Could you please let me know when the open banking feed for Co-operative Bank will be added?
I have spoken to the Co-operative Bank and they believe that the ball is in QuickFile’s court in terms of getting the open banking feed set up. Could you please let me know the technical details of the problem from QuickFile’s point of view, so that I can make the appropriate request when I contact the bank.
Hello @135thDerbyScouts
(Apologies if this is a bit technical)
QuickFile uses Open Banking Standards which were implemented by the likes of HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and so on.
A bit of Background
The Co-Op have opted, initially to use a MCI (Modified Customer Interface), which basically means, it runs on screen scaping, something we discourage
Our approach to meeting PSD2 regulatory compliance is to provide access via modified customer interfaces across our Co-operative Bank Personal, smile and Business Banking brands (ref).
Co-op have since implemented a Token.io setup, which is a third party and uses a different setup to the OB framework.
QuickFile doesn’t support Token connections at this time, but we’re always happy to look into these things if there’s enough interest from the community
I have changed the title and category of this feed to allow other users to vote. That way we can gauge the response
Do you know what banks actually use token apart from co op?
Sorry no, I don’t know that.
I would also like to voice support for getting a Co-Operative bank feed integration working. Thank you!
Hi,
Please count me interested in the Co-op Business bank feed.
Cheers 
Hi all,
I didn’t realise there is a Vote button at the top of this the first time around. I’ve voted now but I bet there are many others who would like this feed looking at the amount of times it’s been requested since the Vote was set up.
Are all the other bank feeds that Quickfile supports using Open Banking? Even Amex?! Starling’s using something different isn’t it? Open Banking
Cheers
Hi @madbilly
All feeds except Starling uses Open Banking.
Although Starling does now support Open Banking, it was the first direct feed that was set up prior to Open Banking being introduced on a wide scale and works a little differently to the others.
Hi Mathew,
So Quickfile only wants to work with feeds that use the Open Banking format, rather than any others?
I know there’s a poll on this feature request, but if that really representative of the total number of Quickfile users who use Co-op business banking who would benefit from having an automated bank feed?
Are there any intermediate bank feed aggregators anyone’s aware of that I could use to get the Co-op bank feed, then somehow get it into Quickfile? I suppose I’d then need Quickfile to support the intermediate feed aggregator…
Cheers
Hi @madbilly
We’re happy to explore options for others. As mentioned, our Starling feed doesn’t use Open Banking and that’s supported.
What I would say is there are over 10,000 users on this forum, which I agree is only a percentage of users of QuickFile itself. However, they are likely to receive a summary (unless they unsubscribe), and this thread is at the top of the forum when new posts are made.
I would encourage anyone who’s interested in this feature to click the “Vote” button at the top and add a comment to add their support, too.
My understanding is (although I’m not part of the development team, so could be wrong), is Token is an aggregator, similar to others on the market like Plaid, TrueLayer and so on.
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Hi Mathew,
Thanks for the explanation. If you’d like someone to test this then please let me know.
Cheers
Hi @QFMathew,
Any word on this yet? Or is it just not going to happen?
Cheers 
Hi all,
I’ve been trying to understand this, why Quickfile won’t implement token.io bank feeds. I can only conclude that it’s a commercial reason, because it doesn’t seem like there’s a technical reason at all. The API is very well documented at Data (Account Information Services), lots of banks use it (including BIG ones), and there’s lots of open source code available as well.
There is the list of banks that currently have a token.io interface: https://support.token.io/hc/en-us/articles/29293707758873-AIS-and-AccountHolderName-Availability-UK-Banks The list also isn’t complete because I found other banks with a link to develop.token.io, e.g. https://www.turkishbank.co.uk/personal/openbanking/. It seems to me that all of the big banks are in there, so I presume they implement multiple APIs for their open banking feeds. Still, there are lots of other banks in that list who aren’t on Quickfile’s list.
So what would it take, commercially, for Quickfile to implement support for token.io, or the Co-op business bank feed specifically (as that seems to be the only one anyone on here asks about).
Cheers
It would be so helpful for Quickfile to implement support for token.io, specifically for the Co-op business bank feed
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Never say never!
As you can imagine, Making Tax Digital is taking up a good amount of time behind the scenes.
The level of interest in a feature does help. Although it’s not the deciding factor, we do consider number of votes - currently this is 11 for this request. We appreciate the number of votes is limited (based on how active a user is, for example), so the number of comments is another indication for interest. Only 6 users have commented on this thread including myself and my colleague.
All I can suggest for the time being is for anyone who is interested in using this, please do vote or comment to show your support. We will update this thread with any updates as and when they happen.
While many of the big banks offer Token support, they also offer Open Banking. Both Co-op and Metro Bank do not use the more widely adopted Open Banking standard which other banks have adopted. This, unfortunately, adds to development time and effort.
Hi @QFMathew,
Right now after 3 years it feels like never. The number of votes for this probably won’t increase much, and also probably not commercially relevant, I mean £15 each for 11 accounts, I agree that probably means it’s not worth your while! But what about all the Co-op customers that would use Quickfile if there was feed support? The 2023 report says they have about 94000 SME customers, and given that FSB members can have a free account and that Co-op are still considered (in spite of everything) by far the biggest ethical bank, that must be a pretty big market to want a slice of, isn’t it?
Does Metro use Token.io, or something else? I’ve got no idea how many business customers Metro has (oddly quite difficult to find this out, but easy to see how many accounts overall they hold).
Whilst looking into all this, I noticed that Quickfile doesn’t support bank feeds for the top ethical banks, according to Ethical Consumer Ethical UK Business Banking | Ethical Consumer. The highest ranked/scored that Quickfile supports is Monzo, which only just scores more than half marks. Granted, those top ethical banks aren’t big in terms of £s held, but I bet they have loads of customers, so again a fairly big market to go after. I’ve got no idea which use Token or not, though Unity Trust Bank seems to.
Cheers
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I think this is a good point. I choose to bank with the co-op because they are an very ethical UK bank according to ethical consumer. QuickFile are a small UK owned and based company. My ethics encourage me to choose to use your product rather than Quickbooks but this is preventing me from doing so. I’m pretty sure there will be a lot of small business owners, charities, and community groups in the UK who choose to bank with the co-op for the same reasons but feel there is little choice but to spend their money with the big US companies. Co-op bank and QuickFile feel like a good pairing to me and something you could capitalise on.
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