n-Before You Can Reconcile a Bank Line in Xero, It Has to Actually Get There.
A Xero bank feed is the connection that pulls transactions from your bank into Xero automatically, either through a direct feed arrangement Xero has with that bank, or through a third-party feed partner for banks without one. Which kind of feed you have, and whether your bank supports one at all, depends entirely on your bank and your country, and when a feed doesn't exist or breaks, the fallback is either a manual statement import or a connection we build to stand in for it.
How a Xero bank feed actually gets set up
From Accounting > Bank Accounts > Add Bank Account, you search for your bank and Xero tells you whether it offers a direct feed. A direct feed means Xero has a formal data-sharing arrangement with that bank, and transactions arrive automatically once you authenticate through the bank's own login flow.
In markets with an open banking framework, like the UK, a lot of major banks connect through an open banking authorization instead of (or alongside) a traditional direct feed, which works the same way from your side but relies on a regulated data-sharing standard rather than a one-off agreement between Xero and that specific bank.
If your bank doesn't have a direct or open banking feed, Xero sometimes offers a connection through a third-party aggregator instead, which pulls your data by securely logging into your online banking on your behalf rather than through a formal bank-to-Xero data feed. Coverage through an aggregator tends to be broader but less consistent than a direct feed.
If neither option covers your bank, the standard fallback is exporting a statement file (OFX, QIF, or CSV) from your bank and importing it into Xero manually, which works but puts the whole update cycle back on someone remembering to do it.
When a feed stops working, or never existed
Feeds do break. A bank changes its login flow, an aggregator connection expires, or a feed just silently stops updating for a few days before anyone notices the Reconcile tab has gone quiet. When that happens on a direct feed, it's usually a re-authentication on Xero's side. When it happens on an aggregator connection, it can take longer to resolve and sometimes needs the aggregator's own support process.
For banks with no feed option at all, which is common for smaller regional banks, certain business account types, or banks outside Xero's primary markets, we build the connection ourselves: scripted, secure access to your online banking that pulls the same transaction data a native feed would, so reconciliation still runs off current numbers instead of a stale manual import.
What we build on top of Xero bank feeds
A standing-in feed for unsupported banks
When your bank has no direct or aggregator feed into Xero, we build the automated connection that pulls your transactions on a schedule, so you're not stuck on manual statement imports indefinitely.
Feed-health monitoring that catches a stall before you do
We watch for a feed that's gone quiet or stopped updating and flag it immediately, instead of someone discovering three days of missing transactions when reconciliation suddenly looks wrong.
Stuck manually importing bank statements because your bank isn't supported?
Tell us which bank and account type, and we'll tell you honestly whether a direct automated feed is realistic to build.
Still importing bank statements into Xero by hand every week?
Tell us which bank and account this is for, and whether a feed ever existed or just stopped working, and we'll scope what's actually fixable. Bank feeds are one example of a data connection going manual; we build the same kind of fix wherever a business has lost an automated link it used to rely on.
Let's talk