saldo-mcp

Ask your AI about your money — without your money data ever leaving your machine.

saldo-mcp is the open-source engine behind Saldo: a read-only MCP server that connects Swedish/Nordic bank accounts to Claude, ChatGPT, and any MCP-compatible assistant. It runs on your computer, fetches data directly from the bank via Enable Banking's open-banking API, and keeps an encrypted local cache — so your transaction history accumulates beyond the bank's ~90-day window, and nothing financial ever touches anyone else's servers. Including ours.

Principles

• Read-only, always. Account-information consents only. Payment initiation isn't a disabled feature — it's a capability this codebase does not contain.

• Privacy by architecture. The engine calls the bank API from your device. The optional managed broker (hosted by us, for the paid tiers) handles consent and short-lived keys only; it has no endpoint that can receive financial data.

• Yours to run. Self-hosting with your own free Enable Banking application is free forever, no account with us required.

Related MCP server: YNAB MCP Server

Quick start (self-host)

Requirements: Node 24+, a Swedish/Nordic bank account, and a free Enable Banking application (their Restricted Production tier: link your own accounts, real data, no contract).

No install needed to try it — state lives in ~/.saldo/, not in the package:

npx saldo-mcp init                    # wizard: managed or self-host (paste your EB app id + .pem path)
npx saldo-mcp institutions SE
npx saldo-mcp link "SE:Your Bank"     # BankID in the browser
npx saldo-mcp sync                    # pull history into the encrypted cache
npx saldo-mcp doctor                  # ✓/✗ health checks

npx saldo-mcp connect-claude          # register in Claude Desktop, restart Claude

connect-claude registers the server in Claude Desktop (writes its config) and in Claude Code (via claude mcp add, if the CLI is installed) — launched via npx, absolute path, pinned to the current version; re-run it after upgrades. Prefer a fixed install? npm install -g saldo-mcp gives you the saldo command and pins Claude to that install instead.

Prefer running from source? git clone https://github.com/pixby/saldo-mcp.git && cd saldo-mcp && npm install && npm run build, then use node dist/cli/index.js in place of saldo.

Then ask Claude: "What did I spend on groceries last month?"

Transaction labeling

spending_by_category gets real categories (Groceries, Dining, Transport, …) from your own assistant: ask it to "label my transactions" (or run the label-transactions MCP prompt) and it reads the unlabeled descriptions, classifies them itself, and saves the labels through set_transaction_labels — the one write tool on the surface, which can only store category labels in the local encrypted cache and can never touch your bank. No API key, no extra service, no data flow that didn't already exist. Unlabeled spending simply shows as "Uncategorized" until then.

Uninstall

Everything lives on your machine — removal is ordinary file deletion:

npx saldo-mcp disconnect-claude   # unregister from Claude Desktop + Claude Code
rm -rf ~/.saldo                   # config, encrypted cache + key
npm uninstall -g saldo-mcp        # if you installed globally

Bank consents live at your bank (revoke in Enable Banking's control panel; they also expire on their own after ~180 days).

MCP tools

Designed so assistants answer cheaply from pre-computed summaries instead of re-deriving totals from raw dumps. Read-only toward your bank, always:

list_accounts · get_balances · get_transactions (date + amount filters, one or all accounts) · search_transactions (full-text) · spending_by_category (categories from the labeling above, or by exact counterparty) · get_recurring_charges · compare_periods · get_unlabeled_transactions + set_transaction_labels (the labeling pair — the only write, local category labels only)

Architecture notes

• Provider-neutral core: everything above src/providers/provider.ts (BankProvider) speaks provider-neutral domain types — Enable Banking is the backend today; others can slot in without touching the engine or tools.

• Cache: node:sqlite + AES-256-GCM at rest (no native deps). Only ids and booking dates are stored in the clear (for indexed range queries); amounts, names, and descriptions never hit disk unencrypted.

• Transports: stdio (this repo's default — your MCP client launches it) and Streamable HTTP on 127.0.0.1 (used by the Saldo desktop app).

• Money is integer minor units (öre) internally; formatting to kr happens only at presentation.

• Tests: npm test — integration/unit tests over a deterministic fake provider (no bank, no network, no secrets).

Relationship to Saldo

This repo is the engine. Saldo wraps it in a desktop app (macOS/Windows/Linux) with one-click assistant connections and a managed tier where you bring only your BankID. Self-hosting this engine is and stays free.

License

MIT © Pixby Media AB