Note: This article was updated on February 2026.
Automatic bank reconciliation, a global market predicted to reach a value of nearly €5.5B by 2032, significantly enhances the products offered by accounting and financial software providers. But to tap into that market and become a real-time source of financial data, you must build or buy a reliable automated reconciliation system that delivers the bank coverage and connectivity your customers demand.
Bank reconciliation compares a business’s or an individual’s financial records (such as deposits, withdrawals, and checks) with the corresponding bank statements to validate the former’s accuracy. The reconciliation process must address the records of both accounts payable and accounts receivable (in this article, we focus only on automating reconciliation for accounts payable).
Automated bank reconciliation simply means that the process is handled automatically using Open Banking, embedded payment technologies, other API-based technologies, or a combination of the three. An automated solution can detect errors, prevent fraud, and help to maintain accurate financial records, all without requiring manual intervention.
Your first step in rolling out automatic bank reconciliation is to set up the necessary foundations to access the relevant data. These can be broadly categorized into four groups:
The next sections detail financial software providers’ options for integrating each connector and payment feature.
In France, the two most common methods of establishing banking connectivity for automated reconciliation are EBICS and Open Banking.
The Electronic Banking Internet Communication Standard (EBICS) is a widespread communication standard between European banks and corporate businesses.
Despite its necessity and widespread usage at the corporate level, EBICS remains the least technologically advanced method and also the most expensive. It operates on a file exchange, batch-based model, limiting real-time transaction processing capabilities, and also requires heavy setup. While it’s a stable option for large companies, EBICS can be ill-suited to SaaS software targeting freelance and small companies that want to scale quickly within Europe.
Bank reconciliation via Open Banking involves direct connection to banks via APIs. For example, AIS (“Account Information Service”, the regulatory name of Open Banking) under PSD2 allows Powens to fetch standardized account data across banks, all through an API. Unlike the batch-based EBICS files, AIS can deliver near real-time feeds of data at multiple points in the day. Compliance is built in through a standardized user consent process. Access to data is protected by Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) protocols that dictate that users must be authorized via two factors out of the following three: something you know (e.g., a password or PIN), have (e.g., a phone), and/or are (e.g. fingerprint or a biometric sign).
The catch comes in the user experience. SCA consents expire every 180 days, so if you have a poor UX design for managing consent renewals, you’re likely to witness significant drop-offs (which is why Powens’ solution for bank aggregation already comes with a best-in-class consent UI).
Avoiding the SCA consent pitfalls requires a strong aggregator that can smooth bank API inconsistencies while simultaneously maximizing conversions.
Most financial software vendors begin their reconciliation automation journey with AIS for three reasons:
In addition to connecting bank accounts, you can also connect payment service providers (PSPs) to your system when a significant part of your customer base sells online. This can include both global players, like PayPal, Stripe, and Adyen, as well as local providers, such as PayPlug and CentralPay.
You have two options for setting up these connectors:
Since most PSPs offer public APIs, in-house development is an option. It offers you greater control over your financial infrastructure, but comes at a higher cost and complexity. Project timelines for developing PSP connectors can vary from a few months to a year or more, especially when it comes to mapping data objects that can differ widely between providers.
Extended Open Banking providers can offer faster rollout timelines by integrating an existing, compliant solution that requires minimal capital expenditures and increases operational expense flexibility.
Powens, for instance, provides connectivity to both PSPs and banks, giving you a bundled solution that streamlines your connector integration process.
In cases where your B2B customers do not use your software to issue sales invoices, bank reconciliation can remain a pain: you need invoice data to match with your bank transactions. Research on omnichannel embedded accounting shows that 78% of reconciliation errors occur due to data silos between sales channels and accounting systems, while automated synchronization between these channels and systems can reduce manual reconciliation efforts by up to 92%. Obviously, similar issues arise with supplier invoices.
In such cases, accounting software can opt to connect directly to the software or platform that issued the sales invoice or the supplier invoice. We’re talking connectivity to CRMs, invoicing tools, POS, and also spend management software.
Before we go through the options to set up this kind of connectivity, a word on e-invoicing. If e-invoicing is already in place in the countries you operate, you probably have to connect to a regulated e-invoicing platform (whether public or private). This way, each sales invoice issued via your software will go through a routing mechanism that will automatically send the invoice to the customer. And since we’re talking about structured digital information, it will be easy to automate reconciliation. But note that e-invoicing alone won’t give you 100% automation. A customer might operate (and issue invoices in) multiple countries, including countries where e-invoicing is not in place; also, a customer that is operating 100% in a single country might receive supplier invoices from foreign providers that are not subject to e-invoicing mandates – so those supplier invoices won’t be collected automatically.
In short, because e-invoicing is not mandatory in all countries, it cannot, on its own, deliver full automation of sales invoice reconciliation across all geographies.
So, if you’re considering deploying invoicing connectivity, you have two options for setup:
Again, developing invoicing connectivity in-house allows you to tailor the connector to your needs, but it can eat away at your budget if you are not a large corporate entity. You must commit substantial resources and prepare to allocate significant business time to ongoing maintenance.
Invoice connectivity is incredibly important for accounting software providers to achieve full automation. In fact, so much so that accounting software provider Pennylane acquired the invoice connector Billy in 2024.
If you’re looking to rent instead, specialized API integration software, such as Chift and Paragon, are ready-made solutions for retrieving invoices. Some providers even offer connections to most of the major CRMs and POS, normalizing the data model of all the respective APIs within a single solution.
Embedded tracked payments allow financial software providers to offer payment methods that can automatically reconcile invoices with transactions and clarify the payment’s source.
Property management companies are a good example, as they need the ability to know exactly where a rent or property expense payment came from and which tenant or property it relates to. To gain these capabilities, companies can choose between one of three main solutions:
In most cases, payment initiation and SSD are sufficient. vIBANs make the most sense when receiving high volumes of payments from different parties that need to be automatically sorted into the right subaccounts or categories (e.g., rent payments, maintenance fees, etc.).
Powens offers solutions for all three methods detailed above (PIS, SDD, and vIBANs), meaning you can adapt your strategy according to specific scenarios.*
*vIBANs, SDD, and SEPA transfers are provided by Unnax Regulatory Services EDE, S.L. (part of Powens Group) under its electronic money license (Bank of Spain registration code 6719).
For financial software providers implementing automated bank reconciliation, the architecture blueprint centers on data modeling, mapping, and a comprehensive rules engine.
Beyond establishing the four foundations to pull data, providers must also define how those data points interact. Accuracy is vital for ensuring accounting and banking records match, while automated rules for exceptions and thresholds can maintain a high efficiency rate for handling minor discrepancies. Only significant variances get flagged for manual review.
Reconciliation automation matures over time, with software vendors starting simple and adding advanced features as volumes, clients, and compliance needs grow. The ideal maturity path can depend on your use case, but should generally follow this flow:
The smartest providers evolve gradually. Reap quick wins with AIS, then roll out enrichment and IBANs later down the road for full automation and adequate fraud prevention.
Check out how real companies are using Powens’ solutions:
Thanks to Powens, Pennylane synced 120,000 SME accounts with daily data refreshes, enabling it to achieve a stability level ranking two times higher than with other Open Banking providers.
Through deploying Powens’ solution in four countries, Qonto achieved pan-EU aggregation and a strong consent UX with an NPS greater than 75. It now operates as a neobank with 600K+ customers, offering embedded accounting capabilities.
👉 Read the full case study with Maxime Champoux, Head of Product at Qonto
Agicap leveraged Open Banking with the help of Powens to enable real-time cash tracking across more than 6,000 customers and 11 countries. It has raised €100M since its inception.
👉 Read the full case study with Jérémie Barbet, deputy CPO at Agicap
Your reconciliation flows must align with regulations like PSD2, GDPR, and French audit norms. AIS can both speed up the process and strengthen traceability by meeting the following requirements:
AIS also complements EBICS’ batch files with real-time, per-user consent logs that provide stronger overall evidence to share with auditors and regulators. For software vendors, AIS means faster reconciliation and a stronger compliance story.
Vendors who tick all of the following boxes can help you reduce risk, speed up your time-to-market, and reassure both auditors and end-users:
Vendors who can tick all these boxes, like Powens, reduce risk, accelerate time-to-market, and reassure both auditors and end-users.
Powens simplifies reconciliation automation with an all-in-one solution built on richer data, reliable connectivity, and tracked payments. As Europe’s Open Finance leader, Powens’ platform uniquely combines broad AIS coverage, enriched PSP data, and Virtual IBANs to help finance and accounting software providers deliver a seamless, automated reconciliation experience to their customers across France and the greater EU region.
Fast facts:
*IBAN and payment solutions are provided by Unnax Regulatory Services EDE, S.L. under its electronic money license (Bank of Spain registration code 6719).
Book your demo of our automatic bank reconciliation solution today.