Coconut to double down on accounting via Open Banking

Coconut, the small business accounting app, will next week launch the ability for customers to connect third-party current accounts and credit cards to its accounting offering.

Until now Coconut’s offering has been based on its 15,000 freelancer and small business owner customers using both its current account and bookkeeping in tandem, however this will now change as Coconut is using Open Banking to connect with 20 high street and challenger banks.

“For the first time, even if people have accounts with other banks, they will be able to manage their money, finances and taxes effortlessly thanks to our smart accounting tool,” said Sam O’Connor, Coconut’s CEO and co-founder.

“We take away the burdensome tasks of bookkeeping and reconciling accounts to enable people to do what they do best, focus on their business and not have to worry about managing their finances.”

The news was first hinted at in AltFi’sChallenger interview with O’Connor in April, when he said fighting to own current account relationships wasn’t of interest to Coconut: “because as long as someone's got a decent account that's providing real-time data, whether that's a Coconut account or another account, it doesn't matter.”

As part of the change Coconut will now give its customers visibility of their business finances across multiple business accounts, personal accounts and credit cards, removing the need to jump between multiple banking apps.

The list of banks that Coconut will launch its Open Banking offering with are: