Consent.online

barbuda

Hi,
Just trying to open a cash isa with Shawbrook, even though they have all my details and nothing has changed for years, they sent me this message;
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"We take your personal security and fraud prevention very seriously, so we need to verify that the bank detail you provided us with are registered under your name and address.

What do you need to do?
You will receive an email shortly that will include a link to verify your bank details electronically through Open Banking. We will send this to the email address that we have on record.

Consents.Online is our Open Banking partner, and offers you a safe and secure way to verify your bank details. This is a quick and easy process where Consents.Online will ask you for your permission to give us one-time access to your account information. You will then be transferred to your bank where you will need to sign into your account so we can verify your details. Once you have completed this, we’ll send you a secure message to confirm if the change has been successfully made".
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I've had a search on MSE and read this;

Open Banking allows you to share certain financial information that only you and your bank can see, such as your balance and transaction history, with other financial providers or services of your choosing. The idea is to make it easier for other organisations to use your data to personalise products or make suggestions on areas you can save.

I am not fond of 3rd parties having access to my bank account and I definitely don't want personalised products being offered to me...
I don't mind sending a redacted bank statement, but checking my transactions has crossed the line. 
Has anyone else come across Consents.Online? 
Possibly the Shawbrook account may be heading stage left pretty sharply ;-) 

Cheers

masonic

It has come up before: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6254970/what-is-consents-online
There are a number of these third party providers out there and they provide Open Banking related services. So there is nothing unusual here. You should only ever enter your details after being redirected to your actual bank's online banking site. You will see what information you are handing over (normally enough to verify the owner of the account and not anything on an ongoing basis). The MSE article you quoted mentions other ways Open Banking is used, but verification that the account is in the name of the applicant is another such use.

barbuda

Hi Masonic,
Took the plunge and I could restrict the info that they could access, so no scrolling through my transactions ;-)
Thanks for the help
Cheers

boingy

The whole open banking thing is quite unsettling the first time you do it. On an iPad you select open banking from your banking app then it takes you to the "other" banking app to set permissions but to get back to the first app it goes via a web browser and you land on a web page page for a domain you've never heard of with a prompt to click to return to the first app. It all felt very amateur and more than a bit scammy!

Ayr_Rage

Read it carefully, they are only asking for one-time access.

Nothing to get stressed about.

barbuda

Hi Ayr,
Yes I saw that, but it could be one time access to my whole banking app where they could view transactions, direct debits etc which is a bit too intrusive for me.

As it happens you can select what information is accessible so I was ok with that.
 
Once consents.online are involved it would be nice if they told you what you were consenting to, but they just say  they will gain access to account information... they don't say what information...
If they said they will only be allowed to view the essentials (name, address, account number) that you allow them to, then that's a whole new ball game, but their wording is very woolly and it makes dusting off the red flag very easy to do.

Cheers