Open Banking
Open Banking is the secure way to share your financial information and it’s now available on your Berkshire IFA Personal Finance Portal (BPFP).
We are fully independent
We are fully independent and directly authorised by the FCA. This means we are able to give you the most appropriate advice to you without being restricted by commercial agreements.
Your interests come first
Our whole philosophy is borne out of many years' experience working in a professional practice environment. Our existing clients would confirm our ongoing commitment to this philosophy.
We are highly qualified
Continual professional development is an expectation all of our team place upon themselves regardless of how qualified they already are.
Trust is core to our service
Our clients have told us that trust is absolutely essential for them, therefore we hold ourselves to this value and only ever act in our clients’ interest.
Integrity and transparency
We are committed to always explaining our fees and our regulatory obligations before any work is carried out.
What is Open Banking?
Open Banking is a new, additional service that enables you to securely make your online banking data available to third party applications such as BPFP. By authenticating and giving permission directly to the bank/building society through your BPFP account, you never have to share your login credentials. You will be prompted to refresh your access consent every 90 days in line with Open Banking Guidelines, and consent can be withdrawn at any time.
What are the benefits?
Linking your accounts to BPFP with Open Banking will help you to understand exactly where you are spending your money and where it is coming from. Your income and expenditure will automatically be broken down into categories such as Household, Loans and Finance, and Lifestyle. Having details of your bank accounts, credit cards and investments in one place increases the accuracy of your portfolio in BPFP and will enable your Financial Planner to provide more comprehensive advice.
How do I set up Open Banking?
Linking your current accounts and credit cards with BPFP is simple. When you are logged in, select ‘Add Account’ and choose the bank/building society. You will be prompted to give consent and will be redirected to the provider’s website to authenticate the account. You can choose which available accounts to link with BPFP and once selected BPFP will automatically be populated with 3 months of historical transactions.
Once the transactions have been imported, click on the ‘Spending’ tab (previously called ‘Income & Expenditure’) to view the detailed breakdown. New transactions are automatically imported every day.
Which accounts are covered by Open Banking?
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) initially instructed the UK’s largest banking providers to make their payment accounts (current account and credit cards) available through Open Banking. Accounts from the following providers are available initially, with more to follow: Bank of Scotland, Barclays, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, M&S Bank, MBNA, Nationwide, Natwest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander.
Some savings accounts are supported if the bank/building society considers them to be ‘payment accounts’, but this varies by provider. When you set up Open Banking on your BPFP account you will see a list of the accounts that are available to link.
Open Banking does not fully support joint accounts yet and any accounts that are linked to BPFP will be treated as personal accounts. If you and your spouse or partner both have a BPFP account and both use Open Banking to link a joint account, the joint account would be duplicated if your BPFP settings are configured so that you can view each other’s plans. Our technology partner, Intelliflo, are currently looking at a solution to rectify this.
Regulation
Open Banking is part of the EU Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) and is fully regulated in the UK by the FCA. Providers of account integration services are required to be regulated by the FCA. Our technology partner and BPFP provider, Intelliflo, is an FCA Registered Account Information Service Provider (RAISP).
Registering your BPFP account
If you haven’t done so already, registering your BPFP account is simple. It only takes a few minutes and can be done via your computer, tablet or smartphone.
Visit https://portal.berkshireifa.com/account/register, enter your email address and follow the instructions sent in the activation email.