since vs maxImportDate

When integrating the Account Information Service and the SignIn Flow, you’ll come across two similar parameters: maxImportDate and since. While they both dictate the earliest date for importing transactions, they serve slightly different purposes.

What is the difference?

maxImportDate

This parameter is set in our SignIn Flow and sets the maximum possible date for the import. Transactions older than this specified date won’t be downloaded.

Setting it in the SignIn Flow before the authorization and data import happen is crucial because it may impact the log in process. In many banks, whenever more than 90 days of transactional history is needed, the bank introduces additional log in steps for the user to confirm with the user that they actually want to give access to that longer period.

Please note that the maxImportDate parameter alone is not enough to get more than 90 days of transactions. You can learn more about this topic here.

since

This parameter also limits the age of imported transactions and can be adjusted with each import. It is included when sending a Default Import request and is lower in the hierarchy - if the range set in since is higher than the value set in the maxImportDate is used.

You can find more information about the since parameter here.

Reasoning

These two parameters exist in parallel mainly due to backwards compatibility: maxImportDate is a newer parameter that lets us adjust the login process depending on your needs since the PSD2 regulations have been introduced.

since has always been a part of our API and has to remain there for consistency and compatibility reasons, but it’s not the only reason.

After we introduced the Multiple Access service, setting the since date per each import separately has become more viable. Each time you ask for data, you can import just the required increment since the last import, while being able to fetch much more during the first session thanks to setting the maxImportDate to an earlier date.

Example usage

Here is an example of a proper use of these two parameters: