We have sent this message to all our users who have a co-operative account connected in Emma.
Hey saver,
this is Edoardo, CEO & co-founder of Emma.
I am writing to let you know that unfortunately we are dropping support for Metro Bank. On the 14th of March, the current system we use to connect will become outdated and the bank wonāt provide Open Banking APIs, but a modified interface that will require you to login every time to refresh your data.
This limits our ability to provide a good service and given the coverage this bank has, we have decided to drop support entirely. The āpositiveā news is that Metro Bank has plans to actually build Open Banking connection, so as soon as this will become available, weāll make sure to add the bank back in Emma - we donāt have any ETA.
Iām really disappointed about you no longer supporting Metro although I understand why. Iāve just started using Emma but have spent ages setting it up and was finding it very useful. When Metro give you the new APIs will I be able to get the history of my spend during the time there was no service or will I have to start again?
Hi Hilary, thank you for your patience. We have received a response advising that Metro Bank wonāt be providing APIs at this time but our solution provides the same functionality. Itās dependent on the specific third party provider as to how they choose to authenticate their users. Some providers might ask you to log in each time but some might be able to store your details on your behalf so you donāt need to do this.
Seems like I should cancel my subscription to Emma. Its not going to get resolved quickly.
H
Iām sure the full API will be coming out shortly. Metro will see customers switch banks if they donāt, so I would think it would be urgent for them.
However, customer service people obviously canāt say this so they are probably trying to blame third party providers like Emma so you donāt think itās Metroās fault.
The bank, in order to be compliant, is offering a solution that requires our users to authenticate every time to refresh the data. We have been keeping Tesco Bank available with similar functionality to connect for two years and the result has been that no one used it.
Thatās why there is no point in offering what Metro currently has. The bank is building an API which I hope it will be currently available.
I wouldnāt ping their customer support because they, of course, have no idea.
Metro has now released their new Open Banking connection this week. Will Emma have the new link working soon!? Your app just congratulated me for 12 months of membership, and losing Metro connection was my gift. Note my girlfriend also uses Metro and Emma. Weād both love to see this back up and running.
Iād like to give everyone an update on this topic.
Sadly, the information we have received from Metro Bank is actually that theyāve withdrawn all plans to release an Open Banking API.
They have released an alternative solution, the minimum they could do to be compliant with the PSD2 regulations, which is called āmodified customer interfaceā (MCI).
We have no plans to integrate with this channel because it is no different to a screen-scraper:
unreliable, any minor change from the bank to the style of the page can result in your account not syncing or showing incorrect balance/transactional data;
less secure than API: you need to provide us with your online banking credentials;
slow to connect and request data from;
it takes way longer to build the integration and, because of the sudden changes that the bank could apply any time, we would also need to spend time fixing it with no notice;
automatic bank account refreshes are impossible: it would require you to be present and receive a one-time code, usually via sms, every time you want to sync data with Emma (to be fair, some banks are removing this limitation, not sure about Metro yet).
Metro Bank until a few weeks ago had plans to release their API but then, perhaps for some cost-cutting decision, decided to make their worse/temporary alternative the definitive long-term solution.
Okay. Well what do I do now, since I have more than 12 months of budgeting data in Emma? Presumably Iāll need to take the data out of Emma and use it somewhere else?
