"Six months ago, everyone was talking about MCPs. And I was like, screw MCPs. Every MCP would be better as a CLI."

— Peter Steinberger, Founder of OpenClaw Watch on YouTube (~2:39:00) | Lex Fridman Podcast #491

Nordigen CLI

A production-ready command-line interface for the Nordigen Account Information Services API. Access bank account data, transactions, balances, and manage open banking connections directly from your terminal.

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial CLI tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Nordigen or GoCardless.

Features

• Institutions — Browse and search banks across 31 European countries
• Agreements — Create and manage end user agreements for account access
• Requisitions — Initiate bank connections and retrieve authorization links
• Accounts — Access account metadata, balances, details, and transactions
• JWT Authentication — Secure authentication with automatic token refresh
• JSON output — All commands support --json for scripting and piping
• Colorized output — Clean, readable terminal output with chalk

Why CLI > MCP

MCP servers are complex, stateful, and require a running server process. A CLI is:

• Simpler — Just a binary you call directly
• Composable — Pipe output to jq, grep, awk, and other tools
• Scriptable — Use in shell scripts, CI/CD pipelines, cron jobs
• Debuggable — See exactly what's happening with --json flag
• AI-friendly — AI agents can call CLIs just as easily as MCPs, with less overhead

Installation

npm install -g @ktmcp-cli/nordigencom

Authentication Setup

Nordigen uses JWT authentication. You'll need to create a Nordigen account and obtain API credentials.

1. Create a Nordigen Account

1. Go to nordigen.com or ob.nordigen.com/account/login/
2. Sign up for a free or paid account
3. Navigate to User Secrets in the dashboard
4. Copy your Secret ID and Secret Key

2. Configure the CLI

nordigencom config set --secret-id YOUR_SECRET_ID --secret-key YOUR_SECRET_KEY

3. Login

nordigencom auth login

This will obtain a JWT access token that's valid for 24 hours and automatically refresh it when needed.

4. Verify

nordigencom auth status

Commands

Configuration

# Set credentials
nordigencom config set --secret-id <id> --secret-key <key>

# Show current config
nordigencom config show

Authentication

# Login and obtain JWT token
nordigencom auth login

# Check auth status
nordigencom auth status

Institutions

# List all institutions
nordigencom institutions list

# Filter by country
nordigencom institutions list --country GB
nordigencom institutions list --country DE

# Get institution details
nordigencom institutions get <institution-id>

Agreements

End user agreements define what data you can access and for how long.

# List all agreements
nordigencom agreements list

# Get specific agreement
nordigencom agreements get <agreement-id>

# Create new agreement
nordigencom agreements create \
  --institution-id <institution-id> \
  --max-historical-days 90 \
  --access-valid-for-days 90

# Create agreement with limited scope
nordigencom agreements create \
  --institution-id <institution-id> \
  --access-scope balances,transactions

# Delete agreement
nordigencom agreements delete <agreement-id>

Requisitions

Requisitions are bank connection requests that users authorize.

# List all requisitions
nordigencom requisitions list

# Get specific requisition
nordigencom requisitions get <requisition-id>

# Create new requisition
nordigencom requisitions create \
  --institution-id <institution-id> \
  --redirect https://yourapp.com/callback \
  --reference user-123 \
  --agreement-id <agreement-id>

# Delete requisition
nordigencom requisitions delete <requisition-id>

Accounts

Access account data after a requisition is authorized.

# Get account metadata
nordigencom accounts get <account-id>

# Get account balances
nordigencom accounts balances <account-id>

# Get account details
nordigencom accounts details <account-id>

# Get account transactions
nordigencom accounts transactions <account-id>

JSON Output

All commands support --json for machine-readable output:

# Get all institutions as JSON
nordigencom institutions list --json

# Pipe to jq for filtering
nordigencom institutions list --country GB --json | jq '.[] | {id, name, bic}'

# Get transactions as JSON
nordigencom accounts transactions <account-id> --json

Examples

Connect a bank account (full workflow)

# Step 1: Find the bank institution
nordigencom institutions list --country GB
# Note the institution_id

# Step 2: Create an agreement
nordigencom agreements create \
  --institution-id SANDBOXFINANCE_SFIN0000 \
  --max-historical-days 90 \
  --access-valid-for-days 90
# Note the agreement_id

# Step 3: Create a requisition
nordigencom requisitions create \
  --institution-id SANDBOXFINANCE_SFIN0000 \
  --redirect https://myapp.com/callback \
  --reference user-123 \
  --agreement-id <agreement-id>
# Note the link URL and send it to the user

# Step 4: After user authorizes, get the requisition
nordigencom requisitions get <requisition-id>
# Note the account IDs in the response

# Step 5: Access account data
nordigencom accounts balances <account-id>
nordigencom accounts transactions <account-id>

Monitor account transactions

# Get all transactions for an account
nordigencom accounts transactions <account-id> --json | jq '.transactions.booked[] | {date: .bookingDate, amount: .transactionAmount.amount, description: .remittanceInformationUnstructured}'

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome at github.com/ktmcp-cli/nordigencom.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.

Part of the KTMCP CLI project — replacing MCPs with simple, composable CLIs.