FAQs: Open Banking – Canopy

What is Open Banking?

Open Banking was rolled out in Jan 2018. It allows you to manage the financial data your bank or building society generates from your bank account. You can use Open Banking to authorise your bank to securely share your financial history with FCA-authorised companies like Canopy.

What does it entail?

Using Open Banking through Canopy requires you to select your income and outgoing rental payments. Canopy guides you through the process, connecting you with your bank securely and allowing you to select transactions to illustrate your income and rental payments.

Verify your income with Open Banking

How to verify rent payments with Open Banking

Is Open Banking secure?

Yes, Open Banking is secure.

Open Banking is supported by the CMA (Competitions and Markets Authority) and any provider of Open Banking is required to be authorised by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority).

Canopy uses an intermediary, Plaid, to securely access your banking data and keep it secure. Role-based access controls are enforced at each layer of infrastructure. Multi-factor authentication is required for access to Plaid infrastructure. All application and user access logs are stored centrally and monitored.

How does Open Banking help when completing your Rent Passport?

By using Open Banking, you can illustrate your income and rental payments to an agent/landlord in seconds. As opposed to ‘traditional referencing’ which can take days, this means the referencing process is completed in minutes, meaning you can move into your dream rental property quicker!

I cannot find my bank when trying to connect my account

Search your bank and ensure you check the spelling is a match to the bank’s official name.

If you still cannot see your bank listed, the reason could be that Plaid isn’t integrated with the financial institution or Plaid can’t connect to your bank right now. Some financial institutions may not let you connect your accounts to third-party apps.

Your bank decides whether they want to integrate with Plaid. You can contact your bank to request that they set up Plaid.

Why are you asking for my login details?

We do not ask for your log in details. Open banking will direct you to your banking app or banks website in order for you to log in to authorise the connection. We do NOT see or store this information.

Do I have to provide you with access to Open Banking?

No. You don’t need to do anything. Open Banking is opt-in only.

Do I need to use Open Banking to verify my income?

No. You can verify your income through the manual journey by providing documentary evidence. This process can take up to 48 working hours, whereas Open Banking is a lot quicker.

For more information please see Verifying different income sources

Do I automatically opt into Open Banking?

No‍. It’s always your choice to use Open Banking.

What is the purpose of Open Banking based verification?

We will use your Open Banking based data to verify your income, historical rental payments and rental affordability (i.e. how much can you afford to spend on rent based on your gross annual income).

What is rental affordability?

Rental affordability indicates how much can you afford to spend on rent based on your gross annual income. The benchmark used by the Letting Agents for Rental affordability is approx 40% of your gross annual income.

How will you use my data?

Canopy aims to become a leader in the ethical use of data. We will use data to design the best financial wellness products for Renters.

We will not use your data for personal gain. We will not sell your data.

Whenever there is a new need or new purpose, we will include that in our notices to you in our app.

You do not appear to be listed on the Open Banking register?

As we use Plaid as our intermediary our authorisation and registration derive from them therefore you will see Plaid listed rather than us.