---
title: "How BankSync finds your bank"
description: "Where the banks in BankSync search come from, why one bank can sometimes be connected more than one way, and how BankSync decides which way to recommend."
section: "Connecting banks"
canonical: "https://banksync.io/docs/connecting-banks/how-banksync-finds-your-bank"
specs: ["institutions"]
operationBindings: [{"capability":"institutions","operation":"institutions.sync"},{"capability":"institutions","operation":"institutions.merge"},{"capability":"institutions","operation":"institutions.score"}]
---

When you type a bank name into BankSync, you are searching a catalog BankSync
builds and maintains itself. This page explains where that catalog comes from,
why one bank sometimes offers more than one way to connect, and how BankSync
decides which one to put on the big button.

## Where the list comes from

BankSync connects to banks through several data providers. Most of them
publish a list of the institutions they can reach, and every night BankSync
fetches each of those lists in full. A few — MX and Finicity, which BankSync
reaches through Quiltt — publish no list at all; for those, a bank enters the
catalog the first time someone successfully connects it, so every one of
their entries is a bank a real person actually reached.

Those lists disagree with each other constantly. The same bank appears under
slightly different names, with different logos, sometimes split across several
entries. So the raw provider lists are not what you search. Every night, after
fetching, BankSync files each provider's entries under a single **bank** — one
entry per bank, per country — using whatever evidence is strongest:

1. **A routing number.** Issued by a regulator, and the one identifier two
   providers cannot disagree about.
2. **A shared identifier**, where a provider issues one we can trust across
   more than one connection.
3. **The bank's website domain.**
4. **The name**, last — and never on its own without a person looking at it.

That last rule matters more than it sounds. Hundreds of German co-operative
banks share one website domain, and plenty of unrelated banks share a name.
Merging those automatically would send you to another bank's login page, so
BankSync files them for review instead of guessing.

## Why one bank can offer several ways to connect

Some banks — particularly in the United States — are reachable through more
than one of BankSync's providers. When that happens, the bank's page shows each
one as its own option, plus a recommended choice at the bottom.

They are not interchangeable. Providers differ in which accounts they can see,
how far back their transaction history goes, how their login flow works, and
how reliably they stay connected to that particular bank. Two of them can be
excellent at different banks.

## How the recommendation is chosen

BankSync recommends the option most likely to work **for that specific bank**,
not the one that works best in general. Four things go into it:

- **How often connections to this bank through this provider succeed.** Counted
  from real attempts, and weighted so recent weeks matter more than old ones.
- **How well existing connections to this bank through this provider keep
  working** after the first login — a provider that connects easily and then
  breaks a week later is not the better option.
- **What the provider says about the bank's status**, where it publishes one.
- **What people have told us.** If you report that a connection will not work,
  that report counts.

A bank with only a handful of attempts behind it is not judged on those few
attempts. BankSync falls back to how that provider performs overall, so a
newly-listed bank starts from a sensible position rather than from noise.

Occasionally BankSync will recommend an option with less history than the
leader, to find out whether it is actually better. This never happens across
different kinds of connection — an open-banking connection you consent to and a
provider that signs in on your behalf are different things, and BankSync will
not swap one for the other to run an experiment.

You can always ignore the recommendation. Every available option is listed, and
picking a different one is one click.

## If your bank is not there

- **Check the country selector.** The catalog is per-country, and the same bank
  can be listed under a market you are not currently searching.
- **Try the bank's website address or its routing number.** Both are searched,
  not just the name.
- **Try a shorter query.** BankSync matches on partial words, so `common` finds
  Commonwealth Bank, but a full legal name with punctuation can be narrower
  than the way the provider spells it.
- **Tell us.** If it is genuinely missing, let support know which bank and which
  country. Some banks are reachable through a provider we have not yet listed,
  and a request is what gets one prioritised.