These are the first questions our users ask us before joining. The concept of Open Banking hasn't arrived yet and so people are still a bit reluctant to provide their bank credentials to access a third party service. However, there is nothing to worry about by using Emma or any other similar app.

Why? The first reason is that our access is Read-Only. This means Emma is not able to do anything else apart from reading your banking data. This includes your transactions, balances and different accounts. Emma doesn't have any Write permissions by default. With Write, we intend the ability to move money or make payments.

Security

In terms of security, we implement the same infrastructure your bank has. Every financial institution worldwide has the same security procedures, because these are accessible and have become a standard. It's really unlikely that a bank has a different system or a secret sauce that doesn't share with the rest of the industry.

Perceived security

When someone tells you their bank is safer, they are following a specific pattern, which we like to call "perceived security". This means you feel safer because they are able to look more trustworthy, but from a technical point of view, the substance is the same. We'll dig deeper in this topic in the future, but colours like blue and white seem to be the ones that actually work better in this context. Ever wondered why Barclays is blue?

ICO registered

Further, we are ICO registered. This is a UK's independent authority whose aim is to set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals. At the same time, we adhere to the Data Protection Act and European data protection law. All these fancy names are here to say we treat your personal data as anyone else and this is regulated by the government. :)

As our mission states, we are here to help people by following ethical principles and common sense. If you want to know more about how Emma works, from a legal point of view, you can read our Terms and Privacy Policy. Moreover, we have dedicated a specific page to explain what we mean by security.