What "my agent can't see my bank" usually means
You ask Claude how much you spent last month and it tells you it can't access your bank account. Maybe it worked last week. Maybe it never worked and you're not sure what you missed. Either way, the response feels like a dead end.
It isn't. This failure has a short list of causes, and in practice it's one of five: the MCP server was never added to the host you're using, the API key is wrong or revoked, the bank connection expired, the tools are toggled off in the host's settings, or you're asking about a bank you never connected in the first place.
One thing worth knowing up front: BankBridge fetches your data live on every question and stores nothing on its servers. That means there's no stale cache muddying the picture. If your agent can't see your bank, something in the chain is genuinely disconnected, and the five checks below will find where. Each takes under a minute, and they're ordered from most common to least.
Check 1: Is the BankBridge server added to this host?
The most common cause is also the simplest: the BankBridge server was never added to the app you're currently sitting in. Adding it to Claude Desktop does nothing for Claude Code, Cursor, or ChatGPT. Every host keeps its own list of MCP servers, and none of them share.
What MCP tools do you have available right now?
If the answer includes nothing bank-shaped (no list_accounts, no list_transactions, no get_spending_summary), the server isn't registered in this host. That's the whole diagnosis. Head to the docs page for your specific app and follow the setup steps; there's a separate page for each of the 29 supported hosts because the config lives somewhere different in each one. Sometimes it's a JSON file, sometimes a settings screen, sometimes a single CLI command.
This check also catches the "works on my laptop" case. Host configs don't follow you between machines unless the app itself syncs settings, and most don't.
Check 2: Is your API key pasted correctly, and still active?
If the tools show up but every call fails with an authentication error, look at the key. BankBridge keys start with bbk_. The classic failures are mundane: a trailing space picked up during the copy, a key truncated by a terminal, or quotes mangled inside a shell config file.
Open your host's config and read the key with your own eyes. It should start with bbk_, end cleanly, and have no whitespace on either side.
Keys also die on purpose. If you rotated your key recently, every host still holding the old one stops working at the same moment. That's actually a useful tell: several apps breaking at once points to the key, while one app breaking points to that app's config. Generate a fresh key in your dashboard, paste it carefully, and restart the host app.
Using OAuth instead of an API key? Disconnect and reconnect BankBridge in the host's connector settings. That refreshes the grant and clears out any expired token.
Check 3: Did the bank connection itself expire?
Bank links don't last forever. If you changed your online banking password, reset your MFA, or your bank simply decided enough time had passed, the link goes stale and needs to be re-established. When that happens the aggregator can't pull fresh data, and since BankBridge fetches live, there's no old copy to fall back on. You get an error instead of numbers, on purpose.
The symptom here is specific: the agent lists its tools happily, but calls for a particular bank come back with a connection error rather than data.
The fix lives in your BankBridge dashboard. Log in, find the bank marked as needing attention, and click reconnect. You'll verify with your bank again, which takes about a minute, and the very next question your agent asks gets live data. If a password change kicked this off, we've got a full walkthrough in the reconnect guide.
Check 4: Are the tools switched on in host settings?
Some hosts add a second gate. The server can be configured, connected, and authenticated, and still be switched off. Several apps let you disable a whole server, or individual tools within it, without removing anything from the config.
The tell: your setup looks perfect on paper, but the agent acts like the server doesn't exist, or it names the tools and then refuses to call them.
Open the host's MCP or connectors settings and confirm BankBridge is enabled and its tools are allowed. Some hosts also ask for approval the first time a tool runs in a conversation. It's easy to dismiss that prompt without noticing, and the host may remember the refusal.
After flipping anything, restart the app fully. A few hosts only reload their server list on launch.
Check 5: Are you asking about a bank you never connected?
This one's humbling, and it happens constantly. You connected your checking account months ago, and now you're asking about a credit card at a different bank. The agent isn't broken. It just can't see an account that was never linked.
List every account you can see, with the institution name and the last four digits of each.
If the account you're asking about isn't in that list, that's your answer. Each bank is its own connection at $5 a month, and you can link as many as you want. One more thing that's easy to forget: if you cancelled a bank's subscription at some point, that connection is gone too. The list from the prompt above settles it either way.
Still stuck? The two-minute reset
If all five checks pass and something still fails, do a clean reset. Quit the host app completely (actually quit, not just close the window), reopen it, and run one diagnostic prompt:
Call list_accounts and tell me exactly what comes back, including any error message, word for word.
The raw error is the shortcut. An authentication error means the key, so go back to check 2. A connection error names the bank that needs re-linking, that's check 3. "No such tool" means host config, checks 1 and 4. And a successful call that returns an empty list means nothing's connected yet, which is check 5.
That's the whole tree. No support form required, and because everything is fetched live, the fix takes effect on your very next question.