HSBC launches Connected Money app

HSBC has taken another step into the open banking era through the launch of its Connected Money app, enabling customers to see account information from all their providers in one place.

  27 14 comments

HSBC launches Connected Money app

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

With PSD2 and the Open Banking rules changing the banking landscape, last year HSBC began piloting an app that embraces the brave new world of customer-owned data.

Now, the service is live for all customers, who can see their UK current accounts, savings accounts, mortgages, loans and cards held across 21 banks, including Santander, Lloyds and Barclays, in one app.

Connected Money also has a spending analysis feature, shows customers how much money they will have after bills, and in-app messaging for insight into finances. In the pipeline are a feature that rounds up debit card purchases and puts the extra money in a savings account, and a savings 'nudge' tool.

Becky Moffat, head, personal banking and advance, HSBC, says: "Our customers live busy lives and bank in a variety of ways. We want to help them to manage their money more easily. Having access to one app that shares insights across a customer’s UK current accounts, mortgages, credit cards, savings and loans saves time by not having to individually log into each account and provides a clear view of their financial position.

"From testing this technology with customers we found that it gave them a sense of better control and financial confidence."

Earlier this year, HSBC's first direct business began taking the open banking concept a step further, trialling an app that no only allows users to bring accounts from different banks together in one place but also see products and services from other providers.

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Comments: (14)

A Finextra member 

If only I could connect all my accounts. Lloyds took three attempts to connect and Santander wouldn't connect at all.

Suspect the issue is the use of screen scraping. Using this flaky mechanism and dressing it up as Open Banking is eroding the already limited trust people have with the Open Banking movement. Shame HSBC didn't choose a partner that exclusively works with the Open Banking APIs like OpenWrks... 

A Finextra member 

@David Coghlan: I've had no problems with connections, given the top 9 have to support Open Banking Group's standard API, why would they use screen scraping?

A Finextra member 

@Dharmesh, this app is using screen scraping.

That's why you have to provide full bank login credentials to connect accounts. If it was an OB API connection you would be securely handed off to your bank to log in and authorise the connection to the HSBC from within your online banking. All of the CMA9 banks APIs are live and available so in my view no excuse and in my view is further muddying the waters for consumers in terms of when and where they can / should provide full bank login details, which btw should be never and with nobody, not even HSBC.

A Finextra member 

Good way of getting population though, dont you think? I agree with David the CMA9 are all working, no reason to screen scrape and face the possible fraud risks that it presents. I am sure the Ts and Cs will clarify the method of access.

A Finextra member 

Agree unfortunately Simon.

I grudgingly admire what HSBC is doing, they're going to learn a ton from this and be streets ahead of the competition. They'll bin Yodlee and Account score after the pilot, flip to an API connection and be in pole position to kill the other PFMs by hoovering up the whole market including the other incumbents. The media coverage they got for this outstrips anything us Fintechs can hope to achieve so they're definitely leading the pack for me at the moment

A Finextra member 

You are corrrect sir, Yodlee and the other aggregators will be whittled down to one or two and the fittest will survive. In a market supposedly designed for fintech entrants they are rather smashing the competiton with a sledgehammer. I suppose really it would of been logical to prevent banks from becoming aggregators and only allowing technology players to do so. However thats a sound principal but a difficult practice.

A Finextra member 

Classic 'RISK' approach to smaller, potentially disruptive competition (Reach, Invest, Steal, Kill). 

No chance of limiting aggregation, it should be a free market, the early mover Fintechs only real hope of 'success' is being bought by a bank and getting paid. 

The real competition to the incumbents will be Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, My bet would be Amazon to totally disintermediate the payments industry in time and offer one-click purchase across the entire web.

A Finextra member 

Strong chance of them being restrained though. I think Facebook pay is an interesting idea as the client base has now "grown up" with the product and there is a level of trust. Even after the CA debarcle. In many ways the abuse of the API ecomony and the fact that facebook have been hit by it does mean that they should be whiter than white. Interesting times I know that.

 

A Finextra member 

We will see one thing of that I am sure, a resistance to trust the small fintechs and tech players until one becomes credible (How many of you bank with Monzo?). When this happens the disintermediation could occur. I think a lot of te banks have a watching brief at present, seeing where to park their money!

A Finextra member 

Forget Monzo, in terms of parking money, watch Revolut. Quitely nailing tech-enabled financial services. Those folks are going catch a lot of people napping.

A Finextra member 

I think that was my point!! Very familair with Revolut and I agree. Lots of innovation, just a matter of adoption on an enterprise scale that makes it pay. best regards, I must do some work!

 

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

To a common man, as long as they start on HSBC, it hardly matters whether they enter their banking credentials on HSBC or on respective bank website - they only know that HSBC was "looking over their shoulders" when they entered the creds. End of the day, leap of faith lies in letting a third party access their banking data. Whether that happens via screen scraping or API is a minor detail for the common man. With due respect to their knowledge, I wonder what %age of common men even know what these two terms mean, let alone the difference between them. Which is why I believe Open Banking Needs A Blockchain Boost to gain mainstream adoption.

A Finextra member 

Fair point @Ketharaman, HSBC benefit from the 'bank' brand too, so having them looking over your shoulder may feel less intrusive / risky.

Interesting angle on the tokenised, payment for access play. Feels like that method of 'owning' and using your data could make sense, but surely the adoption barrier to that is even longer than we are seeing for Open Banking? i.e. it's another FS thing I need to manage.

The only way it would work in practice would be after a 'winning' financial platform / interface emerges, and if that happens, why would that platform pay individuals for data it's already been able to acquire for free? 

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

@David Coghlan:

When you say "winning", you probably mean winning with customers. IMO, today's world of VC and ICO funding has upended that notion.

Winning means first succeeding in raising funds to blow on customer acquisition and only then on succeding with customers.

So, the winning platform will be the one that raises enough funds and makes liberal pay outs to customers for accessing their data. The Blockchain dApps I mentioned in my post have "won" in their regard. Take Brave / BAT for example. If viewed as a regular business, I doubt if it'd last a single day. In the days of VC funding, it'd have taken a few months to raise funds. Whereas, in the ICO world of today, it raised $35M in under 30 seconds (Source).

Ergo, that may be the route to success for Open Banking TPPs as well.

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