Yapily, an Open Banking infrastructure provider, and IMP Software, a UK-based financial management and budgeting platform built for multi-academy trusts (MATs) and the wider education sector, have announced a partnership that integrates Yapily's API layer into IMP Finance. The integration gives education finance teams a direct, consent-based connection to their bank accounts from within the platform, removing the need to download statements or manually import files.
Closing a persistent gap in education finance
Bank reconciliation has long presented a structural challenge for MAT finance teams. Matching transactions against income and expenditure records requires data held by the bank, yet most finance platforms have no direct route to retrieve it. The established workaround, logging into online banking, downloading statements, importing files, and manually matching transactions, must be repeated across multiple funding streams and budget lines, often by small teams managing competing reporting obligations to head teachers and governing bodies.
IMP Finance addresses this through an embedded Open Banking flow. Users authorise a secure connection to their bank account without leaving the platform and without sharing login credentials. Once connected, live transaction feeds can be pulled on demand and matched against existing financial records immediately. What previously required batch processing across multiple steps is now presented as an automated workflow within a single interface.
The integration is built on Yapily's API layer, which the companies state meets the security and compliance standards applicable to the education sector. As a sector managing public funds and subject to obligations around transparency and accuracy, those standards carry particular weight: fewer manual steps reduce the risk of error, while a single auditable connection to the bank provides finance teams with a clearer record of activity.
Payment initiation on the roadmap
The current integration centres on data connectivity, real-time transaction feeds, on-demand account access, and automated reconciliation. IMP Software and Yapily have indicated that payment initiation capabilities are planned as a next phase, which would allow users to act on financial data without leaving the platform, further consolidating the workflow within IMP Finance.
The co-founder and CEO of IMP Software noted that the partnership addresses a need MAT finance teams have raised for some time: the ability to connect directly to the bank and reconcile against live transaction data within a single platform, replacing what had been a persistent manual workaround with a secure, automated process built around how trusts operate.
For a sector characterised by tighter resourcing and greater accountability than many others, the practical implication is a reduction in administrative load and a corresponding increase in the time finance staff can direct towards supporting the schools and pupils they serve.
