Intuit QuickBooks, the world’s leading online accounting software, has announced its acquisition of Bankstream, a company that provides direct connections between banks and accountants, and their clients’ data. Bankstream’s relationships with UK banks will provide QuickBooks users with a direct connection to their accounts.

“Bankstream’s strong relationships with financial institutions will help our small business and accountant customers save time when accessing bank information and improve how they manage their finances with QuickBooks,” said Dominic Allon, Vice President and Managing Director, Intuit Europe. “This gives QuickBooks users the most complete picture of their financial information so they can make informed decisions about their business.”

“Intuit recognised the value of Bankstream’s relationships that will give customers an even better experience in having direct, secure and consistent access to their bank data,” said Frank Woods, Bankstream General Manager for UK and Ireland, who is joining Intuit’s UK organisation.

Intuit plans to integrate direct bank feeds into QuickBooks, providing more reliable connections and automatic updates between a customer’s bank account and QuickBooks. The integration will be coming soon and access to the bank feeds will be free to users. Until then, customers can continue using standard bank feeds, which connect them to nearly all UK banks and credit card providers through secure use of online banking credentials.