Is it safe to give a budgeting app your bank login?

Check where you sign in

There are two ways an app can connect to your bank:

• You're sent to your bank's website or app, sign in there, approve access, and return to the budgeting app. Your password stays with your bank, and the app receives permission to read your data instead.
• You sign in on a form inside the budgeting app, or in a window from another company. That company receives your username and password and uses them to sign in to your bank for you.

The first way is now the common one. Budgeting apps usually connect through a data service such as Plaid, and in May 2023 Plaid said 75% of connections through it used this method. Which one you get usually depends on your bank, not on the app.

Four questions to answer before you connect

1. Who will have access? The budgeting app, and usually the data service behind it. Check the app's privacy policy for any other companies it shares data with.
2. What will they see? Usually your transactions and balances, and sometimes your account and routing numbers. The approval screen tells you what you're agreeing to.
3. How do I turn it off? Ideally, you can end access without contacting the app. Some banks list connected apps in their settings; Chase, for example, lets you review and remove linked apps from its Security Center. Plaid also has a portal for seeing and disconnecting apps linked through it.
4. What does my bank say? Your bank's account agreement may say something about sharing your login details, or about what happens if something goes wrong. It varies by bank, so your bank is the one to ask.

The short answer

If you're approving the connection on your bank's own sign-in page, for an app from a company you recognize, and you can see how to turn it off, linking is a reasonable choice for most people.

If you'd rather not connect your bank at all, that's a fine choice too, and there are good ways to budget without it. Budgeting without linking your bank account compares them.

Where Bankless Budget fits

Bankless Budget is one of those ways. It reads the transaction alerts your bank emails you, from one Gmail label you choose, and uses Google's Gemini AI to pull out each purchase's details. There's no bank connection to approve or remove. Why we built it this way explains how it works and what it can't do.