End app-switching with account aggregation

Account aggregation refers to the process of gathering data from multiple accounts and consolidating it onto one single interface.

This enables users to view their payment data (including balances or transaction history) from different accounts, at any time, in one place, usually on an online service or mobile app, making it easier to visualize their financial situation and making bookkeeping and pre-accounting significantly easier. 

Account aggregation was born out of a simple observation: today, most companies have multiple accounts with several financial institutions. This phenomenon is called "multi-banking", and is common among freelancers and entrepreneurs who hold one or more business accounts as well as a personal account.

For multi-bank businesses, account aggregation is a compelling tool because it allows them to:

• check their various account balances,
• browse the details of all their transactions,
• get an overall view of their financial situation quickly and without leaving the tool.

Account aggregation appears with the Revised European Payment Services Directive (PSD2).

To facilitate the development of a range of complementary services such as account aggregation across the European Union, PSD2 requires payment service providers, such as banks, to provide secure application programming interfaces (APIs) to regulated institutions wishing to retrieve their customer’s payment data, and communicate it in real time.

This is what’s known as "open banking".

To connect your external accounts to Qonto, you first need to give your bank permission to share your information with us. Our account aggregation tool can only gather your external account data and display it on our platform with your consent.

Essentially, you’re making a request to your other bank or payment service provider right from your Qonto online interface. You can integrate your accounts from thousands of institutions into Qonto.

You’ll just be asked to log in to your external account to consent to the account aggregation, then you’ll start seeing all your up-to-date financial data in one place - on desktop, or on the go.

Of course, you can connect as many accounts as you like to your Qonto business account’s account aggregator.

Qonto’s account aggregation offers several benefits to businesses that use it. You can:

• check your various account balances to be able to make the right business decisions,
• browse the details of all your transactions to see which invoices have been paid,
• get an overall view of your financial situation to stay a step ahead of potential challenges,
• save time entering multiple passwords and switching between apps and services, and avoid false forecasts due to manual error.

Our account aggregation feature enables you to stay in control of your business finances, managing your inflows and outflows across accounts from different banks.

Qonto’s account aggregator is free to use on all Qonto plans.

Qonto’s modern, online business account offers all the features - from Mastercards for flexible spending, to supplier invoice management, bookkeeping tools, and bank account aggregation - you need to pilot your business growth, all in one place.

Your transaction data is end-to-end protected. This means that your payment data is safe with us and it won't be shared with any third parties. We don’t store your login details and we can’t carry out operations on your external accounts - professional or personal. Qonto receives read-only access to your accounts and displays this transaction data to you on our platform. Qonto may occasionally analyze it to improve the quality of our products and services.

What’s more, like any service offering account aggregation, Qonto is duly licensed by the ACPR (French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority).

There are many account aggregation tools out there, including some traditional and online banks.

Qonto’s account aggregation feature integrates with the other tools in your business account to offer unparalleled business finance management, such as:

• Cash flow & spend management tools.
• Your choice of physical or virtual company Mastercards with customizable permissions and spending limits - all compatible with Google Pay and Apple Pay.
• An intuitive, digital platform to pilot all your business finances in one place.
• A powerful built-in invoicing tool.
• Expense management automation & delegation.