55+ bank feeds across the UK and Ireland
Great ideas succeed where others fail because among other things they are disruptive. One such idea; the practice of running software applications in the cloud, is growing so rapidly because it is disruptive in two important respects; economic and innovation.
Online apps share a common economic disruption because rather than paying for them up front like classic software, you pay as you go and you can easily scale your spending up and down as your needs change plus you are not locked in to lengthy contracts. And in the world of small business accounting we also see huge disruption along the axis of innovation with the elimination of multiple datasets, provision of access from anywhere and from any device, and an awesome platform for instant collaboration between business owners and their financial advisers.
And so today we’re thrilled to be adding a new chunk of innovation disruption to the list in the UK with the release of the second phase of automated bank feeds from more than 55 UK banks and financial institutions. This phase caters for customers of UK banks such as Lloyds TSB, Nat West, Santander, Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and for customers across the Irish Sea, Ulster Bank and Bank of Ireland, with more to follow.
It’s taken us a while to get here and we’re grateful for your ongoing patience as we continue to roll-out this new service powered by Yodlee, last month it was Australia, and from today in the UK and Ireland. Our Help Centre has more detail about these new banks feeds and how to set them up. It also shows you how to find out if your bank is supported.
And we’re also feeling chipper today because Xero is the first accounting system in the UK to seamlessly couple banking with accounting, with daily banking transactions from UK high street banks now automatically flowing straight into Xero.
Our experience with bank feeds in New Zealand and Australia is that this is a game-changer. Having near real time accounting information is transformational and we believe all small businesses will demand bank feeds in their accounting software over the next few years. And with bank feeds there is also a huge opportunity for the UK accounting profession to upgrade, add value and be competitive. Having launched our first UK bank feed in May 2009 for HSBC customers, what we do know is that there is a real appetite for bank feeds in the UK as you’ll see in the video above.
Next stop is bank feeds for banks in the US and Canada. We’ll be releasing these as soon as the new UK and Irish feeds have bedded down, which is expected to be within the next couple of weeks.
Read more about Business, United Kingdom
112 comments
Tim Ellert
please tell me Barclays is in the list… or else i am changing banks! 
Robin Blandford
This is fantastic news – how long until AIB (Allied Irish Bank) feeds in Ireland? Cannot wait for that so we can transition immeadiately.
Great stuff. Good to see Ulster Bank in the list. Is First Trust Bank in there too?
This is great news for all Xero users. Congratulations guys!
Fantastic team Xero!
Shows again how Xero is leading the accountancy software game by a country mile.
Game changer? – you bet!
Fantastic!! And superb to see Northern Ireland banks included too.
Awsome guys, truly awesome. We send people to HSBC specifically for feeds to Xero…. this definitely makes it easier to encourage people to use Xero who’ve already got a relationship with one of the other banks!
Tim van Heugten
What does a bank need to do to make this even possible? I live in the Netherlands and I don’t think banks are supporting feeds. I have to manually download statements, convert them with an Excel Macro (as we use a comma as separator) and then upload them. I might make this a web service for Dutch people to use until banks start to realize this is a much needed feature.
Ben Everard
What about Halifax in the UK? Doesn’t appear in your help section, an exhaustive list would be good
Steve Gill
When will bank feeds be coming to Xero Personal?
Matt Webb
Great news! Is this also for Xero Personal?
Chris Owen-Smith
Got very excited about this until I realised it was for business only. Any plans to provide this for the personal edition?
Ros
People need Barclays! When?
Matt
Will this feature be available on Xero Personal at all?
Thank Gary. Excellent news. All three banks we use for various projects and companies are on the list. Win!
Darryl
Hi Gary, when I started my new business I specifically chose HSBC because Xero feeds were already available. HSBC has been OK (does pay any credit interest and took a bit of charm to get them to issue a business debit card, but otherwise as good as Santander). But the time saving of having feeds directly into Xero has been priceless. This is, indeed, a game changing move for Xero. Well done.
Oh, and the reason that I don’t use Xero Personal is that no automated bank feeds were available and none of the UK retail banks I spoke to could confirm that I could download statements in QIF or CSV format. Any news for automated bank feeds for Xero Personal?
Jon
Is this available in personal accounts?
UPDATE: While today’s release opens up bank feeds to many more banks there are some UK banks, such as Barclays, which are not yet available because they require some multi factor authentication (e.g. a second user password or ID) to access Internet Banking. Support for this is under development and we plan to release feeds for these additional banks early in 2011.
Thanks for this – just tried to activate my Natwest accounts – it appears they are only available for retail/private customers. Do you know when the corporate and commercial ones will be available please for them?? Thanks!!
Howard
Please let us know when Barclays is up and running!!!
Hmmm, I was getting all excited but then discovered it isn’t on personal accounts at the moment, can someone from xero please say if this is going to be included in the future? I don’t mind paying a bit extra for data feeds but chances are I won’t be paying for the business plan.
@Steve Gill @Matt Webb @Chris Owen-Smith @Matt @Neil Benson @Jon This release of bank feeds via Yodlee is into Xero Business only at this stage. Once we’ve got it fully integrated we’ll take a look at getting it into Xero Personal – we’ll be progressing discussions with banks for direct feeds as fast as we can at the same time so will take stock when we reach this point. No confirmed timeframe yet but watch this space!
I’ve skimmed through the docs and your pricing page and this page and I can’t see and mention of costs? Is bank feeds included in the standard Xero subscription? HSBC used to incur an additional cost.
Already activated out LloydsTSB account – magic!
The Alliance & Leicester/Santander feeds seem to be for personal bank accounts. Do you have plans in the near future for A&L/Santander Business Accounts?
Gary Turner – Thanks, I would love an ETA on AIB Ireland feeds. AIB tend to be better for ecommerce/online-payments and hence many online/web-app businesses are with them.
Prime Chartered Accountants
This is the news that everyone using Xero has been waiting for – a great feature for clients using Xero and a great feature for us when using Xero to keep clients’ records for them. I understand that the bank feeds using Yodlee are free but it is still £2.50 pm to sign up with HSBC. Is that correct and is it likely to change?
Victoria
Hi Guys, does it still cost £2.50 per feed??
HI
Very excited this morning to see we can connect to our bank, however I am not sure we can. We bank with the Natwest (supported) but use the bankline system to access our accounts online. I’ve entered the details I would into xero, but it doesn’t seem to be having it – is this a bankline incompatibility?
Mark Telford
Well done guys, great news.
I’ve got more clients who will be ready to move over to Xero now.
@Gary Sorry to labour the point Gary, but just to clarify about HSBC; if we sign up an HSBC account from today will it be free? If so, should existing HSBC bank feed users try and cease the existing feed and then re-sign up a new free one? or will HSBS still be £2.50 pm but Xero will cease passing that charge on?
Benjamin Bowles
Anybody had any joy with Lloyds TSB UK Business accounts that now use card readers?
sad times, I thought today was the day I’ve been waiting for!
@Gary – HSBC accounts not already set up for bank feeds are only showing the Partner bank Feeds option, not the Yodlee option?
Kyle
Can you actually still get a Lloyds business account without MFA? Lloyds seems to have forced everyone over to MFA during November. It’s a real pain for a shared business account and they didn’t even send us a card reader for each cardholder.
Natwest business bankline is not available (while RBS business bankline is – its pretty much the same platform). Do you know if this could be made available? The Natwest UK account which is available is not the commercial bankline version.
Kyle – I didn’t think you could, and the same situation with us…
Can’t wait for bank feeds for Canadian banks. Will make a great Christmas present for small businesses here!
So close, yet so far. Although 2011 isn’t too long to wait.
Does anyone know if these new feeds are going to see HSBC drop their charges?
Anyone looking to change personal account, Natwest have by far the best online banking system and you can easily download the transactions into a csv and upload.
@Gary Turner – Looks like the sign-in for AIB (Ireland) is asking for Personal Banking sign-in. It won’t do business accounts
We love Xero, and accurate up to date info would be great but we use Bank of Scotland and have to use the ‘token’ device during login. Currently it’s not supported in the new list (Bank of Scotland (without token) is though). Are there plans to include soon? Or should I be thinking of an alternative (bank, not Xero replacement of course!)
Damien Tanner
Is this page going to be updated with all the banks new supported? http://help.xero.com/#Payments_PartnerFeeds$BK_BankFeedsUK
Why have you listed banks that have tokens or other authentication factors, such as Bank of Scotland, when you know it will not work?
Gary.
Can you tell me if “Ulster Bank (UK)” includes Northern Ireland customers? We are having trouble activating the feed. The Ulster Bank website that we use lists “Ulster Bank Ltd” as the legal name.
Same for First Trust Bank – does “First Trust Bank (UK)” include NI customers?
Thanks.
Mark Emanuelson
Is the Cooperative Bank included in bank feeds?
tarch
I’m not sure if this was addressed, but how about feeds for the banks in the United States? Timeframe??
Disregard previous post…..didn’t see the last sentence of the article. Looking forward to trying it out!!
Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland feeds only cover personal bank accounts.
Great to see it working but of no real use for business clients. Gary, can you let us know if the business banking accounts will be included in the next release.
Could you also let us know if Ulster Bank Ireland ( business accounts ) will be available.
When will the next release be ?
Try to get Cooperative Bank in if you can. They are a very successful bank, one of the few with an ethical policy, and also offer small businesses that are FSB members free banking services. It might be a nice target market for you. Mark
[...] other day Xero made a big noise about having added 55 bank feeds. Long story short, Xero can now automate some but not all bank input data to its solution. Add in [...]
Thanks for letting me know Gary. Very frustrating trying to make it work when it was never going to! Still, it should be worth the wait.
Philip
Ok – I must be going mad. How do you configure your bank to automatically import the statements? My accounts are just sitting there looking as dull as ever…
Any idea when Alliance & Leicester Commercial bank (Santander) will be added to the feeds -It appears the current set up is only for personal bank accounts?
[...] For Xero’s own blog on the bank feed release click here. [...]
OC
I just spent a few hours getting a Xero account set up as this facility is now available, only to discover that you don’t support it for one of your two products! I’m incredibly irritated to have wasted all this time, PLEASE in future be more honest and clear about the scope of new features, if it’s for business not personal, then SAY SO!
The only reason I’d use Xero is for the Yodlee integration, if that’s not there the whole thing is a time-drain, and no use unfortunately.
*annoyed*
@OC Sorry for not making this clear. We had explained in earlier blogs that our integration with Yodlee was for just the Xero Business product at this stage, but we should have mentioned that again in this announcement.
Any updates on when Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland (business accounts) feeds will be live?
PS Hi Darryl!
Dan
Been trying to activate Natwest Cards On Line but I get an error message that details are not correct even if they are. Contacted support and been told that this is an issue with Yodlee but cannot tell me when it will be fixed, do we even know if Yodlee is working on this? All I get at the moment is the annoying red message telling me that the feed cannot be activated…
Can someone confirm whether Bank of Ireland business accounts are available? Or if Someone has been able to set this up?
Hi Stephen. Unfortunately Bank of Ireland business accounts accessed through the ‘Business on Line’ login are not yet supported by Yodlee. We are tracking demand for these additional business banking sites and will work with Yodlee to get the more popular sites added to the service. Keep an eye on the blog for updates over the coming months.
Can’t wait for AIB Ireland Business Accounts!!
Richard Sadler
Is there any update on the progress with Barclays Bank please ?
Sharon Griffin
I would be very interested in getting the bank feeds from my Bank of Ireland Business on line account. Please let me know when this becomes available. Can I still link my Vend sales to zero?
Tristan
I use Xero for business and the auto-import of my statements is a a godsend. I also use Xero personal but that same functionality (despite that when I setup my business account I could see my personal one!) is not available.
When will this be implemented?
Pete
Any update on when the feed from Lloyds TSB Business accounts will be up and running?
Here Here Pete – need Natwest and Barclays too
Philip Donnan
Really disappointed to hear this. Had just set up my first client in Xero and so far have not had a great experience. The lack of bank feeds has not helped, they use Ulster Bank Business banking. Will have to go back to the client and maybe tell them we will not be transfering to Xero as they do not have what is advertiesed. I had planned to move another client over next month but it seems pointless at this stage!
Can you give a better date for the bank feeds?
Any chance you could make some sort of page detailing which banks/accounts do/do not work with feeds currently? I’m imagining a table of banks with ticks to signify that you can import feeds directly, and perhaps expected dates for ones that you can’t but are working on.
Otherwise I keep checking here and emailing your staff…
Gavin Kearney
@Gary – Can you please advise whether the First Trust Bank feed is fully activated yet? And if so, whether this extends to their iBusiness Banking online services in addition to their personal finance online banking?
Many thanks!
Jeremy
Gary, I’m struggling to find a list of banks & accounts where feeds are available – does one exist? I’m looking at shifting another business to Xero, but we’re also shifting banks. We like the Business Plus account at RBS, any thoughts on bank feed compatibility?
Simon
Guys
Are you working on feed reliability? HSBC which was the original UK feed seems to work for a few days then be down for several more. They’re such an essential part of our process now, not to mention we’re still being charged for them when other banks are free, that it is quite disruptive when they aren’t there. Las ttime I clicked on the sad smiley and reported it (and they mysteriously started working again) I was given a link for ‘feed status’. That shows all is fine with today’s date but, alas, no HSBC feeds yet again. I make it 2 days out of 7 they’ve actually worked in the last week and those are the two days immediately following me reporting them being broken.
Simon
Hi Simon,
In the ops team, we’re very much aware of the problems that the Partner HSBC feeds have been experiencing over the last week or two.
The initial cause of the disruption was related to an upgrade by HSBC of HSBCnet which inadvertently broke some of the functionality that Xero relies on for Customer data feeds.
Once HSBC restored access to this functionality, we additionally experienced some delays where data has not been imported into Xero at the normal time, and you may have experienced days where data arrived a few hours late. I appreciate it may seem nothing has happened until you’ve talked to us, but in fact, the daily integrity of the current feed is something Ops are monitoring pro-actively.
That said, we do acknowledge the problems that you’re experiencing, and we are talking with HSBC about moving to a more reliable data delivery system.
Into Q2 of 2011 now, any update on when we’ll see AIB Business account feeds? (Multi-Factor).
Andrew
Now we’re into Q2, any update on the Barclays UK feed?
I noticed Barclays have announced simplified login for online/mobile banking that wont use the PIN sentry, coming in May/June. Does this move potentially make it easier to get the feed completed?
Your AIB bank feed only works for personal accounts (which I presume almost no business users use). When will an AIB business feed be in place – it would top off a great piece of software.
Michael
Another great nothing form Xero. Bank feeds – wait! What? No Business feeds for Business Xero!? Only personal? – Why I am not surprised? It’s like saying – Yes we have this bike now! (but only for kids). I call it another useless piece of hype information from Xero.
Hi Michael, bank feeds are not a standard service from many banks. We’re working hard with Yodlee to get as many accounts as we can. We won’t get everything. We don’t have much control.
If you really need bank feeds (and we think all businesses do) can I suggest changing to a supported bank. In the meanwhile we’re working as fast as we can to get to as many financial institutions as possible.
Cheers
Rod
Hopefully you will get AIB feeds in place soon, but in the meantime rather than moaning about it we decided to write our own little conversion tool to convert AIB CSV to Xero CSV. Check it out at http://xero.kro.ie/ – I hope it helps someone.
That’s brilliant Ruairi. I have the same problems with the Co-operative Bank here in the UK, and have created a Filemaker Pro database with a script that converts their daft CSV (sounds like a similar layout) in to a well formatted one that imports in to Xero. It was pretty easy to achieve.
allie
Hi
Delighed Barclays Business are now on bank feeds but when you apply for bank feeds xero asks for a membership number and five digit passcode along with a memorable word. Barclays dont use this system anymore as use the pin sentry. I spoke to them today in case I’d missed something but apparently not. Can you help?
Darragh
Another +1 for the addition of Bank of Ireland business feeds, in the process of transitioning to Xero and would complete a great software package for us.
Can you please let me know if Lloyds Business is available and if so why I can’t get past the postcode stage or is there something else I should be doing ?
Sean
Hanging out for the AIB business banking feeds!! spoke with their technical support yesterday to see if it was in the pipeline and they hadn’t a clue what I was on about
@ruairi, conversion tool has just sorted that .csv import, thanks a million!
If anyone in Ireland is still struggling to import their bank feed to Xero then please check out http://xero.kro.ie/. We have been helping AIB users for a while now, but over the weekend we added support for Ulster Bank users. We have only tested it with one client so far so any feedback on issues encountered will be very welcome.
Hi can someone please tell me when there will be a feed available from Bank of Ireland.
@Billy – Hi Billy – I answered your question over here, but you may not have seen my reply: http://blog.xero.com/2011/05/1000-more-bank-feeds/#comment-20196
If you’re in the Republic of Ireland and using Bank of Ireland personal banking (365 Online), the feeds should work. However, if you’re using Bank of Ireland business banking (Business Online), Yodlee’s advice to us is that they are unable to support these accounts at this time.
If you’re trying to setup Business Online accounts, you have a few options available to you:
- You can ask the bank to make the accounts available through 365 Online
- You could import transactions manually
- You could contact the bank and request that they talk to us about supplying data to us directly.
Amy Lazzerini
Any idea when bank feeds will be available for Co-operative Business accounts?
Personal ones seem to be up and running but that’s no good for me!
Timothy Sutton
Spoke to Co-operative Business Bank and the girl admitted that their Business banking works on an old system incompatible with modern Bank Feeds. She said they were aware of the problem and were hoping change to the modern system that their Personal Banking was on, but not dates as to when this would be done. She also gave me their technical department number, 0870 600 0328, but that was on answer machine. Not very reassuring.
Mark Strong
That’s a real pain about the Co-op. Is there anyone we can complain to? If enough customers write in maybe we can persuade them to hurry up…
You used to do the Northern Bank in Northern Ireland – it’s now been sole to the Danske Bank (Danish) – can we have feeds from their eBusiness Banking system at all please?
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Please, confirm for us that Lloyds is one of the 55…