midata: twelve months in a single CSV
Santander's spreadsheet export runs through midata, the UK standard designed so customers can compare current accounts between banks. Whatever it was built for, the file it produces is a perfectly good twelve-month transaction history.
- Log in to Online Banking on a computer.
- Open the My Accounts and Transactions tab and select the current account.
- Click the Download transactions link above the transaction table.
- Choose midata (CSV) from the Download to dropdown.
- Click Download.
What midata deliberately leaves out
Because the format exists for account comparison rather than for accounting, Santander strips things out on purpose. The file carries no name, address or account number, and transactions the bank judges sensitive are masked for your security.
For most purposes that is fine — a card payment to a streaming service or a gym is exactly the kind of line midata keeps. But do not expect a byte-for-byte copy of your statement, and if you are joint account holders, the other holders need to agree before the file is used elsewhere.
There is also a hard cap of 600 transactions per download. Above that, narrow the date range and take the year in two or three passes.
When you need the statement itself
For the official document, go to Statements & Documents in the left-hand menu, pick the account and the statement period, and download it. That is the version to use for anything administrative; midata is the version to use for analysis.
Two other UK current accounts use the same standard, with their own quirks: Nationwide and Lloyds.
A year of transactions in one file is where subscriptions stop hiding. Month by month a £9.99 line is invisible; twelve of them in a column, next to the three other services doing much the same thing, is a decision waiting to be made.
