A bank feed is an automated connection between your bank account and a personal finance app that imports your transactions daily without requiring you to manually download and upload CSV files. When you link an account in YNAB or Monarch, you’re setting up a bank feed.
How bank feeds work technically
Bank feeds in the US run on data aggregators — companies that sit between your bank and the app, handling the login and data extraction. The three main aggregators are:
Plaid — dominant in the US; used by YNAB, Monarch, Copilot, and most major US budgeting apps. Covers 12,000+ US financial institutions. Works by connecting to your bank’s API (where available) or screen-scraping (where not). Plaid stores your bank credentials encrypted in their infrastructure.
MX — alternative US aggregator; used by Quicken products and some banks’ own apps. Coverage is similar to Plaid but less dominant in the personal-finance-app space.
TrueLayer / Tink — UK and EU aggregators operating under PSD2 / Open Banking regulations. Unlike Plaid, they connect via regulated bank APIs — banks are legally required to provide them under PSD2, so the connection quality is generally higher than US screen-scraping. Used by PocketSmith, Emma, Snoop, and other UK-compatible apps.
The 90-day re-authentication cycle
Under PSD2 in the UK/EU, bank feed connections expire every 90 days and require re-authorisation. You’ll get a notification from the app asking you to re-connect your bank — a 2-minute process, but it breaks the feed if you ignore it.
In the US, Plaid connections don’t have a mandatory 90-day cycle, but they break when banks change their APIs, update their security systems, or (common with smaller banks) block Plaid’s access. Feed breaks are one of the most common complaints in r/ynab and r/monarchmoney.
What bank feeds import
Most bank feeds import:
- Transaction date
- Transaction amount (debit/credit)
- Merchant name (often in raw form: “AMZN*MARKETPLACE 415-781-5523 WA”)
- Account balance at time of transaction
They do not import:
- Your existing categorisation from another app
- Split-transaction logic
- Memo or note fields from your bank statement
- Pending transactions (usually — some aggregators include pending)
The raw merchant name is why every app needs a categorisation layer on top of the raw feed. “AMZN*MARKETPLACE” needs to be translated to “Shopping” before it’s useful.
Why bank feeds break
The three most common causes of broken bank feeds in 2026:
- Bank changes their authentication system — your bank adds a new MFA method; Plaid hasn’t updated to handle it.
- Bank blocks aggregator access — some banks (notably credit unions) actively block Plaid. You’ll need to use CSV import instead.
- Credential change — you changed your bank password; the stored credentials in the aggregator are now wrong.
When a feed breaks, the app stops importing new transactions silently — you won’t know until you notice the last-sync date is stale. Most apps show a “connection needs attention” banner but don’t always send push notifications.
UK-specific: open banking vs screen-scraping
UK readers using apps built on TrueLayer (PocketSmith, Emma, Snoop) have a superior bank-feed experience compared to US users on Plaid, because UK Open Banking mandates that banks provide standardised API access. The connection quality is higher, the data is more structured, and there’s no screen-scraping fragility.
The downside: banks in the UK can revoke TrueLayer access between the 90-day renewal windows (rare but documented), and some smaller building societies are not yet connected. Full list of TrueLayer-supported UK banks →
Related terms
- Plaid — the dominant US aggregator
- Open Banking (PSD2) — the EU/UK regulatory framework
- Account Linking / OAuth Refresh — the re-authentication cycle