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It always blew my mind that services like Yodlee (https://www.yodlee.com https://www.yodlee.com) worked that way. I can understand it from the point of view tha

It always blew my mind that services like Yodlee (https://www.yodlee.com https://www.yodlee.com) worked that way. I can understand it from the point of view that no traditional bank was set up to allow structured access but it never felt right to me. In the UK there is a big push around "open banking"[1] which will bring this into the 21st century and allow for proper programmatic access to data. It's still in it's infancy but the sector here is transforming around it. [1]: (https://www.openbanking.org.uk/customers/what-is-open-banking/ https://www.openbanking.org.uk/customers/what-is-open-bankin...)

Umofomia 8y ago
There's also the OpenID Financial API initiative, which aims to get financial institutions to provide exactly this need using a common API: https://openid.net/wg/fapi/ https://openid.net/wg/fapi/
starshadowx2 8y ago
There's a push in Canada for open banking as well. I work at a smaller bank here and my CEO was talking about it to us recently. https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/cyberlex/open-banking-update-canada-2020-issues-open-banking-report https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/cyberlex/open-bank...
omeze 8y ago
It's cool that governments are taking action now, but this is a chicken vs egg scenario. If services like Yodlee didn't exist to prove that there was significant demand for programmatic access to consumer financial data by building businesses around it, would governments care? And, how many more years will it take before it gets there? With Plaid/Yodlee/Whatever you can build a Fintech app _today_ in the US that supports thousands of banks. If you're an entrepreneur that's a game changer.
sjtgraham 8y ago
Open Banking and PSD2 are both complete failures. Who is in market with a decent product built on it? Nobody is. What people need to realise is that 1st party APIs are completely at odds with the incentives to maintain the status quo, i.e. they pose an intermediation threat and in the worst case relegate banks to mere utilities with zero margin. Furthermore a bank will never use it's own public API in it's own products, hence there being zero downside for exposing a shitty one. The only way this is will happen is if 3rd party companies in the market force it to.
- semerda 8y ago
  https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/646592/australia-big-four-initial-target-open-banking/ https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/646592/australia-bi... "The ACCC envisages that the first tranche of open banking rules will come into effect from 1 July 2019. Within 12 months, all Australian banks, including the related brands of the big four, will be brought within the scope of open banking."
- semerda 8y ago
  Good number of companies using it already https://www.openbankproject.com/apps/ https://www.openbankproject.com/apps/ and they claim 10K developers.
  - sjtgraham 8y ago
    That's not Open Banking. That's the Open Bank Project, a completely separate thing. They're a company that tries to sell their platform to banks and provide a FOSS sandbox.
- hndamien 8y ago
  Or you just stop using banks and build these products on something like Bitcoin. It might pressure banks to open their APIs.
misiti3780 8y ago
mint was built off of yodlee.

Umofomia 8y ago

There's also the OpenID Financial API initiative, which aims to get financial institutions to provide exactly this need using a common API: https://openid.net/wg/fapi/ https://openid.net/wg/fapi/

starshadowx2 8y ago

There's a push in Canada for open banking as well. I work at a smaller bank here and my CEO was talking about it to us recently. https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/cyberlex/open-banking-update-canada-2020-issues-open-banking-report https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/cyberlex/open-bank...

omeze 8y ago

It's cool that governments are taking action now, but this is a chicken vs egg scenario. If services like Yodlee didn't exist to prove that there was significant demand for programmatic access to consumer financial data by building businesses around it, would governments care? And, how many more years will it take before it gets there? With Plaid/Yodlee/Whatever you can build a Fintech app _today_ in the US that supports thousands of banks. If you're an entrepreneur that's a game changer.

sjtgraham 8y ago

Open Banking and PSD2 are both complete failures. Who is in market with a decent product built on it? Nobody is. What people need to realise is that 1st party APIs are completely at odds with the incentives to maintain the status quo, i.e. they pose an intermediation threat and in the worst case relegate banks to mere utilities with zero margin. Furthermore a bank will never use it's own public API in it's own products, hence there being zero downside for exposing a shitty one. The only way this is will happen is if 3rd party companies in the market force it to.

semerda 8y ago
https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/646592/australia-big-four-initial-target-open-banking/ https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/646592/australia-bi... "The ACCC envisages that the first tranche of open banking rules will come into effect from 1 July 2019. Within 12 months, all Australian banks, including the related brands of the big four, will be brought within the scope of open banking."
semerda 8y ago
Good number of companies using it already https://www.openbankproject.com/apps/ https://www.openbankproject.com/apps/ and they claim 10K developers.
- sjtgraham 8y ago
  That's not Open Banking. That's the Open Bank Project, a completely separate thing. They're a company that tries to sell their platform to banks and provide a FOSS sandbox.
hndamien 8y ago
Or you just stop using banks and build these products on something like Bitcoin. It might pressure banks to open their APIs.

misiti3780 8y ago

mint was built off of yodlee.