Stewardly links to your bank through SimpleFIN Bridge, a separate service that handles the actual bank connection so Stewardly never sees or stores your online banking username or password. Here's exactly what to expect the first time you connect one.
On the "Connect a bank" step, click Open SimpleFIN Bridge. It opens bridge.simplefin.org in a new tab — keep the Stewardly tab open too, you'll come back to it in a few steps.
Click Get Started and enter your email address. SimpleFIN emails you a sign-in link within a few minutes — there's no password to create, just click the link in that email to log in. Accept the terms the first time you sign in.
Linking your first account requires an active SimpleFIN subscription — $1.50/month or $15/year, charged by SimpleFIN directly. This is the same charge mentioned above, not an additional one.
Go to Financial Institutions → New Connection, find your bank, and log in with your normal online banking username and password. If your bank uses its own two-factor authentication (a text code, an app prompt), you'll be asked for that too — that step belongs to your bank, not Stewardly or SimpleFIN.
Go to Apps → New Connection, give it a name you'll recognize later (e.g. "Stewardly"), and click Create Setup Token.
It's shown to you exactly once and works exactly once.
Switch back to the Stewardly tab, paste the token into the Setup token field, and click Connect. Stewardly exchanges it for an ongoing connection right then — the token itself isn't reusable after that.