Open Banking: What’s it all about and what does it mean for Money Dashboard?

Open Banking is a government-backed initiative that puts you in control of your financial data, by making it easier to manage using apps like Money Dashboard. The goal of Open Banking regulations is to transfer ownership of account information from the banks, to the customer. It lets people securely share their own transaction data with other banks and regulated third parties like Money Dashboard (registered AIS (Account Information Service) provider, reference no. 800652 at fca.org.uk/register). 

This means that you can use our app with much more ease by enabling a connection directly between us and your bank which means we can access better quality data for you more regularly so your account is always showing you the most up to date information.

We’ve been working behind the scenes with the banks to ensure that the connections available to customers are robust, secure and that switching connection types from their current connection (via using online banking credential sharing) to a direct Open Banking API is as seamless a switch as possible. 

Connections to some providers have now been released, and while much of the early feedback has been positive there are a number of issues arising which have affected the experience of some users, which we will outline below.

What Open Banking Account connections are currently available?

Money Dashboard users who hold certain accounts with the following banks can now connect their accounts via an Open Banking API:

  • Bank of Scotland
  • Barclays
  • Halifax
  • Lloyds
  • Nationwide

If you’ve already got your accounts connected to Money Dashboard, you can switch your account to the new API connection. Keep an eye out for a “switch to Open Banking” button on your accounts page which will show next to accounts with available providers. Click the button & follow the directions to switch over - it should take less than a minute.

If you’ve got an account you’ve not yet connected, or are a new user, all the Open Banking connections via API are available in the ‘add account’ menu. 

Switching Availability: 19/09 - 23/09

As part of our early switching to Open Banking connections a number of our users encountered problems with seeing duplicate accounts. We’re working hard to resolve the issue for affected users.

We’ve now built a new tool to help with the switching process which will be ready for release week commencing 23rd September to ensure as many people going forward can get the best possible experience. In the meantime we’ve temporarily removed the option to “switch” your accounts to Open Banking to try and avoid any issues with duplicate accounts. You will still be able to connect new accounts via Open Banking.

When switching becomes available again you will see the green “switch to open banking” on accounts with eligible providers.

Why can’t you see all your accounts on Open Banking?

Not all savings accounts come under PSD2 (the legislation requiring banks to make your account information more accessible to you) so you might not be able to migrate all your accounts to an Open Banking API just yet. 

With savings accounts a good rule of thumb as to whether your bank will provide an Open Banking API connection is if you can currently make payments directly from your savings account to another third party account, in which case an API should be available. However if you cannot make payments to a third party you will probably not yet be able to connect these accounts via Open Banking. 

Where permitted by the regulator, we will continue to offer connections via credential sharing so you can still see everything in one place. 

NOTE: We should also flag that you may still be seeing a “Switch to Open Banking” button against your savings accounts even though you are not yet able to switch. Unfortunately we can't tell in advance which of your accounts will have an Open Banking API available. We took the decision to provide the 'switch' option against any provider with Open Banking APIs to ensure that you can switch as many accounts as possible. However this does mean you may see a "switch" button on an account that is not yet available.

Please accept our apologies for the confusion, we are working to provide a better solution for this as we appreciate how frustrating it is to see a button that you can't use!

Upcoming Open banking connections

Several of the banks are still working on their APIs and we expect to be able to make them available to Money Dashboard users shortly. As soon as connections are available we will be making them available to Money Dashboard users in the app. Keep an eye out for the “switch to Open Banking” button on your accounts.

Natwest

Known bank error returning positive credit card data. Issue escalated with bank and we will make connection available via Open Banking API once the bank has resolved the issue. Current timescales from the bank suggest this will be available from early October.

RBS

Known bank error returning positive credit card data. Issue escalated with bank and we will make connection available via Open Banking API once the bank has resolved the issue. Current timescales from the bank suggest this will be available from early October.

Barclaycard

Known bank error returning positive credit card data. Issue escalated with bank and we will make connection available via Open Banking API once the bank has resolved the issue.

Santander

Whilst the API is available, savings accounts are yet to be released as part of the API. We expect this to happen really soon, at which point we can release our connection.

Extensions and what happens next

The original mandate given to the banks stated that from September 14th 2019 you would only be able to connect your current accounts from the providers listed above via Open Banking APIs. 

However, not all the banks have a full API ready at the moment. This includes:

  • First Direct
  • HSBC

These banks have gone with a non-API approach at the moment whilst they finish off their API’s and we will be working with our existing data provider to make adjustments to continue accessing them.

However, we would encourage users to use the Open Banking APIs as soon as possible where they are available to ensure the best possible service. 

Provision of support for Open Banking

We know how important it is to provide useful support in a timely manner. But, as the number of people signing up to Money Dashboard has increased this quarter, our response time has dropped far below what we would like.

You might be surprised to know that our support team has only had two people working on it full time. As our user base has grown and with new connections like Open Banking throwing up some unexpected things like duplicate transactions or non-matched accounts, we’ve not been able to keep up and haven’t grown the team fast enough to support your questions as we would have hoped.

We’re really sorry about that and are working on a plan to fix it for you. As well as hiring more people to join the team we’ve also been collaborating across the business to find more effective ways of solving your queries.

We’re aware of a number of issues for some users who switched to Open Banking where they have ended up with duplicated accounts or duplicated data. Across the team we are working as fast as possible to resolve these issues for you as we appreciate how frustrating it is (and how unusable it can make the app).

Keep up to date with our progress

You can see the most up to date connections available on our help site here.

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Disclaimer

All content is for informational purposes only and is the opinion of the author. Nothing on this website should be interpreted as "advice". Money Dashboard Ltd make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, suitability or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors or omissions or any damages arising from its display or use.

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