API For Working With Banks?

Question

I've heard of applications like MS Money that would take your bank username/password and somehow bring in your account information. I'm trying to do something similar, a personal bill-tracking app for my own use; but I've only been able to get information by screen-scraping.

Is there a better way? I wasn't able to find any sort of API or documentation, but, it seems like this is something other people can do. Am I just looking in the wrong place?

Answer 1

Your best bet is the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) Standard, which most banks support because it allows Quicken etc to connect to them.

Support for OFX varies from bank to bank and country to country, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange

http://www.ofx.net/

Answer 2

Yes.

There is something called the "Open Financial Exchange (OFX) Standard".

In January of 2007, the Open Financial Exchange standard was announced by Microsoft and Intuit. Many financial institutions provide support for a portion of the standard, namely the portion used by Quicken.

You can find more information here: http://napkin.highgroove.com/articles/2008/01/02/online-banking-apis

Answer 3

Mint.com does the same thing. I don't know how, and they are big enough to get the banks to give them custom feeds.

You might want to ask on webapps about your specific bank.