2021 has so far been eventful when it comes to bank connections, to put it mildly. We’ve experienced some Brexit and connection partner related issues, which resulted in having to reconnect EU bank connections and even an extended dowtime in the case of certain banks, where replacements weren’t provided by partners.

We have better news today. The issues with connections have been abating for a while now, as our bank connection partners resolved the issues. Salt Edge provided an alternative AISP registration and onboarded banks shortly after, but still experienced delays in some cases due to the onboarding process. Plaid’s complete EU downtime continued for 2 months. They were granted a new AISP registration in middle of February and have been onboarding banks again since, most are now available again, but some exceptions remain. Where the connections are still not available, the ball is likely in the bank’s court, either due to slow processes of approving the new registration or errors on the connection itself.

At the time of writing 15 152 bank connections around the world are available on Toshl.

Yesterday, a larger batch of French and Spanish and Irish connections have been re-enabled. Where Salt Edge provided replacements during Plaid’s downtime, those connections will continue to use the Salt Edge connection. The connections which remained missing on Salt Edge, but are available again over Plaid, have been enabled.

Recent additions and re-additions to bank connections:

• Ireland Allied Irish Banks, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB (now over API), KBC, Ulster Bank
• France Credit Lyonnais (LCL), Société Générale, HSBC, La Banque Postale
• Netherlands American Express, Garantibank
• Poland PKO Bank
• Italy Banca Sviluppo Tuscia, Intesa Sanpaolo Corporate, BCC di Massafra, CRS, Banca Capasso Antonio, Banca Macerata, Banca Santa Giulia, Banca d’Alba, Banca di Sconto e Conti Correnti, Banco Marchigiano CC, Mediocredito Trentino, Prader Bank, Solution Bank
• Belgium AXA
• Germany Sparda Bank (7 regional veriations now over API), Barcalycard (now API)
• Hungary MKB Bank
• Spain Novo Banco
• United Arab Emirates ADIB (Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank)
• Croatia HBP
• Slovakia OTP Banka
• Czechia Fio Banka
• Slovenia Delavska Hranilnica started supporting business accounts

Notable removals

• Unites States several Charles Schwab connections in the US.
• Israel Yahav Bank due to “technical issues” with scraping.

Still Missing in action – were available until Brexit issues, waiting to get them back. In most cases waiting for the bank to approve the new registration.

• France Banque Populaire (multiple regions), Caisse d’Epargne (multiple regions), Crédit Coopératif, AXA, BBVA
• Sweden ICA
• Finland OP
• Norway DNB, Danske
• bunq (in multiple countries, originally Dutch)

Providing transparency about shitty banking

With API connections – which banks need to provide by law in the European Union, the banks provide a large part of the functionality on their end. The authentication and the sending of account, transaction data, if we simplify a bit.

While we understand that there are usually some glitches with the implementation of new solutions, some banks are showing remarkable consistency in not resolving issues for long periods of time. As for the reasons, we leave the Hanlon’s razor to you.

To better explain what goes on in some of these cases, what are the legal limitations of PSD2 and in hopes of improvements in the future, we’ve started the Shitty Bank List, where we’ll keep you updated on the depths of bank depravities. Our sincere hope is to shrink that list to 0 as connections and attitudes to Open Banking improve.