Xero forms new partnership with Canada’s Flinks

Small business accounting platform Xero has teamed up with Canadian Open Banking platform Flinks, giving Xero’s North American small business customers access to direct and secure bank feeds.

Via the new partnership, small businesses in both the US and Canada will have secure access to more than 20 direct bank connections, including with the National Bank of Canada and EQ Bank, as well as US-based banks.

By increasing its customers’ access to North American financial institutions, Xero is helping small businesses and advisers reduce the time spent on manual data entry and reconciliation.

Faye Pang, Xero’s Canada country manager

“Bank reconciliation is essential for every small business, bookkeeper and accountant, but manually entering transaction data takes precious time away from running the business and introduces room for error,” said Faye Pang, country manager, Canada at Xero.

“Our partnership with a Canadian-grown success story, Flinks, is just one more way we are expanding our bank feeds coverage to help provide Canadian small businesses with better visibility of their money coming in and going out.”

Ben Richmond, country manager, United States at Xero, added: “Seamlessly getting data into the Xero platform is very important for small business success.

“Xero is committed to continually improving US and Canadian bank feeds in response to customer feedback, and tackling the broader industry challenge of getting reliable banking data into accounting platforms in North America.”

As new banks enter the market or improve their bank feeds, Flinks will make new API feeds available.

Frédérick Lavoie, co-founder and chief operating officer of Flinks, said the partnership is “proof” of the benefits of Open Banking for consumers and businesses.

“Along with our commitment to expanding our direct bank network, we are excited to work with Xero to empower businesses to take their financial operations to the next level,” he added.

News of the partnership comes after Flinks launched Flinks Pay in beta earlier this month, marking its entry into the instant payments market.

At Open Banking Expo Canada in June, speakers from EQ Bank and Flinks took part in a panel identifying some of the challenges of Open Banking implementation in Canada.