Xero, the global small business platform, today unveiled major initial success of its new, full-featured API for bank feeds, with five leading fintech integrations – Tide, Starling, TransferWise, Revolutand Soldo– that give small businesses in the UK access to more financial information, faster than ever, and at no extra cost from their accounting dashboard.

The new integrations demonstrate the success of Xero’s new bank feeds API, which uses secure standards including OAuth to connect businesses with vital data from the financial sources they use daily in one platform. It means financial institutions of all sizes across the world can securely integrate with Xero, dramatically improving time-to-market for direct integrations as they gain access to a consistent development platform to serve their customers.

Whether it’s digital accounts like Tide, digital banks like Starling, foreign exchange platforms like TransferWise and Revolut, or an expense management platform like Soldo, small businesses and their advisors can now choose to integrate their financial data directly into Xero with no additional fees for ease of use from a growing list of fintech service providers. 

Xero has also now been granted Account Information Service Provider (AISP) status by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, enabling the company to take advantage of Open Banking in the UK. Coupled with the bank feeds API, Xero is well placed to ensure full market coverage of bank feeds, while ensuring small businesses aren’t burdened with any additional fees. These developments build on Xero’s leadership in bank feeds over the past decade, as the first platform in the UK to integrate banking with small business accounting.

“These new integrations have been some of the most requested from our customers and with the new Xero bank feeds API, financial institutions can bring these innovations to market faster than ever. As the UK moves to an Open Banking regime, these innovations will enable businesses and their advisors to gain access to the financial information they need to make crucial business decisions, without bank feed charges” said Edward Berks, Director, Platform Business at Xero.

“The UK has a dynamic fintech sector and the latest Open Banking regulations have enabled a huge shift in the banking landscape. With continued development of the Xero platform we can offer automation at scale for small businesses and accountants.”

More accurate data and greater time savings for small businesses and advisors

The new integrations build on the existing connections Xero has to more than 180 financial institutions globally – including HSBC, Santander, Barclays, Natwest and Metro Bank in the UK, and now Absa, a major South African financial institution, helping grow account coverage for small businesses in South Africa.

Direct bank feeds means small businesses and advisors will receive transaction data frequently, directly in the Xero platform, cutting down on time spent reconciling transactions, and increasing data accuracy. 

Having direct access to bank feeds from the five integration partners means small businesses and their advisors can more easily track foreign exchange payments, manage expenses and uncover deep insights about their business’ performance.

Small businesses can sign up to direct feeds from their bank in minutes instead of days and, with bank data flowing into Xero automatically. Accountants and bookkeepers can now ensure they are working with accurate data when working with a bank that uses the Xero Bank Feeds API, so they can spend less time chasing information or fixing errors, and more time helping their clients grow.

Driving innovation through integrations

The integrations with Xero will provide new experiences and capabilities for small businesses on Xero through payments, transactions, foreign exchange, expenses and more. They include:

Tide

A digital banking service for small businesses and sole traders. The integration with Xero will save businesses and their advisors time typically spent manually reconciling transactions

“We brought the UK a business current account in minutes. Now, we’re doing the same with our Xero integration — with just a few clicks, we’ll set up a direct feed and automatically sync your transactions every two hours from Tide into your accounting dashboard, saving you from hours of boring admin.”

Laurence Krieger, COO, Tide

Starling Bank

The UK’s mobile-only bank, offering current accounts that connect to its Marketplace, the financial hub for customers to access financial products and services, such as Xero. 

“Small businesses have always been the backbone of the UK economy, but yet the big banks continue to overcharge and underserve some of the most important people in our economy. We wanted to change that. Today we’ve taken another big step in changing the way these small businesses manage their finances.”

Megan Caywood, Chief Platform Officer, Starling Bank

TransferWise

TransferWise is a new kind of financial company for people and businesses that travel, live and work internationally. Over four million people and businesses use TransferWise to transfer over £3 billion every month, saving themselves over £3 million every day.

"International business banking is too expensive, complex and time consuming. TransferWise is offering a better alternative that is already helping our 150,000 business customers take their businesses global. Integrating with Xero has been one of our most requested features, so that 

accountants and bookkeepers can conveniently and accurately reconcile their international currency accounts."

Stuart Gregory, Head of Business, TransferWise

Revolut

Revolut provide Personal and Business accounts to over 3 million users, for holding, exchanging, sending and spending funds without terrible fees. 

"Integrating with Xero is part of our vision to build the most seamless business banking platform in the world. At Revolut, we want to help businesses safely and effortlessly connect their finances to the tools they love. Working with Xero will make it even easier for us to help our business clients connect all of their data and create meaningful insights that lead to better business decisions.”

Nikolay Storonsky, founder and CEO, Revolut

Soldo

Soldo is a multi-user expense account that gives businesses complete control of company spending and automates the entire expense management process.

“Xero offers transparency into company finances – and Soldo matches it with complete visibility into spend. By integrating together, we can put all the data a business needs for real-time accounting in one convenient place: letting accountants spend more time advising clients – and less on frustrating admin tasks.”

Darren Upson, VP Small Business Europe, Soldo