Reply to: Free FreeAgent subscriptions to RBS customers?

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

IMHO - Best not to anyway, since it involves giving your bank log in details to a third party about which you know little and who you have no control over whatsoever.

They use Yodlee. So its not like they are some small unknown entity. They login details alone aren't enough if you use HSBC anyway, as it uses two-factor auth.

[pr1]

I know many people were concerned by this, with good reason. However from what I gather most of the big banks actually buy data from Yodlee (even their own data) as Yodlee have done a better job of getting it into a suitable format than the banks could do themselves. Also at least last time I heard there had never been a breach of data from Yodlee...but yeah, this won't provide comfort to some (zero sarcasm in my tone there!).

Yodlee stealing my data / being breached isn't what worries me - what worries me is that if anyone hacked me/bruteforced/guessed my login through any other means then because I have given my login details to a 3rd party, I wouldn't be covered under the fraud protection from the bank (it's in the T&Cs) - even if the risk of that happening is tiny, for me it's not worth it considering how quickly I can upload a .csv of the same data weekly/monthly

[Maslins]

Yup, Barclays was different, as it was a deal specifically sorted with the bank. I think HSBC had a similar thing with Xero.

The others all rely on Yodlee "screen scraping". Ie a computer actually logs into your online banking, "reads" what's on the screen, and converts it into a format which can then be pushed into software like FreeAgent.

I know many people were concerned by this, with good reason. However from what I gather most of the big banks actually buy data from Yodlee (even their own data) as Yodlee have done a better job of getting it into a suitable format than the banks could do themselves. Also at least last time I heard there had never been a breach of data from Yodlee...but yeah, this won't provide comfort to some (zero sarcasm in my tone there!).

I think the hope is that banks which don't enable the direct feeds will find enough customers departing for those who do, that all banks will end up complying. I gather independently of this there's also an attempt to legislate to enforce it.

Probably the topic of this post will shortly lead to RBS/Natwest having a direct feed with FreeAgent, and over the coming years I'm sure it'll become the norm.

[pr1]

When I linked FA temporarily to my Santander account in the 28 day trial to see how it worked, you had to give the full bifta. Not a good idea IMO.

same for cater allen

[Fred Bloggs]

When I linked FA temporarily to my Santander account in the 28 day trial to see how it worked, you had to give the full bifta. Not a good idea IMO.

[FrontEnder]

Drifting a bit further off topic, but HSBC at least used to have an option like that. You could create additional "users", potentially just with read only access. We trialled it with a handful of willing clients, where they'd give us access. It was a faff to set up, but once done seemed to work well. Problem was as it was only a handful of clients (and only for HSBC) it was more trouble than it was worth IMHO.

Possibly you can do the same thing creating a read only account specifically to use with FreeAgent? HSBC still needs the 2 factor auth which makes it a pain. Hopefully within a few years this will all become irrelevant anyway as banks are increasingly encouraged to make the data more readily available.

I'm with barclays and use freeagent, the bank feed is separate from your our log in details. It's designed specificaly for things like this, so on free agent you only provide the sort code and account number (and possibly some limited authentication stuff, address/name/DO - i can't rember exactly). You then get an authorisation code from barclays which you have to enter to complete the set up.

So I know that it's only the transactions that is sent, via a secured data feed, and there's not risk of my login details being compromised. I don't imagine this is particularly difficult or costly to set up from a technical point of view.

[Maslins]

This is the reason I don't enable freeagent bank feed as well - what I think would be useful is a separate log in/password combo (on request) for your bank account for read only access which software like this could use for access

Drifting a bit further off topic, but HSBC at least used to have an option like that. You could create additional "users", potentially just with read only access. We trialled it with a handful of willing clients, where they'd give us access. It was a faff to set up, but once done seemed to work well. Problem was as it was only a handful of clients (and only for HSBC) it was more trouble than it was worth IMHO.

Possibly you can do the same thing creating a read only account specifically to use with FreeAgent? HSBC still needs the 2 factor auth which makes it a pain. Hopefully within a few years this will all become irrelevant anyway as banks are increasingly encouraged to make the data more readily available.

[pr1]

Till then, I remain very wary of little known about 3rd parties. What would happen when you made a claim that your account had been emptied of cash? The bank would say - "But you gave your log in details to someone". You'd have a hard time disputing that.

This is the reason I don't enable freeagent bank feed as well - what I think would be useful is a separate log in/password combo (on request) for your bank account for read only access which software like this could use for access

[Fred Bloggs]

I believe this is one of things which will change. There'll be a robust direct link apparently.

Till then, I remain very wary of little known about 3rd parties. What would happen when you made a claim that your account had been emptied of cash? The bank would say - "But you gave your log in details to someone". You'd have a hard time disputing that.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

IMHO - Best not to anyway, since it involves giving your bank log in details to a third party about which you know little and who you have no control over whatsoever.

I believe this is one of things which will change. There'll be a robust direct link apparently.

[Fred Bloggs]

Hmmn, I can't even get the Freeagent Bank Feed working with my NatWest account.

IMHO - Best not to anyway, since it involves giving your bank log in details to a third party about which you know little and who you have no control over whatsoever.

[LondonManc]

What would happen if HMRC demanded that FreeAgent frees up all of it's data ?

Revolution?

[northernladuk]

What would happen if HMRC demanded that FreeAgent frees up all of it's data ?

We would all laugh very hard.

[radish2008]

What would happen if HMRC demanded that FreeAgent frees up all of it's data ?

[chopper]

I am with NatWest, will keep an eye on this

Hmmn, I can't even get the Freeagent Bank Feed working with my NatWest account.