Keep Above
What happens when a bank feed breaks
A bank feed in a budgeting app is a permission that expires or breaks on a schedule set partly by regulation and partly by your bank. In the United Kingdom an app must obtain your explicit reconfirmation at least every 90 days; in the European Union the renewal is every 180 days; in Australia a consent may run for at most 12 months. Each rule and each consequence below is cited to its source.
Written and maintained by Manandai Ltd, the company that makes Keep Above. This is our comparison, not an independent review. No app here is scored, rated or ranked. How we compare.
Regulatory citations are to the regulator's own material. Statements about what an app loses when a connection lapses are quoted from that app's own help pages and linked. Where a vendor's pages are silent, this page says so rather than filling the gap.
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Last verified 21 September 2026How often does a bank feed need reconnecting?
This is the part most people never see until it happens. A connection is not permanent, and the interval is not the app's choice.
| The rule | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | The app itself must obtain your explicit reconfirmation of consent at least every 90 days, under Article 36(6) of the SCA technical standards. The regulator's own guidance, in its March 2026 edition, puts it at paragraph 17.77: an app may only access the information if you "confirmed with the AISP within the previous 90 days" that you still consent. The step sits with the app, not the bank. | FCA guidance, March 2026 |
| European Union and Ireland | The interval is 180 days, under Article 10a of Regulation 2018/389 as inserted by Regulation (EU) 2022/2360, applying from 25 July 2023. Here the step stays with your bank rather than moving to the app. | EUR-Lex |
| Australia | Under the Consumer Data Right rules a consumer consent may not run longer than 12 months and expires at 12 months at the latest. Twelve months is a ceiling rather than a term, and you may choose shorter. | CDR |
| United States | There is no re-authentication clock set by law at present. Connections break on events instead: a password change, a security change, or a consent expiring on the bank's own schedule. | CFPB |
| New Zealand | No maximum is set. The Customer and Product Data Act 2025 provides for a maximum authorisation period to be fixed by regulations, and the regulations made under it fix none. Since 1 December 2025 you must be given a written notice about each live authorisation within twelve months and at least once every twelve months after that, telling you how to end it. That is a reminder, not an expiry. | NZ regulations |
Why do the UK and the EU handle it differently?
The United Kingdom and the European Union are often described as one rule at two lengths. They are not. In the United Kingdom the reconfirmation step was moved to the app, so the app asks you. In the European Union it stayed with your bank. Same intent, different place, and it is why the experience differs.
The United States is worth reading carefully, because the position is genuinely unsettled rather than simply absent. A federal rule containing a one-year cap was finalised in November 2024, its compliance dates were stayed by a court in October 2025, and the regulator is rewriting it. So nothing binds today, but something may. In practice what breaks a United States connection is an event: you change a password, your bank changes a security setting, or your bank's own consent period runs out.
New Zealand is the one market here where the absence can be demonstrated rather than merely reported. The Customer and Product Data Act 2025 says an authorisation ends at, among other things, "the expiry of the maximum period for an authorisation specified by the regulations (if any)" — and the regulations made under that Act specify none. The statute names the slot and the instrument leaves it empty. What the rules do require, since 1 December 2025, is a written notice about each live authorisation within twelve months and at least once every twelve months after that, telling you how to end it. That is a reminder, not an expiry. It also does not mean a New Zealand connection never ends: the Act lets you set an end time yourself, and lets the app set one too.
One figure we do not print: a widely repeated claim that United States consents run a rolling 365 days and expire after 180 days of non-access. We fetched the bank pages it is usually attributed to and none of them says it. It appears to be synthesised, and it has no place here.
What do you lose when a bank feed breaks?
The clock is one thing. What happens to your data when the clock runs out is the thing people actually care about, and here the honest finding is that most vendors do not say. Where one does, it is quoted.
| What its own pages say | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Emma | If you do not use it for six months and then renew, "you may find that you have 3 months of data missing". The gap is the unrenewed window, because nothing was collected while consent had lapsed, so reconnecting cannot backfill it. | help centre |
| Frollo | On consent ending, "Any personalisation and customisation to this data will be deleted forever" — bills, goals, budgets, categories, tags and notes. It also states that the Cashflow and Portfolio views show at most 13 months of data, which is a cap on those views rather than a rule about re-consent. | help centre |
| WeMoney | On consent ending, "any previously manually assigned transaction categorisations are lost". Its CDR policy commits to deleting CDR data no later than 30 days after it receives a withdrawal request; where a consent simply expires, the same policy says the data is deleted but states no interval. | CDR policy |
| Snoop | Its pages state that removing an account removes its transaction history. They say nothing about a connection that simply sits unrenewed, which is a different case. | help centre |
| Plum | Its pages confirm the 90-day UK and 180-day EU periods. Its article on not relinking covers what happens to automations, not to your data, so nothing about retention can be quoted. | help centre |
What happens if a budgeting app has no bank feed?
Keep Above has no connection, so none of the above applies to it. There is no consent to reconfirm, nothing to reconnect after a password change, and no window during which data goes uncollected, because no data is ever collected.
The cost is the obvious one and it is stated on every page here: nothing is captured for you, there is no spending history, and the app does not know your balance unless you tell it. Whether that trade is worth it depends entirely on whether the upkeep above is a problem you actually have.
Our comparison, not a review. Every rule and consequence here is cited to a regulator's or a vendor's own page on the date shown. Projections described here are conditional on the figures a person enters and on nothing changing. This page takes no account of your circumstances. Nothing here is financial advice.
Keep Above
Enter each bill and your income once, and keep your balance current now and then. Keep Above works out the balance you would need to cover everything coming, and projects your balance and your sinking funds — which it calls reserved funds — forward. No bank connection.
Common questions
How often do I have to reconnect my bank to a budgeting app?
It depends where you are. In the United Kingdom an app must obtain your explicit reconfirmation at least every 90 days. In the European Union and Ireland the renewal is every 180 days. In Australia a consent may run for at most 12 months. In the United States there is no interval set by law at present, and connections break on events instead.
Do I lose data when a connection lapses?
It depends on the app, and most do not say. Emma states you may find three months of data missing after a lapse, because nothing was collected while consent was down. Frollo states that personalisation and customisation are deleted permanently. WeMoney states that manually assigned categorisations are lost. Other vendors' pages are silent, which is not evidence either way.
Why do bank feeds expire at all?
Because the permission is regulated, not because the app chooses it. In the UK and EU the interval comes from strong customer authentication rules, and in Australia from the Consumer Data Right rules. The intent is that you re-confirm who has access to your bank data rather than granting it once and forgetting.
Does a manual budgeting app avoid this?
It avoids the reconnection entirely, because there is no connection. Keep Above has no consent to renew and nothing imported to lose. What you give up is automatic capture, categorisation and any spending history at all, which is a real trade rather than a free win.