The death of Open Banking for hobbyists(indigo.spot)
4 pointsby lemonaise4 hours ago1 comment
  • palata4 hours ago
    That's how I must sound when I talk about something I really care about, but that people generally haven't heard about, like ever. And if they had, they wouldn't care.

    I guess I am not the target for the post, but it picked my curiosity. So "Open Banking" is... what? The hope that some banks would offer an open API to log in and... read data? So that one could write an app that pulls your banking data and does stuff with it? I guess a bank would never take the risk to offer an API that would be able to "write", as in initiate transactions, right?

    But even offering an open API to read the banking data in a third-party app... isn't that super risky? If someone told me "I found this great app, I just need to let it log itself into my bank" I would interrupt them and start screaming before the end of the sentence, I think...

    Or am I completely missing the point of the article?

    • iamnothere3 hours ago
      It should be possible to use open source software to retrieve financial data to help with taxes, budgeting, record-keeping, etc. Or for companies to automate their own financial infrastructure without involving middlemen.

      I am less concerned about the potential for abuse here than I am concerned about middlemen like Plaid having all my data.