Written by Behdad Karimi Dermeni, CPA · Reviewed by Maryam Ajorloo, CPA
You tried to connect your business bank account to your accounting software, and your bank said no. Or it said yes, on one small condition: turn off two-step verification. If you bank with RBC, CIBC, EQ Bank, Venn, or a credit union, you have probably met this wall, and you have probably started searching for Plaid alternatives in Canada.
This guide explains why bank feeds like Plaid and Flinks break with certain Canadian banks, lists the Canadian banks that most often have trouble connecting, and walks through the alternatives that get your transactions into your books without switching off the security your bank put there on purpose.
Tired of reconnecting your bank every other morning? Start your 30-day free trial and bring your transactions in the way that works for your bank.
The rule of thumb: if an outside company has to sign in to your bank on your behalf, your bank's security will eventually get in its way. The reliable fix is not a different outside company. It is you signing in yourself.
What Plaid and Flinks actually do
Plaid and Flinks are bank data aggregators. When an app asks you to "connect your bank," one of these companies usually sits in the middle: you give it your online banking login, it signs in, collects your transactions, and passes them along. That steady stream of transactions is what accounting software calls a bank feed.
For most accounts, it works well. Plaid connects to more than 10,000 banks and financial institutions, and most of those connections sync without any drama. What this means for you: if your bank connects reliably, keep using it. This guide is for the accounts that don't.
The catch is how the connection works in Canada today. Canada's open banking system isn't live yet, so aggregators typically connect using your banking credentials. The Department of Finance estimates that about nine million Canadians share their financial data this way, through a process called screen-scraping. (It is exactly as glamorous as it sounds.)
Your bank's security team, meanwhile, exists to stop strangers from signing in to your account. An aggregator signing in overnight from its own servers looks a lot like a stranger. So the two collide, and you are the one who gets the error message.
That collision shows up in four predictable ways:
Two-step verification has to come off. Some banks only let the connection through if you disable the code sent to your phone.
The feed drops overnight. The nightly sync triggers a security check that nobody is awake to answer, so you reconnect every morning.
The bank isn't supported at all. Smaller banks, credit unions, and newer business accounts are often missing.
History stops at about 90 days. When you first connect, a feed usually brings in only your last 45 to 90 days of transactions.
Flinks vs Plaid: what's the difference?
They solve the same problem for slightly different audiences:
Plaid: a US-based company that powers thousands of financial apps, including many budgeting and accounting tools. It connects to the major Canadian banks and many smaller institutions.
Flinks: a Canadian company backed by National Bank of Canada. It is widely used by lenders and investment platforms to verify bank accounts and pull financial data, and it connects to thousands of North American institutions.
What they share: in Canada, both connect to your bank on your behalf until open banking arrives. So if your problem is a bank that rejects outside sign-ins, swapping one aggregator for the other often runs into the same wall.
"Flinks vs Plaid" is a real question if you are building an app. If you are running a business and just want your transactions in your books, the more useful question is whether anyone needs to sign in on your behalf at all.
Canadian banks that often have trouble connecting through Plaid
These are the Canadian banks and accounts where Plaid and Flinks connections most often break. Bank websites and aggregator connections change constantly, so treat this as "worth knowing before you sign up," not a permanent verdict. And in fairness to the banks, most of these problems are their security doing exactly its job.
RBC: the connection often fails with an "incorrect credentials" error unless two-step verification is turned off. It is one of the best-known bank feed problems in Canada.
CIBC: connections, credit cards in particular, tend to drop and need reconnecting several times a month.
Scotiabank: the overnight sync can trigger two-step verification, which breaks the connection until you reconnect.
Wealthsimple: connections can expire roughly every 24 hours.
National Bank: business accounts protected by a SecurID token often won't connect.
EQ Bank: business accounts are frequently unavailable.
Venn: this newer business account is often not supported.
ATB Business, KOHO, and Rogers Bank Mastercard: often unsupported or unreliable.
Credit unions: coverage is patchy, and connections commonly fail at Servus, Cambrian, Envision, and Prospera, among others.
If your bank is on this list, you are not doing anything wrong. You just need a different route into your books.
Should you turn off two-step verification to connect your bank?
No, and we don't recommend it. Two-step verification (2FA) is the code your bank sends to your phone when you sign in, and it is one of the best protections you have against someone using a stolen password. Switching it off so a bank feed can connect trades a real layer of security for convenience. It often doesn't even stick: turn the code back on, and the transactions stop coming in.
Plenty of business owners assume turning off 2FA is the only way to get an RBC account into their books. It isn't. Every alternative below keeps it on.
6 Plaid and Flinks alternatives for Canadian businesses
Ordered from most automatic to most manual.
1. Bank Transaction Import (you sign in, 2FA stays on)
This is the alternative we built for exactly this problem. Bank Transaction Import is a free, open-source AI skill that runs in Claude or ChatGPT. Instead of an outside company signing in for you, your AI assistant opens your bank's real website on your own computer, you sign in the way you always do (phone code included), and it downloads your transaction history.
Then it compares what it found with what is already in your ReInvestWealth books, shows you only the missing transactions, and adds them once you say yes. It never sees your password, can't move money, checks the account, amount, and date so nothing gets recorded twice, and signs you out of your bank when it's done.
Best for: RBC, CIBC, Venn, EQ Bank, credit unions, or any bank whose website shows your transactions.
Trade-off: you sign in each time it runs (a password manager makes that close to one click), and it works best in an assistant that can use your computer, like Claude on desktop.
See how Bank Transaction Import works, or read the skill's rules for yourself on GitHub.
2. Upload your bank statements
Every bank produces monthly statements, and statements don't care about 2FA. In ReInvestWealth, bank statement uploads are the built-in backup for any bank feed, and they are how you bring in history older than the 90 days a feed gives you.
Best for: backfilling past months, or accounts you only use occasionally.
Trade-off: it's monthly, not daily, so your books are only as fresh as your latest statement.
3. Download a CSV from online banking
Most Canadian banks let you export recent transactions as a CSV or spreadsheet file. If your AI assistant can't use your computer, download the file yourself, share it with Bank Transaction Import, and it does the matching and adding for you.
Best for: a quick catch-up on the last few weeks.
Trade-off: bank download windows are often limited to recent months, and file formats vary from bank to bank.
4. Another aggregator (MX, Yodlee, or Inverite)
Plaid and Flinks aren't the only aggregators. MX and Yodlee power bank connections for many financial apps, and Inverite is a Canadian bank-verification service popular with lenders. They are worth knowing, but they are choices your software makes, not something you can usually pick yourself. In Canada they work under the same credential-based limits, so they may not fix an RBC-style 2FA problem either.
Best for: developers and app builders comparing providers.
Trade-off: as a business owner, you generally get whichever aggregator your software chose.
5. Enter transactions by hand
Technically an option. It's free, works with every bank ever invented, and costs you your Sunday nights. For a handful of transactions on a rarely used account, it's fine. For your main operating account, it's how small typos become year-end surprises.
6. Wait for open banking
The long-term fix is Canada's consumer-driven banking framework, better known as open banking. Instead of handing over your password, you'll approve access at your own bank, which will send your data directly to accredited apps over a secure connection, with consent you can take back at any time. The rules are being finalized now, and we break down the timeline in our guide to open banking in Canada. It's coming, but "it's coming" is not a bookkeeping strategy for this quarter.
Whichever mix you choose, the destination is the same: one set of books with every account in it. That's where ReInvestWealth's AI Bookkeeper takes over, categorizing every transaction that comes in so there is very little left for you to do. See how it works and start your free trial.
How to fix a bank that won't connect, step by step
Rule out a simple reconnect. If the account used to sync and just stopped, try reconnecting once. Our guide to bank connection issues covers the quick fixes.
Leave two-step verification on. If the connection only works with 2FA switched off, take that as your sign to use a different method for that account.
Backfill the gap with statements. Upload statements for any months the feed missed (or never had), so your books are complete before you go further.
Set up an import that works with your bank. Use Bank Transaction Import for the accounts a feed can't reach, and have it run every week if you like. It sends you a summary of what it added.
Keep Plaid where it works. You don't have to choose. Keep the feed for accounts that sync reliably, and let the skill fill in only what the feed missed.
Why completeness matters: the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) generally requires you to keep your records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to. A bank feed with a 90-day memory doesn't get you there on its own. (For the full picture, see our guide on how far back CRA can audit businesses.)
If your bank feed trouble is in QuickBooks, Xero, or Wave, Bank Transaction Import won't help there, since it adds transactions to ReInvestWealth. You can move your books over, history included.
Practical tips for getting every bank account into your books
Check your bank before you commit. If your main operating account is with RBC, Venn, EQ Bank, or a credit union, plan your import method during your trial, not at year-end.
Keep business banking in one place. Fewer accounts means fewer connections to babysit, and a cleaner line between business and personal spending.
Let automation do the catching up. Connect what connects, run Bank Transaction Import weekly for what doesn't, and let the AI Bookkeeper categorize everything that lands.
Frequently asked questions
Is Plaid safe to use in Canada?
Plaid is a large, established company used by thousands of financial apps, and it encrypts your data. For bank feeds, the connection is read-only: your app can see your transactions, not move your money. The trade-off in Canada is that you typically enter your banking login in Plaid's window, because Canadian banks haven't switched on the password-free connections open banking will bring. If a connection only works with two-step verification turned off, keep 2FA on and use another method for that account.
Is Flinks safe?
Flinks is a Canadian company backed by National Bank of Canada, widely used by lenders and investment platforms. It encrypts your data and asks for your consent before anything is shared. Like Plaid, it currently connects using your banking credentials, so the same advice applies: never switch off your bank's security to make a connection work.
Why does my bank feed only bring in 90 days of transactions?
When you first connect a bank through an aggregator, it usually brings in only your last 45 to 90 days. Anything older has to come from your bank statements. In ReInvestWealth you can upload past statements, or let Bank Transaction Import read them and check that each statement adds up before using it.
Will open banking fix bank connection problems in Canada?
It should fix most of them. Under Canada's consumer-driven banking framework, you'll approve access at your own bank, and your data will flow to accredited apps over a secure connection without sharing your password. That removes the main reason banks block aggregators today. Until it's fully running, signing in yourself is the most reliable way to keep 2FA on.
Your bank's security isn't the problem, and you shouldn't have to switch it off to do your bookkeeping. Connect the accounts that connect, import the rest with 2FA on, and let the AI categorize every transaction. CPA-level clean books, 30-day free trial. Start for free
A note from our CPAs: This guide is educational and covers how bank connections generally work for Canadian small businesses. Bank and aggregator support changes often, so check your own bank's current security guidance before changing any settings. (If you work with an accountant, they'll be glad to hear every account made it into the books.)
Written by Behdad Karimi Dermeni, CPA
Co-founder of ReInvestWealth and a founding community builder at Stripe. Behdad built ReInvestWealth to give smart, busy entrepreneurs CPA-level accounting without the CPA-level price tag. Read more · Connect on LinkedIn
Reviewed by Maryam Ajorloo, CPA
Maryam Ajorloo is the co-founder of ReInvestWealth and a CPA who specializes in small business tax, sales tax, and everyday bookkeeping. She helps entrepreneurs keep clean, audit-ready books and make sense of write-offs, filing deadlines, and the numbers behind their business. Read more · Connect on LinkedIn
