Is Smoothy's open banking connection safe?

Yes. Open banking is regulated by the government and supported by all major NZ banks. Smoothy uses Akahu, New Zealand's most widely used open finance provider. For ASB, ANZ, BNZ, Kiwibank and Westpac, Akahu connects via your mobile banking app and does not require bank login details. Neither Smoothy nor Akahu store any bank or financial service provider login details. We cannot move or take money from your accounts without your explicit consent.

How does Smoothy connect to my bank?

You are redirected to Akahu to connect bank feeds. You verify your email, select your bank, authorise bank feeds, choose which accounts to share, approve the connection, and confirm in Akahu. For banks on the regulated open banking system this happens through your mobile banking app. Akahu also supports classic connections for banks such as TSB that are not yet on the regulated system. You can disconnect in one click.

What data does Smoothy use?

From the accounts you choose to connect, Smoothy receives transaction history for up to 12 months, account names and numbers, and account balances. It does not receive the ability to move money without your explicit consent, or any information you have not explicitly approved to share.

Help & support

Smoothy makes budgeting, expense management and saving money easy by transforming meaningless bank transactions into a super simple system that actually works for you.

Updated 21st Oct 2026

How Smoothy uses bank feeds

Smoothy uses open banking to get a read-only view of your bank data known as ‘bank feeds’. We use bank feeds to provide a super simple system for understanding your finances that is always up to date and requires very little effort or expertise. This includes displaying account balances, detecting your recurring expenses, predicting your upcoming costs and categorising your transactions.

How Smoothy works

What data we get via open banking

From the accounts you choose to connect we get:

Transaction history for up to 12 months
Account names and numbers
Account balances

What we don’t get

We don’t request bank login details for banks that use the regulated open banking system, and we never store any login details.
We don’t get the ability to move or take money from your accounts without your explicit consent.
We don’t get access to any information you haven’t explicitly approved to share with us

Security

Open banking is a safe and secure way to allow you to authorise your bank to share transaction data with personal finance apps like Smoothy so you can have full control over your financial data. It’s regulated by the government and supported by all major NZ banks. Data is encrypted while not being viewed and neither Smoothy nor Akahu store any bank or financial service provider login details.

We use Akahu, New Zealand’s most widely used open finance provider to facilitate bank feeds and account connections. For ASB, ANZ, BNZ, Kiwibank and Westpac, Akahu connects to banks via your mobile banking app, which does not require you to provide any bank login details.

Akahu also supports ‘classic’ connections for banks such as TSB and other financial services that are not yet integrated with the regulated open banking system. Classic connections are facilitated by Akahu logging in as you to fetch data if you authorise it.

For all connection types, data is encrypted while being transported and while not being viewed by you, and neither Smoothy nor Akahu store any bank or financial service provider login details.
Read more at akahu.nz/safety and Akahu’s privacy policy.

You can disconnect your bank feeds at any time in Smoothy, in your bank’s app, or at my.akahu.nz. When you disconnect your bank accounts or delete your Smoothy account, we no longer have access to your bank feeds and we automatically delete any bank data that we hold. Read our privacy policy for more details.

Smoothy home screen with a Connect bank feeds button and logos for ASB, ANZ, Westpac, BNZ and TSB — Smoothy uses Akahu for secure bank feeds

Akahu screen saying Smoothy is requesting ongoing access to personal and account information — Authorise Akahu to connect bank feeds

Akahu screen confirming the email address used to manage connected accounts — Confirm your email address with Akahu

Akahu screen to select your provider, showing NZ banks and other financial services — Choose bank / provider accounts

Mobile banking app asking you to confirm with Face ID or a PIN — Authorise bank feeds in your banking app

ANZ screen to approve sharing account, balance and transaction details for a pending bank feed — Approve the accounts you want to connect

Setting up bank feeds

When you’re ready to connect your bank feeds to Smoothy, you’ll be redirected to Akahu.

Verify your email address with Akahu
Select your bank
Authorise bank feeds through your mobile banking app
Select which accounts you wish to share bank feeds for
Approve your bank to share bank feeds
Confirm your connections in Akahu

When you authorise bank feeds through your mobile banking app, your bank grants Akahu & Smoothy a secure token for ongoing access to your bank feeds. Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest.

Smoothy does not ask for bank login details for connections that use the official open banking API, and we never store any login details. We don’t get the ability to move or take money from your accounts without your explicit consent.

You can disconnect your bank feeds in a single click from inside Smoothy, from your internet banking app, or at my.akahu.nz. Smoothy can then no longer access your bank feeds, and we delete the bank data we hold for you.

Still have questions?

See How Smoothy works and Security.

Read more about Akahu’s security at akahu.nz/safety.

Need help?
Drop us a line at info@smoothy.nz.