Load Bank of APIs data in Python using dltHub

Build a Bank of APIs-to-database or-dataframe pipeline in Python using dlt with automatic Cursor support.

Last updated: Feb 12, 2026

In this guide, we'll set up a complete Ulster Bank Open Banking data pipeline from API credentials to your first data load in just 10 minutes. You'll end up with a fully declarative Python pipeline based on dlt's REST API connector, like in the partial example code below:

Example code
@dlt.source
def bank_of_apis_sending_payments_source(access_token=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://openapi.ulsterbank.co.uk/bankofapis/v1.0/",
            "auth": {
                "type": "bearer",
                "token": access_token,
            },
        },
        "resources": [
            "api/v1/fx-rates", "indicative-bonds-prices", "products/api/accounts-discretionary"
            ],
    }
    [...]
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def get_data() -> None:
    # Connect to destination
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name='bank_of_apis_sending_payments_pipeline',
        destination='duckdb',
        dataset_name='bank_of_apis_sending_payments_data', 
    )
    # Load the data
    load_info = pipeline.run(bank_of_apis_sending_payments_source())
    print(load_info)

Why use dltHub Workspace with LLM Context to generate Python pipelines?

Accelerate pipeline development with AI-native context
Debug pipelines, validate schemas and data with the integrated Pipeline Dashboard
Build Python notebooks for end users of your data
Low maintenance thanks to Schema evolution with type inference, resilience and self documenting REST API connectors. A shallow learning curve makes the pipeline easy to extend by any team member
dlt is the tool of choice for Pythonic Iceberg Lakehouses, bringing mature data loading to pythonic Iceberg with or without catalogs

What you’ll do

We’ll show you how to generate a readable and easily maintainable Python script that fetches data from bank_of_apis_sending_payments’s API and loads it into Iceberg, DataFrames, files, or a database of your choice. Here are some of the endpoints you can load:

FX Rates: Access foreign exchange rates available for transactions.
Bonds Prices: Retrieve indicative prices for bonds.
Accounts: Manage and access account information for discretionary accounts.
Variable Recurring Payments: Initiate and manage variable recurring payments.
Payment Initiation: Handle payments through the Payment Initiation Service.

You will then debug the Ulster Bank Open Banking pipeline using our Pipeline Dashboard tool to ensure it is copying the data correctly, before building a Notebook to explore your data and build reports.

Setup & steps to follow

💡
Before getting started, let's make sure Cursor is set up correctly:

We suggest using a model like Claude 3.7 Sonnet or better
Index the REST API Source tutorial: https://dlthub.com/docs/dlt-ecosystem/verified-sources/rest_api/ and add it to context as @dlt rest api
Learn more about our LLM native workflow

Now you're ready to get started!

⚙️ Set up dlt Workspace

Install dlt with duckdb support:
```
pip install "dlt[workspace]"
```
Initialize a dlt pipeline with Ulster Bank Open Banking support.
```
dlt init dlthub:bank_of_apis_sending_payments duckdb
```
The init command will setup the necessary files and folders for the next step.

🤠 Start LLM-assisted coding

Here’s a prompt to get you started:

Prompt
Please generate a REST API Source for Ulster Bank Open Banking API, as specified in @bank_of_apis_sending_payments-docs.yaml 
Start with endpoints api/v1/fx-rates and  and skip incremental loading for now. 
Place the code in bank_of_apis_sending_payments_pipeline.py and name the pipeline bank_of_apis_sending_payments_pipeline. 
If the file exists, use it as a starting point. 
Do not add or modify any other files. 
Use @dlt rest api as a tutorial. 
After adding the endpoints, allow the user to run the pipeline with python bank_of_apis_sending_payments_pipeline.py and await further instructions.

🔒 Set up credentials

The authentication process utilizes OAuth2 with a refresh token mechanism, which necessitates the setup of a connected app in the specified environment.

To get the appropriate API keys, please visit the original source at https://www.ulsterbank.co.uk/. If you want to protect your environment secrets in a production environment, look into setting up credentials with dlt.

🏃‍♀️ Run the pipeline in the Python terminal in Cursor


python bank_of_apis_sending_payments_pipeline.py

If your pipeline runs correctly, you’ll see something like the following:


Pipeline bank_of_apis_sending_payments load step completed in 0.26 seconds
1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset bank_of_apis_sending_payments_data
The duckdb destination used duckdb:/bank_of_apis_sending_payments.duckdb location to store data
Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs

📈 Debug your pipeline and data with the Pipeline Dashboard

Now that you have a running pipeline, you need to make sure it’s correct, so you do not introduce silent failures like misconfigured pagination or incremental loading errors. By launching the dlt Workspace Pipeline Dashboard, you can see various information about the pipeline to enable you to test it. Here you can see:
- Pipeline overview: State, load metrics
- Data’s schema: tables, columns, types, hints
- You can query the data itself
```
dlt pipeline bank_of_apis_sending_payments_pipeline show
```
🐍 Build a Notebook with data explorations and reports

With the pipeline and data partially validated, you can continue with custom data explorations and reports. To get started, paste the snippet below into a new marimo Notebook and ask your LLM to go from there. Jupyter Notebooks and regular Python scripts are supported as well.
```
import dlt

dataset = dlt.pipeline("bank_of_apis_sending_payments_pipeline").dataset()
# Get indicative-bonds-prices table as Pandas DataFrame
df = dataset.table("indicative-bonds-prices").df().head()
```

Running into errors?

There are several important considerations when using this source. Customers must reauthenticate their consent with their Account Information Service Provider (AISP) every 90 days unless special circumstances apply. Additionally, service outages may occur due to scheduled maintenance or issues with core banking systems, and during these times, certain services may be unavailable. Users should also be aware of potential throttling limits on API calls and ensure compliance with OAuth scopes.

Extra resources:

Learn more with our 1h LLM-assisted coding course!

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