Many open banking data services only provide raw transaction data. While this is useful, it requires significant effort to interpret and extract actionable insights.

However, if you use an open banking platform offering transaction enrichment, all the hard work will be done for you. Transaction enrichment enables you to access more detailed and valuable information without additional effort.

In this guide, we’ll share what you need to know about transaction enrichment APIs, what to look for, and how Yapily can help.

We cover:

• How is transaction data enriched?
• Who can benefit from using a transaction enrichment API?
• What to look for in an open banking API
• Why you should consider Yapily for open banking

Do you need richer data on financial transactions? Reach out to us to speak with an expert.

How is transaction data enriched?

Open banking platforms offering data services are known as account information service providers (AISPs). At their most basic level, AISPs simply share basic transaction data from the open banking API.

Enrichment comes in when the data additional information is provided on top of the transaction data to help businesses and end users understand their transactions and make decisions. When it comes to transaction data, enrichment means improving, organising, and identifying patterns in that data.

As an AISP, here at Yapily we offer transaction enrichment through our Data Plus product. There are two main ways in which we enrich data:

1. Standardising merchant names

Banks often deliver merchant details in inconsistent or unclear formats, such as cryptic codes or incomplete references.

With Yapily’s Data Plus transaction enrichment product, merchant names are normalised, helping end users understand their transactions better and reducing queries. It also allows merchants to add personalisation or provide offers—helping boost revenue.

2. Transaction categorisation

Beyond merchant naming, categorisation groups transactions by meaningful labels. This gives end users a clearer understanding of their spending habits and income streams. For consumer use cases, categories might include groceries, entertainment, or subscriptions, while businesses can benefit from actionable insights into operational costs, revenue tracking, or recurring expenses.

With enriched categorisation, companies offering personal finance can give their customers a detailed, actionable view of their financial behaviour and help them make better decisions. Another key use case for data enrichment is the lending industry, where businesses can use the product to make faster and better informed credit assessments to streamline their decisioning process.

You can see a full list of categories for both consumer and business accounts in our docs

Who can benefit from using a transaction enrichment API?

Any business that wants to leverage its end customers’ financial data can benefit from transaction enrichment, including:

• Lenders and credit agencies. Typically, lenders and credit reference agencies use their customers’ bank statements and other documentation to understand their income and spending.

  However, with an API that connects directly to these customers’ accounts, they can access richer, real-time data on users’ spending habits. It’s critical information that enables far more accurate and detailed credit decisioning.

• Personal finance companies. One use case that open banking has made possible with its APIs for bank transactions is personal finance management (PFM) apps. These leverage open banking to empower users to manage their spending from across all their accounts in real-time.

  In this context, categorisation allows users to gain a better overview and deeper insight into their financial behaviour, helping them make better informed financial decisions. This is something that PFM platform, Emma, has done effectively— you can learn more about how Emma uses open banking here: How Emma + Yapily are helping people make smarter financial decisions.

• Accounting and bookkeeping platforms. If PFM is specifically aimed at consumers, accounting platforms provide a similar service for businesses and SMEs. Using open banking data, they can show their customers their expenses, their biggest sources of revenue, and much more.

  By providing insights into financial trends, these platforms empower businesses to identify inefficiencies, make financial adjustments, and optimise cash flow. For example, they can help businesses pinpoint areas of overspending, adjust budgets proactively, and simplify tax preparation with categorised and detailed transaction data. This not only enhances day-to-day financial management but also supports strategic decision-making for long-term growth.
  

What to look for in a transaction enrichment API

Every open banking platform works slightly differently. Different solutions target different industries and offer slightly different kinds of data.

So, if you’re in the market for transaction enrichment, think carefully about these questions when choosing a solution.

How does the solution enrich transaction data?

Transaction data is usually enriched through standardising merchant names or by categorising transactions. However, not all APIs offer the same capabilities, so it’s important to ensure the platform you choose provides the features you need. Categorisation, in particular, tends to be a less common feature.

Can it connect with consumer and business accounts?

Transaction enrichment solutions often don’t extend to business accounts. Testing business accounts poses a greater challenge since APIs require testing with real, active accounts. Unlike individual consumers, businesses are typically far more reluctant to grant access to perform such testing.

But if you’re a lender to businesses or an accounting platform, business account connectivity is critical. So, ensure that your API has reliable connectivity with business accounts before you sign up.

What coverage does it have?

Coverage refers to the proportion of banks an API connects within a particular region. It’s crucial to consider not just the banks themselves, but also the specific account types they cover, such as consumer and business accounts, and the types of business account they cover, such as retail. Even if an API connects to a large number of banks, if it lacks coverage for certain account types, you won’t be able to serve all customers in the markets in which you operate.

Do you want a white labelled or a hosted solution?

To take advantage of data enrichment, end users need to provide their consent. They’ll do this through a given platform’s user flow, which connects them to their bank for authorisation.

Some open banking solutions give you complete control over that user flow, allowing you to design it to match your brand. Others provide an out-of-the-box user flow for you so you can get started immediately. However, within this flow, they may include their own logo and branding which users might not recognise or trust. This can lead to a higher dropout rate during authorisation, ultimately impacting the ability for you to provide a premium service.

Do you also want to offer payments?

Some open banking APIs also allow PSPs to initiate payments as well as access transaction data. If you want to take advantage of affordable, instant account-to-account payments, you need an API that does payments as well as data—namely a payment initiation services provider (PISP) as well as an AISP.

For example, a lender could use enriched customer data to better assess affordability, but could also use the same API to collect loan repayments from their customers. Working with a single provider that can offer both services would keep things simple from an operational standpoint, while also making it easier for them to shape the entire lending experience for their customers.

Why consider Yapily for transaction enrichment?

Yapily is an open banking infrastructure provider with a robust API for transaction enrichment.

We have extensive coverage across the EU and UK for both data and payments, and we primarily work with enterprises that manage a large volume of API requests. Our users include the likes of Boshhh and Checkboard.

In this section, we want to share four reasons why you should work with Yapily for transaction enrichment.

1. You’ll get deep, enriched transaction data for both consumers and businesses

The few open banking APIs that provide business account categorisation usually provide the same categories as they use for consumer accounts. Unfortunately, this won’t provide you with the the full spectrum of data you need to provide value ot business customers.

At Yapily, we’re one of the few open banking APIs that has built a solution specifically designed to provide enriched transaction data for business accounts. (You can find out more about open banking for business accounts here)

When enriching data, we use large language models (LLMs) and artificial intelligence to:

• Normalise merchant names to make them more easily recognisable.
• Provide in-depth business account categorisation. We have as many as 140 transaction categories for business use cases—and 90 for consumer accounts. Find the details here.
• Assess recurrence. We’ll identify whether a transaction is recurring, such as a mortgage, subscription, or salary payment, or a one-off, like a single purchase.
• Identify the payment provider. For instance, if it’s a card payment or the payment was made via PayPal.

As a result, we’re proud to offer some of the deepest transaction data enrichment in the industry.

2. You’ll access extensive European coverage for data and payments

Using Yapily, you get a solution for both enriched transaction data and payments. Even if you don’t choose to take advantage of payment initiation services right now, investing in a provider that provides the flexibility of both can help you future-proof your offering and be more competitive.

At Yapily, we have among the most extensive coverage in Europe for both payments and data. We connect with nearly 2,000 banks and financial institutions in 19 countries, including key markets such as the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Germany.

This means you can offer both data and payment services to end users across Europe—for both consumer and business accounts.

3. You’ll have a transaction enrichment API your business can rely on

At Yapily, our API is well-equipped to serve both enterprise customers and scaling businesses. To achieve these industry-leading levels of uptime, we regularly test our API with real consumer, wealth, and business accounts. This means we can consistently maintain reliable uptime, even with high transaction volumes.

We also help our customers with dedicated onboarding assistance and ongoing support with integration, regulation, and security.

4. You can create your own customer experience with our flexible user flows

Different user flows can affect how likely customers are to convert, make payments, or authorise the sharing of transaction data. For instance, if an end user sees logos or brands they don’t recognise and trust while making a payment, they may abandon the transaction entirely—reducing your conversions.

How can you best mitigate abandonment? By offering customers a seamlessly branded experience.

Our white-label solution allows you to fully customise the visuals, flow, branding, and logo, creating a familiar and trustworthy experience that puts new users at ease.

Alternatively, with Yapily’s hosted pages, you can choose from our templates, and then we’ll set up, design, and host the user interface for you. It offers a great way for you to get to market quickly without spending on additional developer resources.

Choose Yapily as your transaction enrichment solution

In this guide, we’ve shared the details you need to know about transaction enrichment APIs, also known as open banking APIs. Now all you need to do is choose the provider that works for you.

If you’re interested in deep data enrichment for business and consumer accounts—alongside the opportunity for payment services too — reach out to speak to one of our open banking experts.