BMO and Xero helping businesses put bookkeeping on autopilot

• Partnership offers new integration enabling business customers with complex needs to self-serve and sync their BMO and Xero accounts in a matter of minutes
• Customers see daily balances and transactions automatically – no need to sign into online banking or manually export or upload files

TORONTO and CHICAGO, Aug. 24, 2022 /CNW/ - BMO Financial Group and global cloud-based accounting platform, Xero, are making it easier for business customers to run and grow their business with the introduction of automatic transaction synchronization. Coming later this year, BMO customers using Online Banking for Business will be able to seamlessly send daily bank feeds to their Xero account. For BMO, this is one in a series of partnerships that enable customers to tailor their banking services to their day-to-day operations and workflow.

"Our clients have told us: the less time we need to spend on manual tasks, the better," said Hugh McKee, Head, BMO Partners. "Our partnership enables automatic transaction syncing between BMO and Xero, which gives owners more time to focus on what matters to them – making progress and growing their business."

This integration will enable BMO's business customers utilizing Online Banking for Business to connect directly and help gain back time previously spent on data entry and reconciliation, and introduces the following features:

• Automatically receive the latest BMO transactions and account balances from Xero accounts daily
• A one-year transaction and balance history right from the start
• Control to modify or deactivate this integration at any time from a BMO account

"Empowering businesses with solutions that improve their day-to-day operations is a key priority for BMO," said Sean Ellery, Head, Digital and Innovation, Commercial Banking, BMO Financial Group. "Our partnership with Xero gives our clients with complex business needs yet another tool to help make their businesses more efficient and profitable."

"Xero is incredibly excited to work with BMO and enable small businesses to use technology designed to help them gain back time during their day," said Chris O'Neill, Chief Growth Officer, Xero. "We share the same vision of better serving small businesses across the US and Canada, and this partnership is a major first step in our relationship to do just that."

BMO is paving the way as a digitally enabled, future-ready bank harnessing the potential of emerging technologies for real-time information and processing. As the industry moves towards Open Banking, BMO is supporting customers by creating a robust API infrastructure, underpinned by security, to enable safe and secure financial decisions.

About BMO Financial Group

Serving customers for 200 years and counting, BMO is a highly diversified financial services provider - the 8th largest bank, by assets, in North America. With total assets of $1.04 trillion as of April 30, 2022, and a team of diverse and highly engaged employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, BMO Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets.

About Xero

Xero is a global small business platform with 3.3 million subscribers which includes a core accounting solution, payroll, workforce management, expenses and projects. Xero also provides access to financial services, and an ecosystem of more than 1,000 connected apps and more than 300 connections to banks and other financial institutions. Through Xero's open platform, small businesses can connect to a range of solutions that help them run their business and manage their finances. For three consecutive years (2020-2022) Xero was included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index. In 2021, Xero was included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), powered by the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment. Xero has been named as a FIFA Women's Football partner under FIFA's new commercial structure.    

SOURCE BMO Financial Group

Kelsey Rutherford, BMO Financial Group, [email protected], [phone]; Josh McConnell, Xero, [email protected]