A budget app without a bank login: how to track your money instead

Most budgeting apps start by asking you to connect your bank. Plenty of people won’t, and for good reasons. Here’s why, what you can do instead, and what you honestly give up by not connecting.

Why people don’t connect their bank

• Privacy. A bank connection gives a company, and usually a data aggregator behind it, a steady feed of every payment you make. Some people would rather decide what leaves their bank, and when.
• The bank’s own rules. Many banks’ terms tell you never to share your online banking login. Older ways of connecting an app worked by storing exactly that. Open banking in the EU and the UK lets you connect through your bank’s own consent screen instead, without giving away your password, but that consent still gives another company ongoing access to your account.
• Your bank isn’t covered. Connections reach the large banks of large markets. If your bank is small, your country isn’t supported, or your money is spread over several countries, the app may not connect at all. Some popular apps support only US banks.
• Connections break. A linked account has to be reconnected from time to time, and when a link quietly breaks, transactions stop arriving until you notice.

Import a statement file

Almost every bank lets you download your transactions from online banking. Look for “export”, “download” or “statement”, and choose CSV if it’s offered: it’s a plain table that any good app can read. A PDF statement is easier to find but much harder for software to read reliably, so few apps accept one.

A good import recognises the transactions you already have and skips them, suggests categories from what you chose before, and lets you check everything before it’s saved. Done once a week or once a month, it takes a few minutes and brings in every card payment, fee and transfer.

Let your phone add card payments

On an iPhone, the Shortcuts app can run an automation each time you pay with Apple Pay and hand the amount and the shop to another app. That records everyday payments in shops as they happen, with no bank connection at all.

It has limits. It only sees payments made with the phone or the watch at a till, not online purchases, transfers or a physical card. And in Consistent it needs iOS 27, where the Wallet trigger can travel inside a shortcut you add in one tap; on earlier versions it can’t be set up that way.

Type it in

Typing a payment takes a few seconds in an app that opens instantly. Cash, a dinner split with friends, money you lent: these never appear in a bank feed anyway. Typing also makes you notice what you spend, which is half the point of tracking.

The honest trade-off

Without a bank connection, nothing arrives by itself every morning. You import a file now and then, and in between the app shows what you’ve added. If you want every transaction to appear without lifting a finger, and your bank is supported, a connected app does that better.

What you get in return: no third party with standing access to your account, it works with any bank that can export a file, in any country, and there’s no connection to expire.

How Consistent does it

Consistent never asks for your bank login. It reads a CSV file from any bank, and PDF statements from MAIB, right on your device: the file isn’t uploaded. A PDF’s rows are checked against its own opening and closing balance, so nothing is silently missed. Transactions you already have are recognised and skipped, categories are suggested from what you chose before, and nothing is saved until you’ve looked it over.

Apple Pay payments at a till can add themselves through a shortcut on iOS 27, each card’s payments going to the account you choose. Everything else takes a few taps, online or offline.