Do you feel confident using an account aggregator?

jamie_02

I have just been invited to use [***] a new fintech service which promises all kinds of money management uses in due course.

At the moment, having signed up to a username and password, I see it's pretty much an account aggregator service, where, in return for you trusting it with your online banking credentials, it purports to tag and sort all your transactions. Presumably it's mining data before the 'predictive' suite of services kicks in.

Currently it works with Barclays, RBS, NatWest, first direct & HSBC, and AmEx credit cards.

My questions are:

1. Does anyone use a similar service (first direct or Yodlee) and do you find them to be helpful enough to justify the passing on of your personal spending data and the risks involved with security?

2. A quick search showed Nationwide (for example) cover fraud even if your online banking credentials have been submitted to an aggregator (so long as the aggregator itself is not the cause) but first direct seem to explicitly ban their customers giving out their personal login information. I haven't checked the Ts&Cs for other banks. Do people use the aggregators anyway despite being possibly barred by their bank from doing so, and presumably when banks can see from IP data that logins occur through services like Bud? And do people find, for example, first direct's view a little outdated in the age of fintech (especially when first direct itself offers an aggregator service)?

Any thoughts?

Edit: I have removed the name of the product as a couple of replies below made the impression I was connected with the company, which is not the case.

TrustyOven

jamie_02 wrote: »

I have just been invited to use Bud, a new fintech service which promises all kinds of money management uses in due course.

At the moment, having signed up to a username and password, I see it's pretty much an account aggregator service, where, in return for you trusting it with your online banking credentials, it purports to tag and sort all your transactions. Presumably it's mining data before the 'predictive' suite of services kicks in.

Currently it works with Barclays, RBS, NatWest, first direct & HSBC, and AmEx credit cards.

My questions are:

1. Does anyone use a similar service (first direct or Yodlee) and do you find them to be helpful enough to justify the passing on of your personal spending data and the risks involved with security?

2. A quick search showed Nationwide (for example) cover fraud even if your online banking credentials have been submitted to an aggregator (so long as the aggregator itself is not the cause) but first direct seem to explicitly ban their customers giving out their personal login information. I haven't checked the Ts&Cs for other banks. Do people use the aggregators anyway despite being possibly barred by their bank from doing so, and presumably when banks can see from IP data that logins occur through services like Bud? And do people find, for example, first direct's view a little outdated in the age of fintech (especially when first direct itself offers an aggregator service)?

Any thoughts?

I think most UK bank account terms and conditions prohibit you sharing your bank logon details to anyone.

Doing so will be a nice quick way to have your account closed down.

jamie_02

TrustyOven wrote: »

I think most UK bank account terms and conditions prohibit you sharing your bank logon details to anyone.

Doing so will be a nice quick way to have your account closed down.

Do you know this or was it an assumption? Nationwide, certainly, make reference to customers using such services in their Digital Banking Promise. Both first direct and Lloyds also specifically acknowledge customers use these, so they know such aggregators exist and are used, so I'm not sure it is as simple as that. More that the risk is transferred from the institution to the customer regarding fraud, and my question was really how happy people are with this, and how beneficial the aggregators have to be to mitigate this risk.

TrustyOven

jamie_02 wrote: »

Do you know this or was it an assumption? Nationwide, certainly, make reference to customers using such services in their Digital Banking Promise. Both first direct and Lloyds also specifically acknowledge customers use these, so they know such aggregators exist and are used, so I'm not sure it is as simple as that.

I did say "think" so I would think it was an assumption.

jamie_02 wrote: »

and my question was really how happy people are with this, and how beneficial the aggregators have to be to mitigate this risk.

I would class people that use such services as not of sane mind. Why would you want to give some other company access to such sensitive information?

There seems to be a lot of such users in the US. Mint, Personal Capital, and I think a couple of others.

You are a new poster. Talking about this sort of system. The paranoia / cautious in me is ringing alarm bells that you might be asking these questions in order to help launch a this new system. I don't know if this is true. I shall attempt to give you the benefit of the doubt.

jamie_02 wrote:

"a new fintech service which promises all kinds of money management uses in due course."

Empty promises?

Please don't use such systems. Too many times new startup promised a lot, got new users to use the service, and then went bankrupt, or got sold to some other company etc. And people's data was sold off (identity fraud risk) or the new owner company abused the data. Or they stopped the service. Many such cases exist, throughout the last 10-15 years. One that comes to mind is Royal London Money Manager. Closed down. Last.fm got taken over. Services get closed, companies get taken over. Personal data gets leaked, abused etc.

jamie_02 wrote:

"in return for you trusting it with your online banking credentials, it purports to tag and sort all your transactions."

And I can do a better job of tracking all my accounts, and track by categories of things bought or sold or types of income... all from my own computer. No one else has access. Don't trust someone else's system with actual bank access unless you pay them lots of money and/or you have a proper legal contract that helps you in case they screw up.

Avoid even with a barge pole.

vroom3

This is all part of a new regulation called PSD2 - Payment Services Directive 2.

Its still early days - and the tech specs for how these services will work are yet to be defined by the regulator - but eventually all banks will be required to deal with these Third Party Aggregator Service Providers if a customer signs up - but it doesnt become a requirement until 2018.

At the moment - without the tech specs defined - banks dont have to do anything, but some companies are testing the water to see what might/could be possible.

colsten

Yes, I do feel confident using an account aggregator provided it has credibility. I have been using one - ewise - for nigh on 10 years,and I know plenty of others who did too.

I appreciate there is a constant effort of people/firms to provide better services, and I am always interested in better services. At the same time, I would never ever not in a million years use any new fintech service which is recommended in 4 posts on a random public forum that they signed up to in the last month.

Get FCA accreditation and we can talk again. Too expensive? Too hard? Well, your problem, jamie_02, I am afraid. Come back when you have obtained credibility.

jamie_02

Thanks for the replies. I am not connected with the product though, and I wasn't recommending the product, simply asking general questions about Aggregation services. Colsten, after I posted I searched some more here on 'aggregation' and saw you were an enthusiastic user on another thread, I was hoping you'd take time to answer my questions, but slightly taken aback at your assumption.

Joe_Bloggs

Let some crash dummies test this. Give volunteers the funds to open accounts and experience the ride. The incentive could be that they can keep their given money if it works. If it does not work then they are either hacked or diddled out of their money by conventional banking practices or legal shenanigans.
J_B.
Other variations are possible.

Ben8282

Why would an individual want to bother?

colsten

Ben8282 wrote: »

Why would an individual want to bother?

Because some of us have dozens of current, savings, credit card, investment accounts and appreciate the speed at which they can view their balances in seconds rather than in tens of minutes.

Some services also offer the downloading of transactions and to classify them, which can help with budgeting. I am personally not very interested in this as it would only be useful for me if it was available for all financial institutions I have accounts with. I am not aware that any of the aggregators has any actual plans for this. Most don't presently even have all the UK companies on their list of supported companies.

skyepark

I use money dashboard