and they were able to re-issue new debit cards without the Visa co-badge. Interac online works, and I feel better not sharing purchase data with Visa.

sparkling 9y ago

FinTS (formerly known as HBCI) is horrible and serves as a great example of how not to design a API. The non-machine-readable german-language-only API specification consist of >800 pages spread across various PDFs[1] full of gibberish. There are no official client libraries, no minimal examples, different banks only support certain versions etc. etc. etc. [1] https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fintsv4/FinTS_4.1_Formals_2014-01-20_FV.pdf https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fint... https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fintsv4/FinTS_4.1_XML-Syntax_2014-01-20_FV.pdf https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fint... https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/FinTS_Rueckmeldungscodes_2017-05-11_final_version.pdf https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/FinT... https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fintsv4/FinTS_4.1_Data-Dictionary_2014-01-20-FV.pdf https://www.hbci-zka.de/dokumente/spezifikation_deutsch/fint...

duiker101 9y ago
That sounds like a standard enterprise implementation.
fkistner 9y ago
Enterprisey APIs with adoption beat nicely designed APIs without adoption anytime. Besides, that does not explain, why none of the other banks can get their act together. If FinTS is too difficult to implement, how come they are not offering something simpler?
- pc86 9y ago
  > Enterprisey APIs with adoption Your conflation of "bad" with "enterprisey" is unfortunate. Also, is it really adoption if different banks only support specific features/versions? > If FinTS is too difficult to implement, how come they are not offering something simpler? Well banks aren't really in the business of APIs, are they? Nobody is graduating #2 in their class at Stanford with a CS degree and going to work for a bank as a web developer.
  - 9y ago