API to request info from the Irish banks (AIB / BOI)

wobbles-grogan

Hi all,

I've been doing some looking around for an API to request information from a bank, similar to the API that mint must use..
https://www.mint.com/

Mint only works in the US though, and I wanted to create something for myself to show my income/expenditure every month...

Does anyone know of an API to do this? Preferablly in Java, but I can learn another language if need be...

Cheers..

kayos

Really really doubt your going to get access to financial info via an API from the banks when its just for you. Just way to much of a security risk. If you do get access I will be amazed. If you were a company maybe but as a normal Joe Soap....think you'd have better luck getting an unsecured multi-million euro loan to develop houses

wobbles-grogan

I was afraid of that.

It is just for me though, it'll be a simple application i can load up and it will show me a pie chart of my income/expenditure!!

Maybe theres *something* out there to do it.

fergalr

It is easy to write a scripting interface to BoI's online banking, that programatically drives the web interface, and provides an API - couple of hours work with Perl and www::mechanize, or something more modern. I'd say that's the case for most of the online banking web apps - but I'm not familiar with the others.

That doesn't mean its a good idea :-)

Skrynesaver

fergalr wrote: »

It is easy to write a scripting interface to BoI's online banking, that programatically drives the web interface, and provides an API - couple of hours work with Perl and www::mechanize, or something more modern. I'd say that's the case for most of the online banking web apps - but I'm not familiar with the others.

That doesn't mean its a good idea :-)

I'd tend to go this route, though I'd be inclined to use LWP::UserAgent and HTTP::Cookie to write a simple "browser" and pull my banking data that way

jester77

You would need the Irish banking equivalent of HBCI, if it exists.

wobbles-grogan

I was hoping not to go scripting it, as one simple change in their webpage (a string for example) and the script is broke.

I guess that would be the same with any other method though.

Ill have to investigate some more!
Scripting might be the only choice.

I also might have to set up a bank account and online banking system just to test with. I wonder how accommodating our banks will be...

Cheers for the help...

Edit:
I had a quick look at that HBCI stuff, look like exactly what i'd need. Ill have to search for the irish equivelant!

Michael..

Hi Guys,

Seeing as this question was posted a couple of years ago I was wondering has anything changed ?

Basically, I am looking to build a financial management application of some sort for web and mobile. To put it simply, I would like to display the users current bank balance from within my own application.

Is there any APIs or methods I can use to do this.

Many thanks,

M.

ChRoMe

Michael.. wrote: »

Hi Guys,

Seeing as this question was posted a couple of years ago I was wondering has anything changed ?

Basically, I am looking to build a financial management application of some sort for web and mobile. To put it simply, I would like to display the users current bank balance from within my own application.

Is there any APIs or methods I can use to do this.

Many thanks,

M.

Mint did screen scraping, they were not provided an API.

fergalr

I'm not aware of APIs for the Irish banks. Maybe they exist, but I haven't heard of them.

Regarding scaping, which Chrome mentioned:
Someone asked me about this via PM a while ago, so here's basically what I told them:



It was possible once to do this, as I described in my above post.

Certain BoI, of whom I'm a customer, have changed their web interface since then. I don't know how easy it would be to script now - I haven't looked at it.

However, as I said in my earlier post, just because it might be possible doesn't mean its a good idea.

1) Its hard to technically maintain a scraper of this form.

2) There's huge legal, security, privacy, liability, data protection issues to think about even then, if you were to offer this as a service. Where would a users username and password be stored? That's a huge issue. What about security? There are substantial issues to consider any time you think about doing anything technical involving bank data.


Its instantly involved.


Point 2 is a bigger challenge than Point 1.

See if you can figure out some way of achieving your goals without accessing the users bank account.

If you can't, then be prepared to get into a complex situation.

Other organisations or companies you might want to check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mint.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodlee
and 'standard treasury' (the YC company)

These companies all tackled related problems.

johnniekipper

Is this now possible with all this PSD2 stuff and open banking. I would like to pull transactions from a bank account into my application.

seamus

Short answer is no.

In order to use PSD2 to access any account information, you need to be a registered AISP or PISP. This requires filing an application with the central bank, which has robust money laundering and anti-fraud protections in place.

Which makes sense, when you think about it. If you could access your own bank info over an API, then you're only a small step from fooling someone else into allowing you to access theirs.

Unfortunately it means that small developers will never be able to write anything of use in this area without the assistance of larger firms.

johnniekipper

Thats a pity. I had looked at that central bank application document and had hoped that a small developer would be able to apply to access the basic statement transaction data from an authorised account.:mad:

mneylon

You can do it via https://www.yodlee.com/ - no idea how much they charge though

johnniekipper

looks like that only covers UK/US banks

mneylon

johnniekipper wrote: »

looks like that only covers UK/US banks

They definitely cover Irish ones - I'm using it with https://wiz.money/

KingCong

Blacknight wrote: »

They definitely cover Irish ones - I'm using it with https://wiz.money/

You can pull in all your Irish banks account to Money Wiz? Would you recommend it?

I used to use an Android app called BillGuard that auto synced all my BOI and Ulster Bank accounts, it was excellent for tracking expenditure, but alas it was bought by another company and renamed to Prosper Daily, then shut down a few months later. Haven't found a good alternative since, Money Wiz looks like it might be a runner though.