We’re often asked “Love the savings, but how easy is an Open Banking payment?”
If you’re the customer, four taps from checkout and you’re done. If you’re the merchant, that money is already in your bank account - and it cost you a penny to receive it.
S1 E4 It’s a family affair - Lockdown, health crisis and the platform reopens.
In this episode, Carmen touches on her experience of being diagnosed with cancer on the cusp of her 28th birthday in October 2020. She reflects on how the diagnosis shifted her outlook on life and wellbeing. She and Kieron also reflect on what that tumultuous year brought for Wonderful…
🆕 blog! “Converting MoneyDashboard's export file to a CSV - for Firefly III and others”
As I mentioned last week, MoneyDashboard is shutting down. They are good enough to provide a JSON export of all your previous transactions. It is full of entries like this: { "Account": "My Mastercard", "Date": "2020-02-24T00:00:00Z", "CurrentDes…
🆕 blog! “Free Open Banking API using Nordigen / GoCardless”
A few weeks ago I was moaning about there being no OpenBanking API for personal use. Thankfully, I was wrong! As pointed out by Dave a company called Nordigen was set up to provide a free Open Banking service. It was quickly bought by GoCardless who said: We believe access to…
We believe access to open banking data should be free. We can now offer it at scale to anyone - developers, partners and Fintechs - looking to solve customer problems.
And, I'm delighted to report, it works! As a solo developer you can get access to your own data for free via the GoCardless APIs.
There's a bit of bouncing around. You've got to get an API key, get the institution ID, sign in, get redirected, get an ID from the callback, then get the bank account details. And then you can get the transactions!
Oh, and the access token only lasts a short while, so you'll need to either re-auth or use a refresh token.
Bank authorisation only lasts 90 days, so you'll have to refresh your details every 3 months. That's standard across all opening banking, but a bit of a pain.
Because there are so many financial institution in there, you might find it difficult to work out which one you need to log in to. For example, if you have a Barclays Credit Card, which of these is the right one for you?
🆕 blog! “Why is there no OpenBanking API for personal use?”
The recent news that MoneyDashboard is suddenly shutting down has exposed a gap in the way OpenBanking works. It is simply impossible for a user to get read-only access to their own data without using an aggregator. And there are very few aggregators around. Why is it impossible for me to get programma…
@Edent
Ahh. I have been really interested in this. I didnt like the fact that Money dashboard got access to my data just so that I could get access. My idea would be to create a #coop legal entity to act as the #openbanking endpoint through which we could get our data and trust its not being sold on. Have some other ideas to.
Smart Data Foundry, where @mikerspencer works, are looking at this kind of question and are also developing sandboxes for working with #openbanking data. Maybe Mike can point you at someone/something.
The recent news that MoneyDashboard is suddenly shutting down has exposed a gap in the way OpenBanking works. It is simply impossible for a user to get read-only access to their own data without using an aggregator. And there are very few aggregators around.
Why is it impossible for me to get programmatic access to my own data?
There are two interlinked reasons which I'd like to discuss.
OpenBanking is a brilliant idea encoded in an excellent standard wrapped in some very complex processes and with some rather unfair limitations.
OpenBanking presents a standardised API to allow read and write access to a financial account. So I could give a smartphone app read-only access to my credit card and let it automatically tell me when I've spent more than £50 on sausage rolls this week. Or I could add all my bank accounts to one service which would let me see my net worth. Or any of a hundred ideas.
I could also connect my accounts in such a way that when Bank Account A drop below £100, an OpenBanking API request is sent to Bank Account B to transfer some money to A.
But here's the first problem. The only way you can get access to a bank's API is if you have a licence. And you only get a licence if you're a financial institution who can prove that they have robust security controls. Which means that individuals have to go through an aggregator. Or, in OpenBanking terms, an "Account Information Service Provider".
Some OpenBanking providers will let individuals play in a "sandbox" to test out the API. There are no real accounts and no real money, it's just a way to test how the API works.
I can see why that makes sense for write access. You don't want a user's unpatched Raspberry Pi suddenly sending all their money to Russia.
And I can see why that makes sense for organisations which deal with data from multiple people. One leak and everyone is exposed.
But I'm not convinced that it makes sense to deny an individual read-only API access to their own account. Sure, I might accidentally leak my own data - but the same risk exists if I download a PDF statement from my bank.
The second problem is that not every OpenBanking consumer will talk to every OpenBanking provider.
For example, I have an account with Coventry Building society. They have an OpenBanking API which no one uses! They're not the largest financial institution in the UK, but have a fair few customers. And yet all the OpenBanking apps refuse to work with it.
So even if I did find an aggregator with an API, it may not work with all my financial institutions.
Confesso que fiquei triste com essa opinião sobre o PIX.
Eu gosto muito da ideia de usar dinheiro eletrônico, de não ter que me preocupar em passar em algum estabelecimento para obter a moeda que eu vou usar para comprar algo. A moeda tá ali, no meu dispositivo eletrônico.
Por outro lado, eles tem razão sobre o neo colonialismo e imperialismo desse modelo.
Acho a tecnologia uma ferramenta para se atingir meios. Agora a técnica sem tem um fim. O Pix serve para facilitar a movimentação de dinheiro, o problema é que precisamos de mais autonomia sobre nossos dados e mais proteção. O que vale para as redes sociais vale para os bancos.
O #OpenBanking tem como finalidade aumentar a concorrência entre os bancos, mas no final vai servir para extorquir dados. Os bancos vão pedir dados para oferecer juros menores.