Open Banking is a UK-regulated framework that lets you give a regulated firm permission to do one of two things with your bank account: read your statements (an AISP service) or initiate a payment on your behalf (a PISP service). It was introduced by UK competition rules and is supervised by the Financial Conduct Authority.
How we use it
Where it is offered, you can choose to connect your account through Open Banking read-only, via a regulated AISP, so we can look at your business bank statements. It sits alongside — it does not replace — uploading your statements yourself, which is a fully supported route and the default way to share them. If you connect, the information we see is the same as an upload — six months of transactions on the business account — but it comes straight from your bank, so there is nothing to upload and nothing to mistype.
Is it safe?
- You authorise the connection through your own bank's login screen. We never see your banking password.
- The connection is read-only. An AISP cannot move money out of your account, even if it wanted to.
- You can revoke the connection at any time, either inside our portal or directly in your bank's app.
- Every regulated AISP is on the FCA register and has to meet strict security and conduct rules.
You can always upload instead
Open Banking is optional, and it is only available on some applications. Uploading your statements yourself is a fully supported route — for many applicants it is the default — so you can simply upload PDF or CSV bank statements straight into the application. The decision uses the same information; it just takes a little longer because the files need to be processed. Our Our Technology and How We Lend pages explain the full picture.