EBICS with Berner Kantonalbank: your BEKB transactions in your accounting every morning
Berner Kantonalbank offers EBICS access to its business customers, and YESbusiness connects to it directly: nobody between your bank and your accounting. Every morning, yesterday's statement of your BEKB account arrives on its own and your entries are prepared for you. Here is how to activate it, what you get and what it does not do.
Berner Kantonalbank in a few words
Berner Kantonalbank (BEKB) is the cantonal bank of the bilingual canton of Bern, present from the Bernese Jura to the Bernese Oberland, with a broad clientele of tradespeople, farmers and freelancers. EBICS access is requested from your adviser; the bank opens it on your business contract.
EBICS at BEKB: what the bank publishes
What BEKB says about its EBICS offer on its own pages. Terms can change: your advisor has the last word.
- BEKB provides the EBICS interface free of charge.
- Its published connection parameters list only protocol version H005 (EBICS 3.0).
- Over EBICS 3.0 BEKB delivers camt.052, camt.053, camt.054 (QR and LSV credits advised separately), MT940/MT942 and PDF documents.
- When moving to EBICS 3.0, active user keys stay valid: no re-initialisation is needed.
- The bank's public keys (HPB) are fetched once BEKB has released the EBICS contract.
Sources: BEKB's own pages, read on 16 October 2026: BEKB – EBICS · Informationsblatt EBICS 3.0 (PDF)
Connecting BEKB to YESbusiness: the five steps
Two steps depend on you, one on YESbusiness, two on Berner Kantonalbank. Allow a few minutes on your side and a few business days on the bank's.
- 1Ask Berner Kantonalbank for EBICS. Through your adviser or the corporate e-banking desk. The bank opens the access on your contract and gives you a customer number (Customer ID or Partner ID) and a user identifier (User ID).
- 2Pick BEKB in YESbusiness and enter the two identifiers. YESbusiness generates the keys of your connection, registers them with Berner Kantonalbank's EBICS server and opens the initialization letter, which carries the fingerprints of your public keys.
- 3Print, sign and send the letter to Berner Kantonalbank. Your signature is what authorizes the bank to activate the access. The letter contains no secret: only the fingerprints the bank compares with what it received electronically.
- 4Berner Kantonalbank checks and activates the access. Usually within a few business days. On activation, YESbusiness fetches the bank's public keys, verifies their fingerprints and runs the first download.
- 5Your BEKB accounts are connected. The bank sends the IBANs covered by the access; you link each one to a cash account. From there, every morning, yesterday's statement arrives and is booked with your rules.
Nobody between BEKB and your accounting
YESbusiness carries its own EBICS client. It generates your keys, announces itself to Berner Kantonalbank's EBICS server, verifies the bank's keys and downloads your statements itself. Your data travels from BEKB's server to YESbusiness's server, encrypted end to end, with no aggregation platform and no robot on your e-banking.
Your BEKB e-banking username and password are never asked for. EBICS rests on keys generated for your connection and on a signed letter Berner Kantonalbank verifies.
What to know before signing the letter
- Read-only. YESbusiness reads your BEKB statements; it sends no payment order. Your transfers continue to be made in Berner Kantonalbank's e-banking.
- Daily, not real time. The channel delivers the end-of-day statement (camt.053) of the previous business day. A movement from this morning appears tomorrow morning.
- Berner Kantonalbank opens the channel. EBICS is requested from the bank, not from YESbusiness. Most Swiss banks open it free of charge for business customers; a few charge for it. Ask your BEKB adviser.
- A few days to activate. Between sending the signed letter and Berner Kantonalbank's activation, allow a few business days. In the meantime, the camt.053 file downloaded from BEKB e-banking can be imported by hand.
Frequently asked questions about EBICS with BEKB
Does Berner Kantonalbank offer EBICS?
Yes, to its business customers. It is a service the bank opens on your contract; ask your adviser or BEKB's corporate e-banking desk.
How much does EBICS cost at BEKB?
On the YESbusiness side, nothing beyond the subscription: the connection is included. On the bank side, EBICS is usually free in Switzerland; a few banks charge a setup fee or a flat rate. One call to your BEKB adviser is enough to find out.
Do I have to give YESbusiness my BEKB e-banking login?
Never. EBICS works with a dedicated access Berner Kantonalbank opens in your name and keys generated for your connection, not with your e-banking login.
Can I pay my BEKB invoices from YESbusiness?
No. YESbusiness uses EBICS read-only: it fetches your statements, it sends no payment orders. Your transfers stay in Berner Kantonalbank's e-banking.
I have several accounts at BEKB, or other banks?
One BEKB EBICS connection can cover several accounts at the bank; each IBAN is linked to a cash account. Every other bank has its own EBICS connection, and a company can have as many as it has banks.
Other banks
YESbusiness is Swiss accounting, the EBICS connection to Berner Kantonalbank and VAT returns from CHF 12.90 per month. Two-week free trial.
Try YESbusiness with BEKB