Reply to: Bank Recomendations leaving Cashplus

[Spoiler]

Have noticed that Starling's FreeAgent integration has improved recently. Used to take ~12 hours or so for some of my transactions to show up in FA, but the last few have synced up instantly.

[sal]

Thought I'd follow up on this thread, that FreeAgent have now properly launched Open Banking for bank feeds. I gather it's in place for all "the big 9" banks, though it seems just for current accounts (eg savings/credit card accounts not yet).

MVLO banks with HSBC, and to date had just used statement download/upload (mainly as the 2FA made the old feed via Yodlee pretty painful). We set this up via the new open banking option a few working days ago. It was a breeze, and seems to work beautifully.

Ahh good news, I will give my Barclays feed a punt then, the old system required me to register with a specific Barclays service which required a branch visit or what not so I gave up and kept uploading manually.

[Maslins]

Thought I'd follow up on this thread, that FreeAgent have now properly launched Open Banking for bank feeds. I gather it's in place for all "the big 9" banks, though it seems just for current accounts (eg savings/credit card accounts not yet).

MVLO banks with HSBC, and to date had just used statement download/upload (mainly as the 2FA made the old feed via Yodlee pretty painful). We set this up via the new open banking option a few working days ago. It was a breeze, and seems to work beautifully.

[Wonky]

Opened an account with Starling - very smooth and easy 100% online and took less than 24hrs ... so far so good

[Jess inniAccounts]

+2 for Starling.

+3. Heard nothing but good things about Starling.

[Maslins]

For those interested in the open banking/FreeAgent integration side of things, see the below blog posts:
- open banking coming soon,
- which banks are participating.

The latter has most of the big, traditional banking names in there. None of the "challenger banks" though. Having said that, not being on this list doesn't mean there is no integration.

[Six It]

I have been using Tide for a couple of Years - no issues

I use Starling for International Payments as Tide hasn't enacted this feature yet

[DolanContractorGroup]

We recommend Tide - they do have their own integration to FreeAgent, and works well!

KR
Sophie

[Maslins]

Good to know, thanks! I use Sage One and it connects seamlessly to HSBC

Yeah I believe HSBC links beautifully with Xero too, but not FreeAgent. Until all the open banking stuff is complete, each software company needs to get a bespoke agreement/technical solution with each bank. Hence it's not necessarily a case of some banks are better/worse than others, more that bank A works well with software X, whilst bank B works well with software Y.

[ladymuck]

Currently the FA HSBC integration is fairly poor. There's no direct feed so it relies on Yodlee, and two factor authentication (whilst obviously making it more secure) makes the feed a real pain. MVL Online use HSBC, happy with it otherwise, and just accept we use manual transaction download/upload for the FreeAgent side of things.

...but yeah, if/when the banks finally get up to speed with the "Open Banking malarky" then any/all bank data integrations should be virtually identical.

Good to know, thanks! I use Sage One and it connects seamlessly to HSBC

[Maslins]

I have been with HSBC for years. I believe they integrate with FA but I don't use it so can't say. I assume that if FA use the Open Banking malarky then it'll be fine.

Currently the FA HSBC integration is fairly poor. There's no direct feed so it relies on Yodlee, and two factor authentication (whilst obviously making it more secure) makes the feed a real pain. MVL Online use HSBC, happy with it otherwise, and just accept we use manual transaction download/upload for the FreeAgent side of things.

...but yeah, if/when the banks finally get up to speed with the "Open Banking malarky" then any/all bank data integrations should be virtually identical.

[Wonky]

Had a number of small issues then one big one...

1) For a number of months they were rejecting payments made from Sagepay CC portals - half the providors on Booking.com use this so was a pain in the arse to book accom.

2) They would randomly bounce back payments from my agency and then they'd need to be reprocessed.

3) A significant payment via bank transfer has dissapeared into a black hole. Sending bank have provided all the info requested and CP are dragging their heels - its impossible to speak to anyone who has an authority or deals with missing payments.

The significant payment popped up 4 days after it went missing as a return to the party sending it. CP customer service was below par in my view.

[ladymuck]

I have been with HSBC for years. I believe they integrate with FA but I don't use it so can't say. I assume that if FA use the Open Banking malarky then it'll be fine.

[Spoiler]

+1 for Starling.

+2 for Starling.

[Wonky]

What issues did you have with Cashplus?

I am using them at the moment and have been thinking about moving, this could be the kick I need.

Had a number of small issues then one big one...

1) For a number of months they were rejecting payments made from Sagepay CC portals - half the providors on Booking.com use this so was a pain in the arse to book accom.

2) They would randomly bounce back payments from my agency and then they'd need to be reprocessed.

3) A significant payment via bank transfer has dissapeared into a black hole. Sending bank have provided all the info requested and CP are dragging their heels - its impossible to speak to anyone who has an authority or deals with missing payments.