Automated Data Access

[Aaron Lindsay]

Hi folks,

Is anyone aware of a community/forum/mailing list focused on automated (API) access to financial data?

As it seems the industry transitions away from OFX, gaining automated access to your own financial data seems to have become less straightforward, but whenever I run into issues it seems the community's response is a bit scattered. For example, Fidelity's OFX access is currently not working (or disabled). I've searched around and am aware of several disconnected places all trying to deal with what is ultimately the same issue, and I'm sure there are many others I'm not aware of:

- A github issue at ofxtools: https://github.com/csingley/ofxtools/issues/200

- A reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/1pfep2o/is_there_a_viable_alternative_to_the_nowdisabled/

- A thread on moneydance's forums: https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions/general-questions/249501-fidelity-access/page/1

- A github issue on beancount_reds_importers: https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers/issues/170

I'm wondering if there is already a place or way to coordinate efforts to access transaction data, or if others think something like that could be helpful?

-Aaron

[Martin Blais]

I gave up decades ago and just do the dance by hand each week downloading files manually. I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

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[Brian Lalor]

> On Dec 6, 2025, at 10:03 AM, Aaron Lindsay <acli...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Fidelity's OFX access is currently not working (or disabled).

I was afraid it was just me. 😕

[Paul Walker]

I've been happy with https://beta-bridge.simplefin.org/ for checking and credit accounts, even on my virtual Wealthfront account. I'm just starting to try it out for investments. It's missing CUSIP for bonds, options are probably similar, but for dividends and regular stocks it seems fine. The bridge is backed by mx.com

[redst...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, December 6, 2025 at 7:03:53 AM UTC-8 Aaron Lindsay wrote:

Is anyone aware of a community/forum/mailing list focused on automated (API) access to financial data?

Not that I’m aware of. ofxhome.com used to track OFX‑enabled institutions and Direct Connect details, but it had no forum or mailing list. It’s been long gone now.

As it seems the industry transitions away from OFX, gaining automated access to your own financial data seems to have become less straightforward, but whenever I run into issues it seems the community’s response is a bit scattered. For example, Fidelity’s OFX access is currently not working (or disabled). I’ve searched around and am aware of several disconnected places all trying to deal with what is ultimately the same issue, and I’m sure there are many others I’m not aware of:

I’m wondering if there is already a place or way to coordinate efforts to access transaction data, or if others think something like that could be helpful?

Perhaps I’m a touch cynical, but I’m not sure of the purpose it would serve. Financial institutions have made it clear they’re not interested in feedback from hobbyists like us, so there’s no real path to influencing them.

That said, I’ve had a fantastic experience with both ofx and direct connect all these years, and I’d love to see what a community focused on what you say could come up with looking forward.

• perhaps sharing browser‑automation approaches or similar tools to help people pull down CSVs in a scriptable manner
• perhaps keeping up with the constant flow of csv format idiosyncrasies and updates for institutions
• and perhaps some coordinated lobbying would push institutions to consider making ofx/qfx/<open_format> at least available on their websites for download if not through a web API

After all, automating the import process end to end has long been a neglected area in the open source community IMHO, and any coordinated effort in that direction would be very valuable. Were you considering setting one up?

​

[Mark Ferry]

Not specifically. The https://github.com/kedder/ofxstatement project is
adjacent - though focused on conversion to OFX *after* data retrieval.

UK actually has it "good" in regard to Payment Services Regulations and
I still pull almost all my accounts via API.

Truelayer (https://truelayer.com/) has been the single most reliable
aggregator for me though I've used and retired others in anger
(moneydashboard, quickfile).

Of all of the data I import I need Amazon (UK) order info the most.
I have to resort to a browser plugin to scrape the orders then download
and convert a CSV. What a crap process.

ciao
Mark

[redst...@gmail.com]

Of all of the data I import I need Amazon (UK) order info the most.
I have to resort to a browser plugin to scrape the orders then download
and convert a CSV. What a crap process.

Does the GDPR download not work for you? See this thread.

​

[Mark Ferry]

Missed that thread. Thanks, Red!

> <https://groups.google.com/g/beancount/c/o9Xkx9_ezLI/m/hmJYjWtPBgAJ>.

> ​
>
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[Aaron Lindsay]

> After all, automating the import process end to end has long been a neglected area in the open source community IMHO, and any coordinated effort in that direction would be very valuable. Were you considering setting one up?

Maybe? I'm mostly trying to feel the space/community out to see if others think something could be helpful.

All: If you are interested in being a part of a forum/email list (maybe a dedicated Google group) with a focus on coordinating/collaborating on automated access to financial data, let me know. If I don't hear at least a little more interest, I'll drop it.

In my mind, the main benefit would be to make it easier for folks to collaborate across all the different clients/institutions/projects/methods of getting our financial data. It seems like there is a fair bit of duplication of effort (and frustration!). There have been some cases in the past where I've learned "this one cool trick for downloading your transactions from XXX bank" completely by accident (where that trick is something like "you have to use this magic user-agent to get OFX to work there"), and I'm wondering if just having a common place to ask "Is anyone else having this problem or have you already solved it?" could be valuable. I like the ideas in your previous post - maybe we could even develop a common framework that allows us to share the bulk of the download and import logic across multiple client projects (hey, we can get along with the ledger people, right :P ), and for us to only need to maintain the beancount-specific stuff. But, anyway, all of this is only valuable if there's a critical mass of folks interested in being a part of it...

I don't have a ton of extra time at the moment, but maybe all it needs to get started is to create a "Financial Data Collaboration" google group and send a few emails to various hobby personal-finance-related email lists, or post it on related github issues, etc.? I'd be up for doing something like that. I welcome folks' thoughts, though!

-Aaron

[Timothy Jesionowski]

I would be interested in such. And now I need to test my Fidelity OFX script because I thought it was still working. 

Sincerely,

Timothy Jesionowski

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[Martin Blais]

For context: 

Back in the day (like 15 years ago) I had started a project called "LedgerHub" whose sole purpose was to contain importers.

I thought I'd grow a library and that it would become useful to many.

It didn't garner much interest, so I killed it and focused on the common bits, and that became beangulp.

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[TRS-80]

^ This!

I have been using it for months. Happy enough that I even paid for a
year by now (it's only $1.50 per month anyway, or $15 per year).

In the US, situation is very different from EU/UK (where apparently they
have a much easier time with this sort of thing?).

On our side of the pond, there are a few big aggregators, MX is one of
those. I am as cheap as they come, but with the state of affairs here
in US, I am tickled to death to have any sort of automated access at
all. I am happy to pay the $1.50 per month just to avoid the manual log
in, captcha, TFA, click, click, click dance...

I even wrote an Emacs Lisp interface to their API. :) If there is any
interest, perhaps I could be bothered to publish it?

Let me know.

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Cheers,
TRS-80