Bank sync
Bica connects to your bank through regulated Open Banking (PSD2) — the same framework your bank already uses to let licensed apps read your account. You authenticate directly with your bank, on your bank’s own screens. Bica never sees, receives, or stores your banking credentials.
Connecting an account
From your dashboard, pick your bank from the directory, and you’re handed off to your bank to approve the connection. You choose which accounts to share. Once you’re back, Bica pulls in your balances and as much transaction history as your bank makes available — typically up to two years, though the exact window varies by bank.
That history matters more than it sounds. A budgeting tool that starts from today can’t tell you anything useful for months. Starting with two years of real transactions means your spending patterns, your recurring payments and your seasonal costs are visible on day one.
You can connect as many accounts as you like, across as many banks and countries as you like. Current accounts, savings accounts, and whatever else your bank exposes through Open Banking all sit side by side in one dashboard.
Staying up to date
After the first connection, Bica keeps your accounts current on its own — new transactions and updated balances arrive without you opening the app. If you want the very latest before checking your numbers, each connected account has a sync-now option in your dashboard.
Bank connections granted under Open Banking expire periodically; this is a rule of the framework, not a Bica limitation. When one is close to expiring, Bica tells you, and reconnecting takes the same few seconds as the original approval.
Read-only, always
Bica only ever asks for read access. It can see balances and transaction history. It cannot move money, set up payments, or take any action on your accounts — not because of a policy we could change, but because the access it holds does not include those permissions. If you want the fuller picture, see security.
Supported banks and countries
Bica reaches over 2,500 banks across 30+ European countries. That covers the large retail banks, the digital ones people actually use day to day — Revolut, N26, Wise, Monzo — and the domestic institutions that budgeting apps built for other markets tend to miss, including Millennium BCP, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Novo Banco and Santander Portugal.
If your bank offers Open Banking access, which nearly every EU, EEA and UK bank now does by law, Bica can connect to it. You can check yours in the bank directory before signing up.
Beyond bank accounts
Not all of your money lives in a bank. Bica also tracks:
- Portuguese savings certificates — Certificados de Aforro and Certificados do Tesouro, connected through Aforronet, so your IGCP savings sit alongside your bank balances instead of in a separate tab you forget to check.
- Assets you add by hand — property, vehicles, investments held elsewhere. Enter a value, update it when it changes.
- Loans and liabilities — mortgages, car loans, anything you owe, so your net worth reflects both sides of the balance sheet.
Together these are what make a net worth figure meaningful rather than decorative. There’s a guide on working out your real net worth if you want the method rather than the mechanics.
What happens after a sync
Transactions arrive the way your bank writes them, which is rarely the way a human would. POS 4471 REF882931 LX is a coffee, but nothing about it says so. Bica’s next two steps fix that: merchant recognition works out who you actually paid, and categorization files the transaction where it belongs.
Transfers between your own accounts are handled separately — money moving from your current account to your savings isn’t spending, and counting it as such is the single most common way budgeting tools produce numbers nobody trusts. Bica pairs both sides of a transfer and keeps them out of your spending totals.