See your accounts in one place with Open Banking ☝

Are you a UK Revolut customer with an additional UK bank account? If so, then we need your help testing our Open Banking beta.

Right now, your external bank account details sit squarely with your bank. You have no real ownership of them, and the only way to see them is through your bank’s website or app. Problem is, it’s almost 2020, and most of us have more than one account. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could see all of your account transactions in one place? Say, in Revolut?

Introducing the Open Banking beta. We’re in the process of building a system which would allow you to connect your external UK bank accounts to Revolut, making it possible for you to see all of your balances and transactions in one single app. What a time-saver.

We need people to help us test this beta. Of course, you’ll have questions about how it works and how secure it is, and we’ll cover all of that in this article. But let’s start with the basics.

What is Open Banking? 👩‍🏫

Think of Open Banking as a marriage between regulations and some pretty clever systems. The goal of Open Banking is to give you more control over your bank account. Specifically, to give you the ability to share your transaction data with other banks and third parties, in ways that benefit you.

What sort of ways? Take Revolut, for example. Our goal has always been to help you manage your financial life, and a huge part of that comes down to convenience. Having to switch between different apps to view your balances, transactions and budgeting, is inconvenient.

With Open Banking, you’d be able to track your Revolut transactions and (for example) your HSBC and Barclays transactions, all from within Revolut.

It’s all about the API 🤖

Open Banking relies on something called an API. Short for Application Programming Interface, APIs make it possible for the software at one company to access information from the software at another company. When you sign into any website using your Google account, the Google Authentication API helps you login securely.

Revolut has proudly been authorised by the UK regulator as an Account Information Service Provider (AISP) to securely use UK bank APIs. What this authorisation means for you, is that if you wanted to connect an external bank account to Revolut, you could do so securely, safe in the knowledge that access will only be used to provide the service you’ve asked for.

Without these APIs, if you want to share the data in your bank account with another company, you have to actually give them your login details. These new APIs will allow you to share the data in your bank account safely and securely, without having to hand over your password.

How it works in practice 🔧

In practice, the process of linking your external account will go like this: Once you have the beta version of the app featuring Open Banking, you’ll select the ‘Linked accounts’ widget from the dashboard, and select your bank.

Please note that we’re only including UK banks to begin with, and will introduce more later on.

Once you’ve chosen your bank, the process is automatic. If you have the bank’s app, we’ll communicate with that app, before bringing the required information back into Revolut. If you don’t have the bank’s app, you’ll be asked to log in to their website. At no point in this process does Revolut have access to your credentials, so it’s completely secure.

How to get involved 🎉

We’re excited that you made it this far, and would now like to invite you to take part in the official Revolut Open Banking beta. Just to recap, as a beta tester you would be able to:

• Link an external bank account to Revolut
• See your external balances and transactions in Revolut
• Keep track of your finances in one place
• Credit cards, analytics and budgeting, coming soon

Whether you’re on iOS or Android, getting involved as a beta tester is easy.

To get testing on iOS 🍏: (UK users only)
Download our test flight app, follow the sign-up instructions and you’re good to go.

To get testing on Android📱: (UK users only)
Simply search for Revolut on the Playstore, scroll down to the beta, and select ‘Join’. This process takes a few minutes. If not, follow this link from your Android device and enable testing mode. Come back to the Play Store a few minutes later and download the beta version.

Oh, and if you want to leave the Revolut Beta programme at any point, simply opt out from the Revolut page on the Play Store.

Thanks so much for your help.