FAQs

Simply register and enter your details (you’ll need to give your name, address, email address and mobile number). Everything can be done online in minutes.

All Trusted People and Account Holders must register before they can use the service.

A Trusted Person provides financial oversight for someone who needs help with their banking. The Account Holder is the person who would like to receive help with their banking transactions, they can invite a Trusted Person to view these. Once the Trusted Person has accepted the invite, they can then keep watch for any unexpected account transactions and provide help and advice to the Account Holder.

A Trusted Person can view an Account Holder’s bank transactions without direct access to their bank account. They become a Trusted Person by accepting a Family Connect invitation from someone who would like help by asking them to link and share a view of their bank transactions. If the invitation is accepted, the Account Holder agrees to share their information and the Trusted Person can start viewing their transaction details, providing a second pair of eyes to help with their finances.

The Trusted Person can log into their own Family Connect account to view the transactions of the Account Holder or Holders they support, they can also set up email alerts to inform them of any new transactions. 

The Trusted Person can’t access the Account Holder’s bank account directly, make payments for them or stop payments. The Account Holder remains in control and can use their money as they wish. They can also stop a Trusted Person viewing their information at any time by logging into the service and removing their link to them.

You invite a Trusted Person by completing a simple online form or by using a QR code. If the invite is accepted, the Trusted Person will be able to see your bank transactions. You can change your mind at any time and stop them viewing your bank transactions. You can invite more than one Trusted Person.

Family Connect accesses bank accounts using ‘Open Banking’. This is a service provided by all banks to allow services registered with the Financial Conduct Authority to access banking information with the Account Holder’s consent. Family Connect uses Open Banking to retrieve and store bank transactions. These are then shown to the Account Holder’s chosen Trusted People.

The Account Holder can request that bank transactions held by Family Connect are deleted, or they can prevent Trusted People from viewing them.

You can link to your own bank accounts by selecting ‘Add Account’. You then select your bank or building society from a list. You’ll be directed to follow instructions on your bank or building society website. Your bank will list your accounts and let you choose the ones you wish to link.

Yes. You should first try to link to your joint account. If this doesn’t work then you and the other joint account holder should contact your bank or building society and ask for the account to be made accessible through Open Banking. You should then be able to link the account.

At any time, you can unlink your bank or building society accounts from Family Connect by logging in, finding the account in the menu and selecting ‘Manage’. You can then choose to remove the account from Family Connect.

The disconnection won’t affect the normal operation of your bank or building society account.

For regulatory reasons, and one of security, every 90 days the Account Holder will get an email from us asking for consent to continue allowing a Trusted Person to view their bank transactions. Every 12 months the Account Holder will need to relink to their bank accounts.

Both the Trusted Person and Account Holder can view the current month and the last three months worth of bank transactions.

You can leave by selecting ‘Delete Registration’ at the bottom of the Settings page. Your linked bank account information will no longer be visible to your Trusted People and they won’t get alerts. Leaving doesn’t affect your bank or building society accounts.

We do not offer a password recovery service because scammers use password recovery as a way of tricking users into revealing information. Instead, because it is very quick to re-register, we ask you to do this. You may need to re-link your accounts. If you have forgotten your password please send an email to support@hopemacy.com and we will contact you prior to deleting your account. You will then need to re-register and set up your Trusted People or Account Holders again.

We may contact you by phone, text message or email.

Normally, we won’t phone you. If, in exceptional circumstances, we do need to phone you, it will be during normal office hours. We may ask you to confirm your name but won’t ask for any other personal or security details. We’ll never ask for your password or bank account details.

We’ll send a text to your phone during registration. You’ll also get a text if you change your phone number or if we don’t recognise a device you’re using. Texts from us will have the name ‘HopeMacy’ and won’t show a telephone number. You won’t be expected to reply to a text from us. We’ll never send a link to a website in a text message, nor will we ask for payments or security information.

We send you emails to update you on the transactions of the person or people you’re supporting. You can change the frequency of these emails from the Settings page at any time. You can also email us at support@hopemacy.com. 

You should first discuss it with the person you’re concerned about. If you’re still worried after talking with them, you should contact us by email using support@hopemacy.com. We may suspend their registration if Family Connect isn’t suitable for them. We may ask you for additional information but we won’t always be able to provide you with updates on our actions, for example when we need to refer your concerns to external agencies.