Open Banking UK Account and Transaction API CLI

"Six months ago, everyone was talking about MCPs. And I was like, screw MCPs. Every MCP would be better as a CLI."

— Peter Steinberger, Founder of OpenClaw Watch on YouTube (~2:39:00) | Lex Fridman Podcast #491

A production-ready command-line interface for the Open Banking UK Account and Transaction API. Access accounts, balances, transactions, beneficiaries, direct debits, standing orders, and statements directly from your terminal.

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial CLI tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Open Banking UK.

Features

• Accounts — List and view account details
• Balances — Check account balances
• Transactions — View transaction history with date filters
• Beneficiaries — Manage beneficiaries
• Direct Debits — View direct debit mandates
• Standing Orders — List standing orders
• Statements — Access account statements
• JSON output — All commands support --json for scripting

Why CLI > MCP

MCP servers are complex, stateful, and require a running server process. A CLI is:

• Simpler — Just a binary you call directly
• Composable — Pipe output to jq, grep, awk, and other tools
• Scriptable — Use in shell scripts, CI/CD pipelines, cron jobs
• Debuggable — See exactly what's happening with --json flag
• AI-friendly — AI agents can call CLIs just as easily as MCPs, with less overhead

Installation

npm install -g @ktmcp-cli/openbankingorgukacco

Authentication Setup

This API requires OAuth2 authentication. Configure your access token:

openbankingorgukacco config set --token YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN

Optional: Set token expiry timestamp:

openbankingorgukacco config set --expiry 1234567890000

Commands

Configuration

# Set access token
openbankingorgukacco config set --token <token>

# Show current config
openbankingorgukacco config show

# Clear config
openbankingorgukacco config clear

Accounts

# List all accounts
openbankingorgukacco accounts list

# Get account details
openbankingorgukacco accounts get <account-id>

# Get account balances
openbankingorgukacco accounts balances <account-id>

# Get account transactions
openbankingorgukacco accounts transactions <account-id>
openbankingorgukacco accounts transactions <account-id> --from 2024-01-01 --to 2024-12-31

Balances

# List all balances
openbankingorgukacco balances list

Transactions

# List all transactions
openbankingorgukacco transactions list
openbankingorgukacco transactions list --from 2024-01-01 --to 2024-12-31

# Get transaction details
openbankingorgukacco transactions get <account-id> <transaction-id>

Beneficiaries

# List all beneficiaries
openbankingorgukacco beneficiaries list

# List beneficiaries for account
openbankingorgukacco beneficiaries account <account-id>

Direct Debits

# List all direct debits
openbankingorgukacco direct-debits list

# List direct debits for account
openbankingorgukacco direct-debits account <account-id>

Standing Orders

# List all standing orders
openbankingorgukacco standing-orders list

# List standing orders for account
openbankingorgukacco standing-orders account <account-id>

Statements

# List statements
openbankingorgukacco statements list <account-id>

# Get statement details
openbankingorgukacco statements get <account-id> <statement-id>

# Get statement transactions
openbankingorgukacco statements transactions <account-id> <statement-id>

JSON Output

All commands support --json for machine-readable output:

# List accounts as JSON
openbankingorgukacco accounts list --json

# Pipe to jq for filtering
openbankingorgukacco transactions list --json | jq '.[] | select(.Amount.Amount > 100)'

# Get account balances
openbankingorgukacco accounts balances <account-id> --json

Examples

View account balances

# List accounts
ACCOUNT_ID=$(openbankingorgukacco accounts list --json | jq -r '.[0].AccountId')

# Check balances
openbankingorgukacco accounts balances $ACCOUNT_ID --json

Analyze transactions

# Get recent transactions
openbankingorgukacco transactions list --from 2024-01-01 --json

# Find large transactions
openbankingorgukacco transactions list --json | jq '.[] | select(.Amount.Amount > 1000)'

Export statement data

# List statements
openbankingorgukacco statements list <account-id> --json

# Get statement transactions
openbankingorgukacco statements transactions <account-id> <statement-id> --json > statement.json

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome at github.com/ktmcp-cli/openbankingorgukacco.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.

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Part of the KTMCP CLI project — replacing MCPs with simple, composable CLIs.

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Support This Project

If you find this CLI useful, we'd appreciate support across Reddit, Twitter, Hacker News, or Moltbook. Please be mindful - these are real community accounts. Contributors who can demonstrate their support helped advance KTMCP will have their PRs and feature requests prioritized.