How Fireball uses your bank data
Last reviewed: 2 September 2026
Connecting your bank account unlocks Fireball's main features. This page explains exactly what we'll see, how we'll use it, and how Akahu fits in. Read it before you tap “Connect” — and revisit it any time from Settings → How we use your data.
What you're authorising
When you tap “Connect with Akahu”, Akahu will ask you to:
- Pick your bank.
- Sign in to your online banking through Akahu's secure hosted screen.
- Approve Fireball's request to access your accounts.
Fireball never sees your online banking password.Your credentials go directly to your bank via Akahu's secure connection — we only receive the data you authorise. Fireball sends Akahu an email address as a login hint: on reconnect we first try to use the current email on your Akahu profile; for a first connection, or if that lookup is unavailable, we use your Fireball account email. Fireball does not retain the hint in its short-lived connection session. Your Akahu user access token stays on Fireball's server and is never sent to or stored by the mobile app.
What data we'll access
With your authorisation, we'll read the following from each connected account:
| Data | Why we need it |
|---|---|
| Account name, type, and account number | To display your accounts and group transactions correctly |
| Current and available balance | To calculate your net worth and FIRE progress |
| Transaction history — date, amount, description, merchant, category | To categorise spending, build budgets, detect subscriptions, and power insights |
| Account-holder details, such as holder name or address (when supplied by your bank) | To identify and display the account accurately |
| Account refresh status | To show you when your data was last updated |
We do not request, and Akahu does not provide, any payment-initiation capability. Fireball is read-only — we cannot move money in or out of your accounts.
How long we keep accessing your data
- Initial connection: we fetch the most recent 3 months of transactions immediately so you can start using the app, then backfill up to the previous 12 months in the background.
- Ongoing: we receive updates continuously via Akahu's secure webhooks — typically within minutes of a new transaction appearing in your bank, until you disconnect or your Fireball subscription ends.
This is ongoing access, not a one-off snapshot.
How we use your data
| Feature | What it does with your data |
|---|---|
| Net worth & FIRE projections | Combines balances across all accounts; projects time-to-FIRE based on your spending and savings rate. |
| Budgets | Groups transactions by category against the limits you set. |
| Insights | Detects subscriptions, recurring bills, paydays, and unusual spending. |
| AI Chat (only with your explicit consent) | Names Fireball's OpenAI and Google provider pool before anything is sent. OpenAI is primary; Gemini receives the same bounded request only if OpenAI fails before producing a response, and Fireball never sends a shadow or duplicate request. For a financial question or model-generated explanation, the selected provider receives only your question and the minimum relevant facts selected by Fireball. Depending on the question, those facts can include balances, transaction summaries, budgets, goals, debt, net-worth, FIRE, or account-forecast information. Fireball excludes login credentials, email, full account numbers, and provider identifiers. |
| AI categorisation (only with your explicit consent) | For a manual request or separate overnight opt-in, sends the selected OpenAI or Gemini provider only the transaction and category facts needed to suggest a category. Suggestions still require your review before they are applied. |
| AI Weekly Review (only with your explicit consent and paid personal access) | May send the selected OpenAI or Gemini provider bounded qualitative Budget, Goals, Net worth, FIRE, and Finish up aggregate states for a completed week. It excludes transactions, evidence IDs, account, merchant, category and goal names, notes, other user-authored text, figures, and currencies. Only the latest validated summary is retained and it is deleted when you turn the feature or AI permission off, or delete your account. |
| Cross-device sync | Stores your data in our secure Supabase database (hosted in Sydney, Australia) so it's available on every device you sign in on. |
| Push notifications (if you opt in) | Sends alerts about new transactions, budget warnings, FIRE milestones, and an optional Weekly Review. Weekly Review notifications use generic copy and contain no review totals, categories, transaction evidence, or generated prose. Fireball may retain bounded Weekly Review delivery metadata for up to 400 days, capped at 64 weeks, and one-way transaction-alert replay codes for up to seven days; account deletion removes both. |
What we won't do with your data
- We will not sell, rent, or share your bank or transaction data with advertisers, data brokers, or any third party for marketing purposes.
- We will not use your data to provide services to other businesses (no “aggregator” services).
- We will not share your data outside the providers listed in our Privacy Policy. If collaborator access becomes available, we would share data with a collaborator only after you explicitly invite them.
Collaborator access (not currently available)
Collaborator access is not currently available to customers. If we introduce it, a person you explicitly invite would use a separate verified Fireball login and could view your Akahu-derived accounts, balances and transactions through Fireball. They could edit ordinary Fireball records, but could not connect, reconnect, refresh or disconnect a bank, run imports, or access Akahu connection details.
Collaborator edits would require a live access check. After a successful check, Fireball could keep a sanitised read-only copy of previously downloaded shared financial data in the collaborator's app sandbox for up to 24 hours; shared attachments, media, bank credentials, provider tokens and connection details would be excluded. You would be able to revoke access at any time, and inviting a collaborator would never authorise them to move money.
How to stop or change access
You can revoke access at any time:
- In Fireball: Settings → Bank Connections → Disconnect all banks.
- Through Akahu: use Manage accounts through Akahu for an official open-banking connection, or sign in at my.akahu.nz to revoke a classic connection.
When you disconnect:
- Fireball asks Akahu to revoke access and shows the connection as disconnected only after Akahu confirms it. If Akahu cannot confirm revocation, the connection stays active so you can retry.
- After confirmation, Fireball stops receiving new data from Akahu.
- You can delete a disconnected account's saved transaction history from Fireball, or keep it for offline reference. A live or needs-attention account must be disconnected first.
- Your last-known account balances are kept as a frozen snapshot so your historical net worth charts stay intact (you can delete those too if you prefer).
When your Fireball subscription ends:
- Live bank refresh pauses while Fireball's revocation process settles with Akahu.
- Your saved Fireball history and last-known balances are preserved unless you choose to delete them.
- If Akahu access is still active, you can view your cached bank summary and disconnect without resubscribing. Adding or reconnecting banks, refreshing data, or changing provider access requires an active subscription.
You can delete your Fireball account from Settings → Delete Account. Fireball first asks Akahu to revoke every connection token. If Akahu cannot confirm revocation, deletion stops so you can retry; after confirmation, Fireball erases your account data as described in our Privacy Policy.
About Akahu
Akahu is New Zealand's open finance platform. We use Akahu to securely connect to your bank and fetch the transaction and balance data described above.
Fireball is accredited by Akahu. Akahu reviewed Fireball before approving it to connect customer accounts. Akahu is an independent New Zealand company accredited by MBIE to provide open banking services. When you connect through Akahu:
- Akahu acts as a separate data processor under its own privacy notice.
- Your online banking credentials go to Akahu (and onward to your bank) — never to Fireball.
- Akahu manages the technical relationship with your bank and gives you a dashboard to control which apps have access to your data.
Learn more about Akahu:
Questions?
- Privacy enquiries: support@heliosstudio.app
- General support: fireball.finance/support