An account information service provider (AISP) is an institution that’s licensed to access “read-only” financial data through open banking and to share that data with other parties.

These providers use an API (Application Programming Interface) to access data from lots of different banks simultaneously.

As a result, they offer a frictionless way to access deep financial information without having to use manual or otherwise time-consuming methods.

However, research AISPs online and you’d be forgiven for thinking that they’re all pretty much the same.

In reality, though, the specific provider you choose is an important decision. It will affect the amount of account information you can access, the territories in which you can serve customers and much more.

In this guide, we share what you really need to know about AISPs, including what to look for when choosing one.

In this article:

• Top use cases for account information service providers
• 3 common misconceptions about AISPs
• What to consider when choosing an account information service provider
• Why you should choose Yapily for AIS
• How Yapily supports Emma’s personal finance management services

Interested in finding out more about how account information services can work for you? Speak with an open banking expert at Yapily.

Top use cases for account information service providers

AISPs make it much easier for authorised institutions to access detailed financial information about consumers, small businesses, and anyone else with a bank account. Some of the types of businesses that commonly use these providers include:

• Fintechs, including spending and budgeting apps. Apps that track consumers’ finances, such as Emma or Plum, or any platforms that aggregate personal spending, typically use an AISP to access that data on transactions. They’ll use the AISP’s Application Programming Interface (API) to access data from account servicing payment service providers (ASPSPs) like banks, credit unions, or e-money institutions.

  Typically, these companies want AISPs that offer sophisticated data enrichment, so that they can analyse and categorise consumer spending patterns and show real-time insights.

• Lenders. Institutions that offer mortgages and other types of loans need to make decisions about a customer’s eligibility for those loans. Conventionally, this is done through manual processes—for instance, physically reading months of bank statements to understand a customer’s spending and affordability. This is resource-intensive and tedious.

  AISPs make this much easier. Through open banking, lenders can access real-time insights into a customer’s spending without the need for outdated and time-consuming processes. Overall, this promises much more accurate lending decisions based on up to seven years of transaction history. This creates a frictionless ecosystem, saving both the lender and their customers valuable time and ensuring responsible lending.

• Credit bureaus: Credit reference agencies already aggregate a large amount of data on consumers from different sources, such as the electoral roll, court records, utility companies, and more.

  But they can make their credit reports more detailed and accurate with open banking. In this case, they could use an AISP to access consumer data, to understand how they spend, pay bills, save, and more, without having to ask the consumer to provide that information themselves.

• Businesses that need to conduct KYC or KYB checks: AISPs help streamline this process by providing real-time access to financial data, making identity verification and anti-money laundering (AML) checks quicker and more efficient. This reduces manual work, accelerates onboarding times, and makes sure that businesses meet regulatory standards without sacrificing speed or accuracy.

If you’re one of the above, or you’re a business that’s interested in how they can use real-time financial data, AISPs can help.

Reach out to our open banking experts to find out more.

3 common misconceptions about AISPs

While open banking is an increasingly familiar term, it’s still plagued by misunderstandings. Concerns around security are affecting adoption to some degree. These misconceptions can mean some users aren’t accessing innovative financial products that could transform how their business operates.

Here are three key things people are getting wrong about AISPs:

• “Open banking makes your financial data less secure.” There’s a common concern among consumers that, because open banking involves sharing data, that data is more vulnerable. For instance, they may worry that financial institutions will use it in a way that they don’t approve of.

  However, the thing about open banking and AISPs is that financial institutions can only access the specific data of end users with their explicit permission. Those institutions have to be extremely clear about what data they’re using and what they’re using it for.

  Plus, open banking doesn’t expose all financial data to whoever wants it. Instead, APIs serve only the specific packets of data that are requested. This means that open banking APIs are actually much more secure than legacy methods of accessing data, such as screen scraping or providing printed bank statements.

• “All banks are equal in the data they share.” Under the open banking directive, banks are obliged to make data available to any licenced financial institutions that request it. Given this, it feels logical that every bank would share the same kinds of transaction data on any customers that permit it.

  The trouble is that this isn’t actually true. For instance, while some banks will let you access seven years of transaction data through an AISP, others will only permit you to see two years of that data. So, while the framework may be there for banks to provide equal information, many don’t.

• “Every AISP provides the same data and information services.” One of the major misconceptions about open banking is that AISPs are all largely one and the same. It’s an understandable error, given how new the open banking landscape is, and how many new players and stakeholders there are.

However, in reality, the specific AISP you choose will actually have a big impact on the kinds of data you can access. It will affect which data fields you can pull, the regions you can get data in, and the reliability of the service.

That’s why, in the next section, we share the different factors that affect the quality of an AISP, as well as the factors to look for when choosing a provider.

What to consider when choosing an account information services provider

Search online, and you’ll see there are many different AISPs out there, offering very similar services. Look closely, though, and you’ll notice that they’re all slightly different—and these differences can have a big impact on the service you can get.

Here are the key factors to look for.

• Coverage

Probably the most significant way in which AISPs differ is coverage.The more coverage an AISP has, the more customers you can serve in different regions. For instance, if most of your customers are in Europe, it wouldn’t make sense to choose an AISP that focuses its coverage in the US.

However, the total number of banks can be misleading. An AISP could have the majority of their bank connections in one country, which you might not even be interested in. Instead, look for the percentage of coverage that different AISPs have in the markets where you operate. 85% or more in particular markets is typically a good level of coverage.

• The range of data

AISPs typically have differences in the types of data that they can access. They may be limited to certain types of accounts, or their API may only expose a certain number of data fields.

That means that an important question for you to answer when looking for an AISP is what data do I need to access and can the AISP provide it?

However, you may want to consider whether the AISP offers any data enrichment. For instance, certain AISPs can categorise transaction data, and can group expenses into categories such as groceries, utilities, or entertainment. This gives you an in-depth look at your customer’s spending patterns.

• Reliability

APIs can typically only handle a certain number of requests per second. If you’re an enterprise, you’ll need an AIS provider that can handle a high volume of requests without reliability problems.

Similarly, some APIs often have downtime issues, meaning their services don’t run all the time. This can be a real problem if you’re looking to provide your end users with real-time insights into their financial data, as sometimes that data simply won’t be available.

• Ease of use

Some AISPs require you to manage your integrations with banks’ APIs, while others provide a more supportive service. Often, APIs will provide easy to use documentation to help you set up these integrations, or may entirely manage your integrations for you.

• Get in touch with us to discuss your requirements with an open banking expert *

Why you should use Yapily for AIS

As we said, there are many AISPs out there. That’s why, in the rest of this guide, we want to show you why you should work with Yapily as your account information service provider.

Here are three reasons why Yapily could be the right choice for you:

1. Access extensive coverage across the United Kingdom and Europe without your own AISP license

Yapily connects you to nearly 2,000 banks* across 19 European countries, including key markets like the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Germany.

(While our coverage is extensive, service availability may vary depending on factors such as local infrastructure and banking partnerships.)

Partnering with Yapily simplifies your open banking operations and means you don’t need your own AISP license (unless you have one already).

As a third-party provider (TPP), Yapily is authorised as an AISP by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, and holds equivalent licenses across the EU under the PSD2 regulation.

This means you can leverage Yapily’s licenses to access open banking without worrying about the regulatory burden, allowing you to focus on scaling your business.

With Yapily, everything you need for open banking is available in one place. You won’t have to manage multiple AISPs or deal with complex regulatory processes yourself.

2. We’re enterprise-ready, with a secure API that can handle a high volume of requests.

Our API is built for enterprise, with industry-leading uptime and low latency to ensure smooth operations even under heavy transaction loads. This means you can trust us to support your needs as you scale: whether you’re expanding to new regions or increasing transaction volumes, Yapily can handle it.

Our API supports instant account-to-account payments across different payment schemes such as SEPA (and SEPA Instant, for an extra fee) and Faster Payments, for fast reliable payment processing.

Security is a top priority at Yapily. Our API is ISO 27001 certified, ensuring enterprise-grade security for all your sensitive data. We handle both data access and payments in compliance with strict regulatory standards, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). You can trust Yapily to meet your security and compliance needs, so you don’t have to invest in costly regulatory processes yourself.

Also, your developers will appreciate how simple our API is to implement. With easy-to-follow documentation and SDKs available in multiple programming languages, integrating Yapily into your product is simple and efficient. We also offer dedicated onboarding support if you need support.

Yapily’s API lets you do more than just show customers their account data— we’re also a payment initiation service provider (PISP), so you can also initiate payments between accounts in real-time (just like Emma does: scroll down to find out more).

3. See deep, enriched data to better understand your end users’ finances

Alongside extensive coverage, we offer deep data insights too, so you can get the most comprehensive view of your end user possible.

Using Yapily, you can access all the data fields through our API that you need for a full picture of your customer. For instance, you can see data fields including:

• The bank
• Account balance
• Transactions made
• Account owner
• Type of account

With Yapily Data Plus, we can also categorise and enrich that data too. Categorisation, for instance, allows you to understand the different transactions taking place in an account. Our categorisation system contains 20+ incoming and 70+ outgoing categories to provide the granularity you need.

It’s just one way you can build better-rounded financial profiles and provide more personalised products to your customers.

4. Simplify your KYC/KYB and AML checks and speed up compliance

Typically, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) checks take days or even weeks to complete. As a result, your compliance processes can become really slow and often expensive to run.

As an AISP, Yapily lets you streamline your checks through open banking. Our Yapily Validate product can provide you with real-time access to customers’ financial data, so that you can speed up these checks and ensure accuracy. Plus, by integrating with various banks’ consent methods, you can do this while minimising any technical complexities.

What’s more, you’ll have full control over the branding in your KYC/KYB user flow. By ensuring a seamless, branded experience, you can build trust among your customers by providing them with a familiar system. It’s an effective way to improve trust, reduce cart abandonment, and increase your conversion rates.

How Yapily supports Emma’s personal financial management services

Emma is a personal finance management app and money management tool that allows users to track their spending and budget their money more effectively. It offers customers better visibility and deeper insight into their financial data and proactively supports them to make better financial decisions.

As an AISP, Yapily provides Emma with the banking connections it needs to power its online service. Using Yapily, Emma’s app aggregates users’ bank accounts to bring all the information they need onto one platform. So, rather than having to flick between multiple accounts, Emma users get consolidated information on their finances (like their transactions) all in one place.

Alongside Yapily’s account information services, Emma also uses our PIS services for online payments too. This way, it allows its users to deposit funds, move money between accounts, split bills, pay contacts, and invest—as well as visualising their money.

Since working with Yapily, Emma has achieved a lot:

• It enabled +30,000 users to start investing in a single month
• It achieved a 267% month-on-month increase in monthly transaction value
• It saw the number of total payment consents in three months exceed the total volume in the previous 12 months combined

Read the full case study: How Emma and Yapily are helping people make smarter financial decisions

Choose Yapily as your account information service provider

In this guide, we’ve shared the factors you need to consider when choosing an account information service provider to work with, including coverage, the depth of data, and the reliability and ease of use of the API.

At Yapily, we offer some of the most extensive coverage for payments and data across Europe. Plus, our API is built for enterprises, meaning it can handle all the requests you need to make.

Get in touch with us to get started.