What is a banking information check?
Our banking information check uses Open Banking technology to give your legal services provider secure access to certain financial information.
Why am I being asked to do this?
In order to meet anti-money laundering regulations, your legal services provider is required to verify certain personal and financial information. Using the banking information check to verify your account balances, transactions, account ownership, income or affordability is the most secure and convenient way to do this.
What is Open Banking?
Open Banking is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and can be used to give a provider access to your financial information.
You can find out more here: https://www.openbanking.org.uk/customers/what-is-open-banking/
You may be familiar with this technology from within your online banking application. You may have the option to ‘add other banks’ which allows you to see all of your account balances in one place. Our banking information check uses the same secure technology.
Is Open Banking safe?
Open Banking actually provides more security than other methods of sharing financial information, such as emailing a screenshot of your bank statement.
This is because it’s regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and therefore has to meet the same rigorous standards of banks and other financial institutions.
This means much stricter authentication and verification is needed and it uses an encrypted end-to-end connection.
This also means that you are in complete control of what data is shared and how long it can be accessed. You can revoke it at any time.
Why do you want my online banking login details?
Your login details are not shared with your legal service provider, Amiqus or any other third party.
What if I can't connect to my banking provider or account type via Amiqus?
If your banking provider or account type is not supported yet by Open Banking technology, we have introduced a fallback route. If the banking provider is not available, you can select 'I can't find my banking provider'. This will prompt them to manually enter the account details, add an optional note about the account for additional context and upload bank statements for the requested period e.g. 1, 3, 6, or 12 months instead, so that you can complete the Banking Information check. If your account type is not supported, you can manually add another account in the same way by selecting 'Add another account' for a connected banking provider.
What if the check is returning a 'Page not found' error when trying to connect to my bank?
If you have opened your Amiqus request within a mail application (i.e. Apple Mail for iPhone app etc), the issue may be occurring due to an "embedded browser". Embedded browsers are built-in browsers which allow you to access websites through mail applications. Unfortunately, these can cause loading difficulties / redirection issues with some websites. Therefore, we would recommend that you access the request, trying one of the alternative solutions below:
Launching through an email app:
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Open the Amiqus request email within your mail application (i.e. Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail etc.)
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Locate the green “Start Request” link, ‘long press’ the link to launch a new menu within your application.
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From the new menu, select “Open Link”.
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A new link will open within an authentic browser (i.e. Safari, Chrome, Microsoft Edge etc) depending on your device settings.
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This should now allow you to complete the request.
Launching directly through an internet browser:
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Open your internet browser (i.e. Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge etc)
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Search for your email provider and open the relevant website (e.g. https://mail.google.com, https://outlook.live.com)
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Sign in to your email account and open the Amiqus request from your inbox.
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Select the green “Start Request” link.
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This should now allow you to complete the request.
For more information on Embedded Browser restrictions, please visit our Amiqus support article.