OBIS: Online Banking Is Shit

A JavaScript framework for downloading bank statements

• Recent updates

OBIS can download statements from HSBC UK Personal Banking in a variety of formats. HSBC has historically been very limiting with its download options, and since 2021 only allows PDF downloads of your statements.

That's shit. OBIS can generate a Zip of your statements in OFX, QIF, CSV, and JSON:

OBIS currently supports only HSBC UK, but other parsers are possible.

How to use it

...as a Web Extension

The easiest way to use OBIS is to install it as an Extension into Google Chrome. You can either build it yourself or download it from the Chrome Web Store (coming soon, pending approval!)

To build it yourself:

• Download the project from Github
• Navigate to: chrome://extensions/
• Enable Developer mode [ o ]
• Click the [ Load unpacked ] button
• Choose the downloaded dist/extension/ folder

You'll see the OBIS interface after logging-in to your HSBC account.

...as a bookmarklet

I use this mode when developing OBIS, but it also used to be the only way to run it:

• Open dist/bookmarklet.js
• Copy everything
• Paste into a new bookmark
• Log into your HSBC UK account
• Click the bookmark

Due to recent security improvements to browsers it's unlikely you'll be able to do this directly from the Github master.

You'll need to build the project locally:

git clone https://github.com/shuckster/OBIS.git
cd OBIS
pnpm i
pnpm run debug:live

At this point a server should be running and a bookmarklet that points to it will have been built in dist/. Create a bookmark based on this bookmarklet and click it after logging into your HSBC UK account.

As the procedure hosts OBIS via localhost it should bypass the CORB security checks.

Is it safe?

If you're concerned about security on the Internet (and you should be) feel free to browse the code of the project right here on Github. For maximum peace of mind you can fork the project to inspect and build it yourself.

If approved by Google, you can use OBIS via the official Chrome Extension. Hopefully this will instill a little more trust as they curate the content of their Web Store.

About

OBIS was written by Conan Theobald.

Contributing

To support my efforts with this project please consider checking out the accountancy company I work for: Crunch.

If you'd rather not change your accountancy solution but OBIS has made managing your finances a little less shit, you can buy me a coffee. :)

Credits

Many thanks to these contributors:

• @lesterw1
• @masterell

🙏

Inspired by:

• https://github.com/LTheobald/HSBCToOFX (Removed, but author still active.)
• https://ar.al/3744/

License

MIT licensed: See LICENSE