Canada

Companies capitalizing on convenience is not new. If you want to go to the ultimate end of the spectrum where you don't need to give up any info to a third party, open source applications have you covered. Firefly iii, Actual Budget to name two with existing bank integrations.

It comes down to your personal risk tolerance and appetite. If you have no tolerance, don't take the risk and stick with your convictions instead of grumbling that you had to give your bank statements to download a scammy Tetris app.

I have very little faith in some random tech limited liability to be able to pay up if something bad happens. That’s not to say I’m super confident in the banks either, just that they have way more money, are pressed hard to do infosec and have government backing if and when shit hits the fan.

Agreed, peering behind the veil of any organization will probably result in a loss of confidence. And to be fair, I do have concerns about this ultimately being 100% private and secure, but I'm mindful that perfection shouldnt be the enemy of progress. I have confidence that there is a relatively safe way to implement this. We're not the first in the world to do it, and thankfully we can look to other jurisdictions to see where the risks are.

Now that I think about it, I bet the big five have probably made sure the conditions are as onerous as possible in order to reduce any actual competition as much as possible. :D

They'll undoubtedly speak with banks when the legislation passes and regulations are being drafted, and a part of me hopes that the big dinosaur institutions we have realize deep down that they need to enter the modern world.

Banks are competition in the sense that they have competing interests, but not in the sense that are offering a comparable product. If my bank was actually interested in building an app that would help me wrangle and take control of my spending habits, they would have already built it with a couple devs like all these other apps popping up.

The problem is Plaid et al are forced to scrape webpages because banks dont offer an alternative. Banks currently hold the user liable for sharing their password if theres a breach, but this new open banking legislation will shift that liability to plaid/third parties.

Still definitely works like that. It's a massive security issue.

That was my impression too. Banks don't have such APIs and it seems like they're regulated not to. Terrible, insecure smoke and mirrors. This is why I never gave my credentials to any such company. If I have them my credentials, then they would be me.