They're helpful if you use portfolio aggregation tools like Personal Capital or Mint. Tracking your overall portfolio balance when you have many different types

They're helpful if you use portfolio aggregation tools like Personal Capital or Mint. Tracking your overall portfolio balance when you have many different types of investment accounts with different banks is difficult to do by hand. Without open banking APIs, these tools have to collect your authentication information and impersonate you on your banks' websites to collect your account balance information.