YNAB Automated NZ Bank Feeds?

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#1947122 26-Jan-2018 12:37

^That's probably hard for them since the stories I hear from inside banks is that they're still struggling with legacy and heritage systems, and middleware bloat, meaning getting hooked into 3rd party services is a huge effort and $ investment with not much commercial viability.

TommySharp

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#2159536 12-Jan-2019 00:37

A new year and a new hope to get my finances under control!

I'm still on the hunt to find a NZ bank that will give me easy access to my transactional data.... There has been mention of APIs with BNZ but they've gone a bit quiet on it.

Does anyone know of any banks that have any automated way of getting my transactional data out on a daily basis so I can then import it automatically into my budgeting app YNAB? Even a daily email with an attachment could be something I can work with...

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#2984890 19-Oct-2022 21:34

BNZ confirmed the do now have APIs but only available to financial apps like MYOB and Xero etc....
Very frustrating because I just want to download my own transactions for further analysis and tracking.

Don't suppose anyone has any other alternatives? Maybe some way of scraping my online banking website or an automated script that kinda logs in as me and downloads transactions as a CSV?

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#2984946 19-Oct-2022 21:58

TommySharp:

Maybe some way of scraping my online banking website or an automated script that kinda logs in as me and downloads transactions as a CSV?

Running anything automated against your internet banking is a breach of your internet banking terms and conditions and if fraud does occur on your account you won't likely be covered by your bank. I personally would strongly advise against running any scrapers across your internet banking. I've worked for multiple banks on their internet banking platforms and have seen some pretty shocking things over the years. You're risking real money here.

If you must automate scraping then do so via something like Pocketsmith which is known to banks (they will also know you're using it). It is however not trusted or verified by the banks (you are sharing your internet banking details to a third party service which is a breach) and if that third party service gets compromised then your bank won't cover you.

Automated scripting from your home IP will get your IP blacklisted by several services (most banks use web application firewalls with rather restrictive rules to prevent this).

Lastly, to do automated scraping you often need to disable 2 Factor Auth. Do you really want to do this and risk it?

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TommySharp

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#2984950 19-Oct-2022 22:13

Yeah I appreciate the security concerns, hence I was hoping BNZ (or any bank) would provide even a read only API for accounts and transactions or some other automated way of getting the information at regular intervals.
I see BNZ do let you enforce 2FA for all logins or just access to sensitive operations like payments, new payees etc... That would ensure that to do any "real" damage someone would need to be double authenticated.

PolicyGuy

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#2984964 19-Oct-2022 22:24

I know it's not automated, but Kiwibank allow you to download transactions via their Internet banking web interface. It takes me about 3 minutes to download my credit card & main account transactions every month, and another 15 to 30 minutes to analyse them into a spreadsheet.

I'd be surprised if the other banks don't let you do this

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TommySharp

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#2984970 19-Oct-2022 22:32

My goal is to keep a much closer eye on things so ideally download transactions at least daily. Hence the quest for automation...
I see visions of my home automation system setting the house lights red when I've spent too much money on takeout ;-)

This seems promising so I'll start a separate thread to see if people have heard of Akahu or "Jude" where it looks to be born from.

https://developers.akahu.nz/docs/personal-apps

fe31nz

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#2985043 20-Oct-2022 00:14

BNZ does have an Export option for each account - it will export in CSV, QIF, GIFTS, or OFX format and allows a custom date range. Just click on the account on the main page and Export is the left most button on the menu of the window that opens.

michaelmurfy

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#2985047 20-Oct-2022 01:05

TommySharp:

This seems promising so I'll start a separate thread to see if people have heard of Akahu or "Jude" where it looks to be born from.

https://developers.akahu.nz/docs/personal-apps

Posted on the other thread you started also but here we go:

This is doing account scraping. Trust me, I've worked on banking platforms for 2 major banks now. Also, I've seen the logs of a session here.

Same thing applies for any third party app. If you have to hand over your internet banking login then it is a breach of your side of the internet banking terms and conditions meaning if fraud were to occur on the account then your bank will highly likely not cover you.

Do you trust how they're storing your account credentials? What is the impact to you if they do get compromised? What are they storing about you that may be passed onto third parties?

Lastly. Only business banking products (like ANZ Direct Online) allow for granular controls of your banking logins but AFAIK most of these platforms block third party screen scrapers like Akahu.

I get your desire to have an automated bank feed but there are no official API's currently for customers to access. If there were, it'll come from your bank.

Wearing both my banking hat and my security hat and fully knowing what happens behind the scenes with these screen scrapers and how dodgy they can be I strongly advise against connecting any third party screen scraper that asks for your internet banking credentials to your internet banking or even any other integrations Akahu have. Seriously, trust me on this one.

You wouldn't fall for phishing, how is this any different?

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#2985052 20-Oct-2022 02:29

Let's be honest, the real reason no bank wants to develop APIs and the permissions models to support doing it safely (RO) for residential banking, is they know:

- Only a tiny percentage of users would care enough to switch banks for that.

- They don't want you to analyse things that could reduce your use or reliance on their credit facilities.

- They most likely would struggle to build an internal business case to make it viable for residential customers.

A few years back ASB built something called PLUS that integrated with a bunch of other applications which I believe were such as XERO, VEND, Shopify, CIN7 etc but presumably it was only for business banking. Not sure what happened to that though.

https://bestawards.co.nz/digital/digital-products/roam-digital/plus-by-asb-1/

profrink

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#2985053 20-Oct-2022 03:34

If I remember correctly, Akahu mostly uses the private APIs from the banking mobile apps rather than screenscraping. That said and mentioned many times here, your auth credentials still have to pass through them (a 3rd party) so the security risk is still there. From chats I've had with them, they do go to quite long lengths to protect that information - but no matter the good intention it is still a risk.

They came close to an official partnership with BNZ recently, but have been screwed around:

https://www.akahu.nz/blogs/bnz-apis-not-available

I do believe that there is a competitive advantage for a bank to be a first mover in the open API space, but unfortunantly our existing banks are just old and slow traditional operators wrapped up in mediocre digital experiences with no real future vision. They aren't product driven organisations, they don't really care about the customers - and when sections of the organisation do, it clashes with the traditional ways of operating.

In my opinion to get any real traction on publically available banking APIs, you'd need to have some combo of the following happen:

The government truely mandate open banking
A digital product gains incredible popularity, gets an API partnership with a bank, and customers start switching banks due to popular product
A neo bank gets launched and drives a completely different product offering and banking vision

Realistically I think they should just mandate it. Early on, Xero were able to indirectly influence where people banked based on the availability of direct bank feeds, but that took significant time and money.

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Gwilson

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#2985057 20-Oct-2022 06:54

There is risk in everything. It's an individual choice as to what level of risk we are comfortable with and are prepared to take. Search YouTube for "crossing the road in Vietnam" if you want a laugh...

I agree with Insane above - there is no real incentive for the banks to change so they continue to act like dinosaurs as that is in their best interest, not necessarily the customer's. If the banks wanted to accelerate the move to open banking and embrace Consumer Data Rights they could but they are making great profit margins as things stand so no need for them to change. The ability to use your own data more intelligently will only become 'normal' if the demand from consumers reaches a tipping point to initiate change in bank behavior, or there are legislative changes to incent banks to provide a more open service.

alasta

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#2985069 20-Oct-2022 08:23

Plenty of banks in North America and Europe support YNAB integration, so if it's viable for them then I don't see why it wouldn't be viable here.

Personally I just download a CSV from BNZ and upload it to YNAB on a weekly basis. It's not as good as having a live feed, but it's good enough.

TommySharp

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#2985070 20-Oct-2022 08:31

I suspect YNAB uses Yodlee to connect to many banks which is the exact same situation where you're giving your credentials to a 3rd party...
Spendee is another app that connects to NZ accounts and so must be using some back end service too.

What are the bank opinions on POLI payments then because this seems to be the exact same where you enter your credentials into a 3rd party system?

rogercruse

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#2985141 20-Oct-2022 09:10

PolicyGuy:... I know it's not automated, but Kiwibank allow you to download transactions via their Internet banking web interface. It takes me about 3 minutes to download my credit card & main account transactions every month, and another 15 to 30 minutes to analyse them into a spreadsheet....

I've been downloading my KiwiBank transactions since we opened by our account in 2010... and then uploading this data into Microsoft Money for analysis.

I started using Microsoft Money in 1997 after returning from a holiday with a broken ankle. And being bored one afternoon, I started keying in the transactions from the paper statements from my various bank accounts and credit cards. Overtime, I then discovered, that most UK banks supported automated updating for a while.

I now have all my banking transactions for the past twenty-five years and can analyse how much I spend for major purchases like holidays, cars, vacuum cleaners, etc.

And while Microsoft no longer promote this application, the version available (14.9.120.1105) to download for free and still works well enough to support my needs.

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