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SimpleFIN Bridge – Securely provide your bank transaction data to apps

bridge.simplefin.org

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Re: SimpleFIN Bridge – Securely provide your bank transaction data to apps

#3

Post by iffycan »

cdcarter wrote: post #2

This looks brilliant, but it's giving application errors (overloaded?). Are you guys "blessed" by the banks you offer connections to? What's the chance of this stopping working out of the blue when a bank changes a protocol?

Yes, it's overloaded.

The service is "blessed" by some of the bigger banks (e.g. they notify about upcoming changes), but some smaller ones require speedy manual work.

Re: SimpleFIN Bridge – Securely provide your bank transaction data to apps

#4

Post by evolve2k »

I think this is a problem worth solving. The image on the developer page with the bank vault and with a window in in it asking the question 'why give them the keys when they just need to look in the window' is the perfect analogy.

Slightly confusing is that the homepage says the service is $1.50/month but the developer page says 'nothing to pay' and links out to an out of context refenerce to the Wikipedia page on QFX the common Quicken financial data format.

The consumer demo is an admirable conclusion, but after running the wizard my takeaway is that the consumers bank would need to support this standard and that they are aiming for something like auth tokens, envisioning a similar UI to Auth tokens on GitHub.

I think what's missing is the blog post explaining the the why of what is needed for this to be mass-adopted and why also this is the best solution to the problem.

Re: SimpleFIN Bridge – Securely provide your bank transaction data to apps

#5

Post by iffycan »

evolve2k wrote: post #4

I think this is a problem worth solving. The image on the developer page with the bank vault and with a window in in it asking the question 'why give them the keys when they just need to look in the window' is the perfect analogy. Slightly confusing is that the homepage says the service is $1.50/month but the developer page says 'nothing to pay' and links out to an out of context refenerce to the Wikipedia page on QF…

You make great points. We'll publish such a blog post, but the gist is this:

SimpleFIN Bridge is a "bridge" between where we are today (no banks implement SimpleFIN) to where we want to be (every bank implements SimpleFIN). It costs money because of the ridiculous work involved to map all banks to a common API. Once banks do it themselves, then the Bridge goes away.

Previous versions of the page included: "The goal of this service is to not exist."

Re: SimpleFIN Bridge – Securely provide your bank transaction data to apps

#7

Post by iffycan »

kitwalker12 wrote: post #6

this is a nice service. btw. what do you use to get that 'screenshot' when an application error occurs

The screenshot is literally a screenshot we took before putting it in maintenance mode :)

We're working on getting it back up right now.

Re: SimpleFIN Bridge – Securely provide your bank transaction data to apps

#8

Post by kitwalker12 »

iffycan wrote: post #7
kitwalker12 wrote: post #6

this is a nice service. btw. what do you use to get that 'screenshot' when an application error occurs

The screenshot is literally a screenshot we took before putting it in maintenance mode :) We're working on getting it back up right now.

I see. I thought it was trick to get a screenshot of the page before the error happened.

Re: SimpleFIN Bridge – Securely provide your bank transaction data to apps

#9

Post by Animats »

1. Does this mean providing your transaction data to SimpleFin?

2. How do we know you're not snooping on transaction data?

3. Do you accept responsibility for any financial losses caused by your errors?

4. Has any member of your management ever been convicted of a criminal offense?

5. Who is your bonding company?

I'm suspicious of startups that want to insert themselves into a money stream.

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