Possible Basiq issues and solutions

As a primer, we'd recommend checking out this blog post which discusses some of the shortcomings of open banking feeds in Australia.

In this user guide:

• First step: check for any known issues
• Duplicate and missing transactions
• Error from your bank, when authorising
• Error from Basiq, when authorising
• Error in PocketSmith: "error with data provider Basiq"
• Accounts stopping updating
• Erroneous "Authorization unsuccessful" errors
• Missing new account added at bank
• Solution 1: Recreate feed
• Solution 2: add a traditional feed via Yodlee

First step: check for any known issues

Basiq constantly monitors the general quality of it's feeds, and they post known issues up on their status page, which is available at https://status.basiq.io.

This is the first place you should check to see if there is a widespread issue occurring for Basiq feeds in general, or a problem specific to your bank. If there is a problem, you can track the progress towards resolution from this page as well.

A second place to check out is the Rectification Schedule, which is a page maintained by the CDR governing bodies in Australia. This lists all implementation gaps for all banks - if you have quirks in your data, you might find the problem listed associated with your bank in this list, with a target fix date.

Duplicate and missing transactions

Once people have authorised, the error we're seeing the most of are duplicate and missing transactions. This is occurring across a lot of banks, and is not localised to a single bank. There are multiple reasons for why these errors could occur, but more of them boil down to the order that banks provide the transactions to Basiq, or banks changing the date of a posted transaction causing duplicates.

Basiq are currently working on this problem, introducing more rigour to their transaction gathering process to account for cases when banks insert transactions belatedly, or the posted dates of transactions change over time. We're hopeful this should put an end to transaction glitches going forward, regardless of how inconsistent banks are in the way that they deliver transactions.

If you're experiencing duplicates, the best option will be to delete them from PocketSmith, unless there are so many duplicates that it's untenable to do so (for example, HSBC is currently creating 4 x of every transaction for some accounts, when sending them to Basiq). We'll send over cases of duplicate transactions to get them to investigate and resolve the issue.

If you have missing transactions, then please send us through a screenshot of the transactions that you're missing, so that we can supply these to Basiq to get them to investigate and get the issue fixed up. You can feel free to manually create the missing transactions to get yourself up and running again while the investigation is ongoing.

Potential solutions: you can try add a traditional feed via Yodlee which might not experience these issues.

Error from your bank, when authorising

Errors can come in two forms when you're authorising a Basiq feed. The first of these is an error from the bank, where the error is shown from within the bank's own website, before you're taken back to Basiq and PocketSmith.

This error might be the bank saying "This service is unavailable" (which Westpac sometimes displays), or "you have no accounts eligible for data sharing" (often an error Macquarie shows). Another form we see of this sort of error is when the bank claims to have sent a one-time passcode to you, but nothing ever arrives.

In these cases, though we can open up investigations with Basiq, it's usually only the bank who can resolve these problems. For this reason, we suggest that your first stop should be to call the bank. When you call the bank, be sure to request specifically to talk to someone who can help you with CDR open banking data sharing, so you have a better chance of getting through to someone who can help.

Note that in these cases, your feed within PocketSmith will continue to show as "unauthorised" as the authorisation flow was not able to complete successfully. This means you can retry authorisation as many times as you'd like, as these are often just be temporary issues.

Potential solutions: try authorising again, talk to your bank about the issue, try add a Yodlee bank feed.

Error from Basiq, when authorising

If you receive an error from Basiq when you're authorising, such as an "Invalid token" or "Service unavailable" error within the popup either before you're sent to the bank's own interface, or after you return from your bank back to Basiq, then it's something that Basiq will need to resolve - we'll open up a ticket with Basiq to get them to investigate.

In the vast majority of cases, the problem is due to the bank returning some sort of error or something else unexpected to Basiq within the request. We'll work with Basiq to get this sort of error figured out.

Like the above, your feed in PocketSmith will show as "unauthorised" when Basiq throws an error, as the authorisation flow was not able to complete. Please feel free to retry authorisation as many times as you'd like, as this might have just been a temporary issue.

Potential solutions: try authorising again, try adding a traditional Yodlee bank feed.

Error in PocketSmith: "error with data provider Basiq"

This sort of error occurs when you've successfully stepped through the authorisation flow with the bank and Basiq, and return to PocketSmith. The feed might have been syncing successfully previously, but now has fallen into the "Error with data provider Basiq" state.

Usually this means that something went wrong with Basiq trying to talk to the bank about your feed connection, and some error was thrown when gathering accounts and transactions. In essence, your authorisation has worked successfully, but Basiq aren't able to gather your accounts and transactions.

If your connection has previously synced successfully and brought in transactions, this is very frequently a temporary issue with the bank, which will soon pass. Please use the "try again" button within the bank feed to attempt to sync the connection again after a few hours, or the following day.

If however the connection has never synced before, then it's unlikely that the "try again" button will cause the feed to sync. In this case, it's very likely that some inconsistency in the banks data is completely preventing Basiq from being able to gather your accounts and transactions. This will likely be a problem until we open a support request with Basiq so that they can investigate the issue fully.

Potential solutions: try syncing again a few times over a number of days, try adding a traditional Yodlee bank feed.

Accounts stopping updating

We occasionally see accounts get stuck in a state where their connection is syncing, however no transactions at all are flowing into the account, despite it stating that it's up-to-date. This is different from just missing some transactions - effectively, all transactions after a certain point are no longer coming in.

We believe that this occurs when some change occurs for the account itself on the banks side of things, preventing new transactions from being gathered. All other accounts within the feed might still be receiving transactions, but one might not be.

n this case, the best option available will be to recreate your feed, as per "Solution 1: Recreate feed" below. From what we've seen, this process consistently gets accounts to update with transactions again, unless it's an overall missing transactions issue.

Potential solutions: try recreating the feed.

Erroneous "Authorization unsuccessful" errors

A feed might fall into an erroneous "authorisation unsuccessful" state, even though it had been syncing without issue up to that point. Our understanding is that when the bank changes things on their side, the authorisation tokens that Basiq has stored can become invalidated and the connection needs to be reconnected from scratch.

The easiest option to get up and running again will be to recreate your feed, as per "Solution 1: Recreate feed" below. From what we've seen, this process consistently gets accounts to update with transactions again, unless it's an overall missing transactions issue.

Potential solutions: try recreating the feed.

Missing new account added at bank

If you've just opened a new account, and you want to have that come in your Basiq feed, then you'll need to recreate your feed as per "Solution 1: Recreate feed" below. Because your feed is established through you establishing the CDR open banking agreement with your bank directly, the feed needs to be recreated when you want new accounts to be linked up.

Note that it can take up to 24 hours for your new accounts to appear as available for sharing within the bank's authorisation flow, though this can vary between different banks.

Potential solutions: recreating the feed.

Solution 1: Recreate feed

For many issues, a quick way to get connected again will be to recreate your Basiq feed from scratch, and relink your existing accounts in PocketSmith to your feed accounts again. This is a very straightforward process, and you will not lose a significant number of transactions - just pending transactions, and up to 1 day of posted transactions will be recreated when you relink your feed accounts (see the top section of this article for more details on this). 

Follow the steps below to recreate your feed.

1. Navigate to the feed page, via Manage > Feeds, or click here: https://my.pocketsmith.com/feeds
2. Locate the feed that you're having trouble with, and click the three-dot menu on the upper right of the feed
3. Click the "Authorize" link within the popup that appears
   

   

4. Once you're on the Authorize page, click the "recreate feed" button shown
   

   

5. At the end of the authorisation process, you'll be guided to relink your accounts again. Follow this guide on our Learn Center if required: https://learn.pocketsmith.com/article/1364-linking-feed-accounts-to-existing-accounts

Solution 2: add a traditional feed via Yodlee

Sometimes, the most pragmatic solution will be to add a new traditional bank feed via Yodlee, while your Basiq issue is looked into. This'll allow for problems to be worked on by Basiq, while you continue to get up-to-date transactions and balances from a traditional feed.

Note that this is not available for all banks in Australia - for example Macquarie and HSBC do not have traditional bank feeds available for them (and by Murphy's law, these banks experience frequent problems with their open banking feeds).

Follow the steps below to add a traditional bank feed via Yodlee.

1. If you want to switch to a traditional feed without continuing to work on fixing the Basiq feed, please first remove the Basiq feed:
   1. head to the feed page, via Manage > Feeds, or click here: https://my.pocketsmith.com/feeds
   2. locate the bank feed, click the three-dot menu on the upper right of the feed, and click "Remove"
2. Alternatively, if you want to continue to fix that Basiq feed, first unlink the accounts associated with it:
   1. head to the feed page, via Manage > Feeds, or click here: https://my.pocketsmith.com/feeds
   2. locate the bank feed and click the "Accounts" header within the feed
   3. for each account in the "Linked Feed Accounts" section, click the expand arrow to the right
   4. then click the "Unlink Account" button to complete unlinking
3. Completing either step 1 or 2 above is important, to ensure that your existing accounts are available to be relinked up to your new feed accounts in the following steps
4. Perform a feed search to search for your bank - enter your search term into https://my.pocketsmith.com/feeds/new?search= (avoid clicking the large icon in the search page shown, as these are all for Basiq feeds)
5. Once you have your search results, add the option without the "open banking" tag next to it
   

   

6. Follow the required steps to authorise your traditional feed via Yodlee
7. At the end of the authorisation process, you'll be guided to relink your accounts again. Follow this guide on our Learn Center if required: https://learn.pocketsmith.com/article/1364-linking-feed-accounts-to-existing-accounts