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Intuit snaps up Bankstream

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10th Oct 2016
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Financial software giant Intuit QuickBooks has acquired data feed company Bankstream.  

Intuit will incorporate Bankstream’s relationship with UK banks into QuickBooks, providing its users a direct connection and automatic updates to their accounts.

Intuit’s acquisition will rival software companies such as Xero and FreeAgent, who have been gaining more direct bank feeds. Xero, for example, has direct bank feeds with many of the major high street banks, including HSBC, NatWest, Santander and others.

“Bankstream’s strong relationships with financial institutions will help our small business and accountant customers save time when accessing bank information and improve how they manage their finances with QuickBooks,” said Dominic Allon, vice president and managing director at Intuit Europe.

Intuit has yet to announce when the integration will be going live, but has announced that it will be coming soon and bank feeds will be free to its users. Allon continued: “This gives QuickBooks users the most complete picture of their financial information so they can make informed decisions about their business.”

Until the integration rolls out, Intuit users are encouraged to keep using the software's standard bank feeds.

Bankstream’s general manager for UK and Ireland Frank Woods has joined Intuit’s UK organisation as part of the acquisition. Commenting on  the news, Woods said: Intuit recognised the value of Bankstream’s relationships that will give customers an even better experience in having direct, secure and consistent access to their bank data.”

Commenting on the deal, Principle Point’s Richard Sergeant said there were a number of these types of deals which could be done in the next six months. “The relationship on not just companies like Bankstream but also people in that wider, broader category of the add-on community, which are very successful businesses in their own right, actually leads them as good acquisition targets for the accounting software providers.”

“I wouldn't be surprised to see more of these deals starting to happen.”

While IRIS made the last high profile software acquisition, snapping up Kashflow and Keytime to strengthen its position and enter new markets, Sergeant expected more down the line. “[The software vendors] are going through their normal cycle of people building up and then the big guys coming and buying things up or making acquisitions.” 

Sergeant said Intuit is now an even greater force to be reckoned with. “For them to choose a different strategy from Xero, which is very opportunistic one, makes a lot of sense.

“I think it will force others to look at their strategies. Will it change their strategy much? I'm not sure. It shows there are different approaches to this marketplace and Xero aren't going to have it their own way.”

 

What do you make of the deal and how do you think it will impact the accounting profession?

Replies (5)

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By Ray051
13th Oct 2016 17:34

This will give QBO a significant edge over Xero. Just what they need to compete.

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By Kezza
13th Oct 2016 20:16

It's an interesting move. The itduzzit acquisition made complete sense. This one I am not 100% convinced will make too much difference. After all yodlee works with both Xero and QBO.

Making life easier and more contextualised for the business owner is what will provide the most value.

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By jean gower
13th Oct 2016 21:08

I signed my practice up to Bankstream in June this year, and have spent a considerable amount of money on the training and setting up of my clients, now to find that my contract with Bankstream will come to an end in April next year unless I move to QB! Bankstream must have known that this move to QB was on the cards when I joined. I already have bookkeeping and accounts production software in place and I do not intend to be migrate to another software company.

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Replying to jean gower:
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By evo36nre
13th Oct 2016 22:47

Hi Jean - I am with you here - did the same and have spent many many hours on this project since April with 60 clients signed up and intended having the rest of the clients added by next April - what a waste of my time and money and stress!! The staff have been brilliant, but appear to have been shafted by the management, as have we. What an awful email informing us customers of the takeover, but no advice etc of how we will benefit - apart from existing Quickbooks customers of course - I intend to request refunds of my charges as it appears they can't guarantee anything after 30th April 2017, when we will have been charged for the live feeds, scan feeds etc and need to prepare vat returns during April and to 7th May of course! I intend contacting Mr Woods this weekend - and as you say, they obviously knew this was in progress, yet I was left to charge on! This will all just end up in a mess if HMRC and the software companies continue this crusade. They both have no answers to proper questions on how the majority of small businesses etc will view MTD and of course, the 'customers" still no nothing about these proposals officially!! Bankstream was the best way forward for a lot of Practices, but money rules and it is f**k you as far as they are concerned. All that will happen eventually is "customers" will not provide the correct quarterly information at all, or on time, and H M R C will issue lots of penalties. The system should not be mandatory and those sad techies can then keep patting themselves on the back at all their "roadshows" etc - restraint of trade, human rights, the legal right to use Agents being eroded, etc all comes to mind. The figure of £10K initially put forward is just a joke and shows that all those Uni persons in the Treasury have no idea of running a business - just a bit of a laugh for them isn't it, winding up hard working accountants, who are trying to ensure the Treasury get their correct tax revenues. The HMRC guy at Iris World in Birmingham even intimated that they don't accept that us accountants are submitting the correct information - this was after being challenged by a member of one of the main accountancy bodies that it must be unrepresented "customers" that are making mistakes! Before I receive any stupid responses, I have used Iris from 1997, have responded to all changes, etc., RTI, FRS, Auto Enrolment, but nobody can tell us conventional accountants how we are expected to get normal one man bands etc., farmers without technology, those unable to deal with financial matters, to provide this silly quarterly information. Oh and I am 55 and think I know my clients. Night Night x

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By AndrewV12
16th Nov 2016 12:58

Extract above

Intuit’s acquisition will rival software companies such as Xero and FreeAgent, who have been gaining more direct bank feeds. Xero, for example, has direct bank feeds with many of the major high street banks, including HSBC, NatWest, Santander and others.

Accountancy software providers are all tying to get a technological advantage over their rivals, things are moving on at a pace, the question is how many clients want or are going to use all these new features. I am never convince about the security issues, as an example google cloud ?? was hacked into, a day before the story broke, I received message from google, 'strengthen your passwords' hardly an apology or explination.

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