Midata format support
Hi,
I was wondering if there were any plans to support the "midata" format. I've seen a lot of banks in the UK to support this export format and I wouldn't be suprised if over time they drop support for other formats.
Long time customer,
- Danny
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1 Posted by dwg on 06 Mar, 2016 11:46 AM
From what I can see the data downloads in the form of a CSV file.
Through two extensions Moneydance can already import CSV files, so I believe it really depends on what data is in the MIData download and its layout as to how useful it would be and if it could work, alas I cannot see any example of what banking data would look like to see if the layout is workable or indeed if the data is complete and with the needed data to create transaction entries in Moneydance.
2 Posted by Ben Spencer on 06 Mar, 2016 03:25 PM
Danny
From reading the spec the format of midata is a CSV file with a known set of column names. I think you should be able to import midata with the existing "Text File Importer" extensions. Do you have an example midata file that I could experiment with?
It does look like the format is getting some traction with the UK banks. As such I think we will almost certainly make imports of this format first class in Moneydance in the near future.
Ben Spencer
Infinite Kind Support
3 Posted by Danny Tsang on 03 Apr, 2016 11:06 AM
The blurb from the bank says it contains all transaction of up to 1 year. I
wasn't able to have a look at the file format because I encountered an
error when i went to download the file.
Thanks for your inputs.
4 Posted by Ben Spencer on 03 Apr, 2016 04:12 PM
I dug into this a little further and to me it looks like the banks deliberately don't want the midata format to be used with personal finance software. Looking at the specification there is this point:
1.2 The end date of this period shall be no more than 31 calendar days prior to the date
of the download.
http://www.pcamidata.co.uk/445505-v2-PCA_midata_-_file_content_stan...
That could be interpreted in a couple of ways but the banks seem to be inptreting it as the data can be up to 31 days out of date. Looking at the midata file I can download from my bank the newest transactions they include are indeed 31 days old which makes the file close to useless for importing into personal finance software since.
Looking at the FAQ from HSBC:
http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/midata-faqs
They have the question:
Q:Can I use midata for anything else?
and the answer:
You should only use your midata download for uploading to the price comparison websites.
Ben Spencer
Infinite Kind Support
5 Posted by Danny Tsang on 04 Apr, 2016 05:23 PM
Cheers Ben. It was just a thought when I saw it appearing on my online
accounts.
System closed this discussion on 04 Jul, 2016 05:30 PM.