Open Banking is a series of reforms to how banks deal with financial information, called for by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The new EU industry-wide standards are scheduled to take effect from 14 September 2019. This means some bank feed connections will change in order to comply with the new requirements.
For more information about Open Banking, the Quickbooks Online article below is worth reading.
As software providers (e.g. QuickBooks and Xero) work towards the September deadline, banks are also doing the same. While many banks already comply with the new technical standards, some are still implementing Open Banking gateways for third party providers like Xero and QuickBooks to use. If you are prompted to update a bank feed, we recommend that you do. If bank feeds are not changed to the new feeds available by the deadline, transactions will stop being imported. This may cause issues such as ‘gaps’ in the bank data.
Important Points
- Not all banks may have updated feeds in place by 14 September 2019. Until a new feed is made available by the bank, you may have to manually import bank statements to the software.
- You should receive an email from QBO/Xero to notify you if a new Open Banking connection is available. A notification will also appear in the Banking sections of the software. You should look out for this and update to the new feeds as soon as possible to minimise any disruption to the feeds.
- The consent period for the updated bank feeds is only 90 days, after which you may need to re-authorise the connection with the bank. A notification in the software should inform you that the feed will expire soon. Again, please keep an eye out for this as this could cause delays.
If you have any questions about Open Banking or any cloud based accounting systems, please get in touch with one of the team.