Update on providers, superficially John Lewis

Account Provider Updates
#1

Happy New Year 2022

Is there any update on new providers, specifically in my case, John Lewis ?

Cheers
SteveC

#2

We are actually launching a small number of new providers later this week @steveculshaw so we will post about those when they are available. These will be smaller brands or new brands for NewDay credit cards.

Iā€™m afraid John Lewis will not be one of them - but thatā€™s not because we donā€™t want to! Sadly John Lewis credit cards do not make any Open Banking interfaces available for us to connect with.

The ā€˜big 3ā€™ providers that we get frequently asked about but take this stance are Metro Bank, Co-Op and John Lewis Credit Card. We hope all three eventually offer these APIs to apps like Snoop and provide their customers with the same service as their competitors.

We also suggest you let them know this would be an important feature for you - as they would hopefully listen more from their customers telling them :wink:

Paul

#3

Thanks for the update Paul

Cheers,
SteveC.

#4

I checked with JLF on Open Banking API ā€¦

Their response :frowning:

We had different options available to comply with Open Banking, and we have opted for MCI, we appreciate this is not ideal for all, but we have delivered a solution we believe to be appropriate for the majority of our customers. There is currently no intention to change this to Open Banking API.

Whatā€™s ā€œMCIā€ ?
ā€¦ and if itā€™s any sort of API, could you write an interop to Open Banking?

#5

Hi @steveculshaw - it stands for ā€˜Modified Customer Interfaceā€™ and it basically is what most people think of as a type of ā€˜Screen Scrapingā€™ where a third party can connect to your account using your log-on credentials.

Before Open Banking, a ā€˜screen scrapingā€™ method was what many websites used to use to aggregate accounts - and it used to be an unregulated activity that had very little customer protection around. Some banks used to try and stop customers from using this at all. As part of new open banking regulations a few years ago, this enhanced screen scraping (sometimes referred to as ā€˜Screen Scraping Plusā€™) became a regulated activity, so only authorised companies should be using this type of technology.

This method is now compliant with regulations - but it doesnā€™t allow apps like Snoop to access the accounts in the same way behind the scenes to refresh your account. Instead we ā€˜log in, on your behalfā€™ using a modified version of the bankā€™s online banking portal.

We are not fans of this method for many reasons and we donā€™t intend to support this right now. There are a very small number of banks and card companies using this method and you will find most Open Banking powered apps are not connecting with these - at least in the UK. So Iā€™m not sure how they reach the conclusion this method is ā€˜appropriate for the majority of our customersā€™ as there are not many services that are using this that Iā€™m aware of.

Paul

#6

@paul_k Thanks for the response

Yikes, Iā€™ve had to do screen scraping when I was coding integrations ā€¦

  • never a good way, always brittle :frowning:
  • give me a REST API every time, and Iā€™d even take SOAP over screen scraping :wink:

Cheers,
SteveC.

1 Like
#7

@paul_k Just read in Which that John Lewis are changing from HSBC to New Day

Any idea if this will have Open Banking rather than MCI ?

Cheers,
SteveC.

#8

Hi @steveculshaw - we donā€™t have any firm information yet because they only announced the new partnership last week.

However, we do currently have access to all other NewDay cards so our expectations are high that we will also eventually get John Lewis cards now as well. We will update as soon as hear anything.

Paul

1 Like
#9

Iā€™ll keep my fingers crossed :crossed_fingers: