Get balance from HSBC UK? [closed]

Question

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, visit the help center.

Closed 9 years ago.

I'm looking for my own personal use to see if I can get the current balance of my HSBC account. I know this is probably not possible but thought I would ask if anyone knows of anything? A quick google didn't turn up any decent results.

Answer 1

I believe there is a startup that is doing this with browser plugins - can't remember who, but that might give you something to web-search on. (Edit: HSBC UK seem to offer integration to these people via Yodlee.com - maybe worth investigating?).

The problem in the general case is that it is a breach of standard T&Cs for users to give out their credentials to a third party to do these queries, for obvious security reasons. However if users have a browser plugin to log on to their service and screen-scrape the data, there is no functional difference from the bank's perspective to the user actually logging on themselves.

I should think a template-based system that enabled screen design changes to be taken into account by the scraper quickly would be helpful here. It could download those changes from a central server, if the idea were to be commercialised.

Addendum: as a final thought, it may be worth considering that banks not offering a API system may paradoxically be less secure than not offering one at all. @StuartLC in the comments links to an article about a third party system that encourages customers to disclose their full security details - effectively their bank "root password". If banks offered an API system which permitted users to allow "read transactions only" with a separate set of credentials, that would be much safer.