A PSD2 budgeting app: how it works and what it never sees

A PSD2 budgeting app does not log in to your bank. You do, inside your bank's own app, and you grant a read-only consent to a licensed account-information service provider (AISP). The provider hands the app the transactions and balances of the accounts you chose and nothing else: no password, no way to make a payment. The consent is valid for 90 or 180 days depending on the bank, and you renew it with one login.

A PSD2 budgeting app: three parties, three roles

PSD2 is the EU directive (2015/2366) that required banks to open payment accounts to licensed third parties through an interface. Polish banks implemented it through the PolishAPI standard. Every sync involves three parties:

• The bank holds your money and your logins. It shows you the consent screen inside its own app and it is the bank that verifies you (PIN, biometrics, a code).
• The AIS provider (for Kasandro: Enable Banking Oy of Helsinki, listed in the EBA register) holds the licence for account information. It receives the data covered by your consent from the bank and passes it to the app.
• The app (Kasandro) receives the transactions and balances of the accounts you selected, normalises, encrypts and counts them.

Kasandro is neither a bank nor an AIS provider itself; it is an app that uses Enable Banking's licence. That is why the consent screen in your bank names Enable Banking, with Kasandro as the app the data goes to.

What Kasandro reads and what it does not

An AIS consent covers only what you tick in it. Kasandro asks to read selected accounts: balances, transaction history (usually up to 24 months, as much as the bank returns) and the account data needed to recognise own transfers. It asks for nothing it cannot show on a screen.

The consent: 90 or 180 days, and what happens then

The technical standards under PSD2 allow a bank not to require a new strong customer authentication for 180 days after consent (it was 90 days until 2022; some banks still apply the shorter period). In practice a consent is valid for 90 days at one bank and for 180 at another; Kasandro shows the expiry date next to every account.

Seven days before it expires, a "renew with one tap" card appears on the home screen and an e-mail arrives. Renewal is one login at the bank. If the consent lapses, that account's river stops (with a dotted edge), the picture stays, and you are not charged for an account without valid consent. You can revoke consent in Kasandro or directly at the bank; after that, Kasandro receives nothing new.

What the first sync looks like

1. E-mail and a six-digit code. No Kasandro password.
2. One screen about the consent: what we read, read-only, validity, deletion, Enable Banking, EU.
3. Choice of bank from the current Enable Banking list for Poland (the list is shown at bank selection and it decides which banks are available on a given day).
4. The bank's screens: login, choice of accounts, approval of the consent.
5. Back in Kasandro, the choice of accounts to read. One is preselected; each is 4.99 zł a month.
6. The river fills with named stages: connecting, fetching 2,314 transactions, matching own transfers, done. Named stages rather than a spinner, because during a sync you want to know what is happening.
7. At most three questions in the review queue, then your first full picture.

In a household, a second or third person goes through the same steps on their own side, with their own consent; Kasandro never asks for someone else's login. Later syncs happen in the background without you, as long as the consent is valid. The sync status bar shows when each account was last read and whether the bank returned everything, part, or nothing (then there is a reason and "try again shortly").

PSD2 sync versus CSV import versus the bank's app

Three ways of seeing your history have three different costs. CSV import is free and works with every bank, but it means downloading a file every month, and columns and encodings differ between banks; Kasandro accepts CSV as the fallback for a bank outside the list. The bank's app shows only that bank's accounts, so with three banks there are three pictures and none knows the total. PSD2 sync runs in the background, covers every bank on the list and knows account numbers, so it can match own transfers between your accounts and your partner's. That last point is why Kasandro prices per account: the AIS provider bills for every account it reads.

Where the data goes and how to delete it

Transactions are stored in a Neon database in Frankfurt, encrypted with a separate key per user; the site and the app run on Netlify in Frankfurt. Questions to the assistant, the letter from 2056 and the voice go only to endpoints in the European Union (Anthropic, EU endpoint; ElevenLabs, EU region). The full vendor list with role, region and retention is on the subprocessors page, with the date of the last change.

"Delete everything" in settings is one tap: the encryption key is destroyed, so the data becomes unreadable immediately, and rows and backups disappear within the declared retention (database backups up to 30 days).

What a sync costs

4.99 zł a month per connected account, no cap and no plans; 3 accounts are 14.97 zł a month, a year for the price of ten months (pricing); 1.19 EUR per account on EUR markets. The price is per account, not per bank, because the AIS provider bills for the account it actually reads. An account you do not tick is not read and costs nothing. You pay after you have seen the full picture, not before.

FAQ

Does a PSD2 budgeting app see my bank password?

No. You log in through your bank's app, and the AIS provider receives a consent token from the bank, not a password. Kasandro never has your login and cannot make a payment.

Is my bank supported?

The current Enable Banking list for Poland decides, and you see it when you choose your bank. The list changes, so it is worth checking on the day you connect. If your bank is not on it, Kasandro accepts a CSV statement, and you can write to support@kasandro.com with the bank's name and country.

What if the bank returns only a few months of history?

Kasandro shows what the bank returns and flags a partial month so it stays out of averages. From the first sync on, history grows every day.

Do I have to redo everything every 90 days?

No. Renewing the consent is one login at the bank from a card on the home screen. Accounts, settings, rules and the whole history stay in place.

Can I connect two accounts at the same bank?

Yes. You add the second account with one tap from the home screen; a new consent is needed only if the bank requires it. The monthly total updates before you confirm.

Kasandro is an insight tool for your finances, not investment or financial advice. It shows what happened and what it adds up to under assumptions you set; what to do about it is your call.