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Agrégation bancaire

Account aggregation

An AISP's core service: bringing together in one place the PSU's account data held across several banks. The common building block beneath PFM, BFM, scoring and embedded finance.

See also:AISPDSP2Catégorisation de transactionsEnrichissement de transactionsPFM / BFMBridgeTink

Definition

Account aggregation (or AIS — Account Information Service) consists in bringing together in one place a PSU's account data — balances, transactions, IBAN, identity — held across several banks, with their consent.

It is the core service of any AISP under PSD2, and the technical building block on which PFM, BFM, alternative credit scoring, cash flow underwriting, automated accounting and many embedded-finance use cases rely.

How it works

  1. The PSU declares that they want to aggregate their accounts (in Bankin', Pennylane, Lydia…).
  2. The AISP — directly or via an aggregator (Bridge, Tink, Powens) — redirects them to each bank via OAuth2 + SCA.
  3. The PSU authenticates and consents to a precise scope (e.g. accounts + transactions over 24 months).
  4. The bank issues an access token and a refresh token, valid for up to 180 days.
  5. The AISP queries the bank's API (STET or Berlin Group most often in the EEA) and retrieves accounts, balances and transactions.
  6. The refresh is regular: 4 times a day without SCA, more often if the PSU is in an active session.
  7. At 180 days, consent must be renewed (a new SCA).

API standards

Aggregation relies on standards that set formats and methods:

  • STET (FR) — driven by the French banks (BNP, SG, BPCE, CA, LCL).
  • Berlin Group / NextGenPSD2 (EU) — the most widely adopted (Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland…).
  • Open Banking UK — a very detailed standard driven by the OBIE.
  • Polish API, Slovak Banking Association… — minor national variants.

A good aggregation platform hides these standards behind a single API on the client's side.

The role of connectors

Beyond the PSD2 API, many aggregators maintain proprietary connectors:

  • For accounts outside the PSD2 scope: savings, credit, life insurance, equity savings plans, securities accounts, real-estate funds, brokers. No regulated API, hence scraping (with the customer's agreement) or negotiated private APIs.
  • To compensate for the variable quality of PSD2 APIs: a scraping fallback guarantees the service when a bank's error rate is high.
  • For complex business accounts: multiple holders, multiple currencies, foreign accounts.

This is why Powens or Bridge, historically focused on scraping well before the PSD2 API, keep a lead over pure API players.

Strict AIS scope (PSD2)

Under PSD2, AIS only covers payment accounts:

  • Current account — covered.
  • Credit card — partial read.
  • Savings account — out of scope, unless it is "accessible online".
  • Mortgage, life insurance, equity savings / securities account, crypto-assets — out of scope.

The extension to all financial products is the subject of the FIDA regulation (Open Finance, application 2027+).

Refresh: the major UX constraint

The most visible PSD2 rule is the renewal of consent every 180 days (90 originally). If the PSU does not redo their SCA, the data stops — a major friction point:

  • Many PFM apps lose 20–40% of their users at renewal.
  • ASPSPs must remind the PSU before expiry (RTS updated in 2022).
  • In FIDA, a unified Permission Dashboard should smooth out this moment.

What aggregation is not

  • Not a payment initiation: it does not move money, that is the PISP's role.
  • Not a complete wealth view: limited to payment accounts; a real 360° view requires scraping or FIDA.
  • Not instantaneous: the first refresh often takes 30 seconds to 5 minutes (retrieving 24 months of history).
  • Not free: Bridge, Tink and Powens charge for their APIs to the TPP — typically €0.3 to €2 per account per month.

In the PSD2 ecosystem

Aggregation is the fundamental building block of AIS. The whole data layer of Open Banking depends on it: categorisation, enrichment, scoring, BFM, embedded finance. Without it, there is no budgeting app, no automated accounting, no fast scoring.

Concrete examples

  • FR / Europe players: Bridge (FR, former B2B brand of Bankin', BPCE in the capital since 2022), Powens (FR, former Budget Insight, acquired the Spanish EMI Unnax in 2024), Linxo (FR, Crédit Agricole), Tink (Sweden, acquired by Visa in 2022), TrueLayer (UK), Yapily (UK), Fintecture (FR, mostly PIS), Klarna Open Banking (SE).
  • Bankin': a historic B2C application (~4M claimed users), moved under Casino in 2022 during the split between Bankin' (B2C) and Bridge (B2B).
  • Pennylane / Qonto / Indy: aggregation of business accounts for automated accounting, now a standard among freelancers and small businesses.
  • Algoan / Younited: aggregate the borrower applicant's accounts for instant credit scoring based on real cash flows — a decision in minutes rather than days.
  • Cost: a SaaS model plus consumption per call or per connected user at most players; public pricing is rare, self-service is more accessible at Salt Edge or Klarna OB.
  • Quality limit: the real availability of PSD2 APIs remains uneven, as the ACPR regularly points out. Hence the retention of scraping and a nightly refresh to improve reliability.
  • FIDA evolution: if the regulation is confirmed, aggregation will extend to savings, credit, investment and insurance via standardised APIs — a major market expansion.

Sources

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