One Year of Open Banking: Insights from the UK
“Two years ago, Open
Banking was regarded by many as a typical compliance exercise championed only
by a handful of FinTechs – more tech spend driven by compliance rather than
business case or customer need. This is no longer the case. Banks have
very firmly moved from viewing Open Banking as a compliance exercise to an
opportunity to compete and innovate. They have worked hard to implement the
Standards despite many challenges and an ambitious timescale. Yet already
we have seen some impressive early signs of new technologies powered by Open
Banking – even though we are only mid-way through our roadmap with lots more to
come.
“Consumers are
gradually being offered products and services which will securely help them
move, manage and make more of their money. The often over-looked,
hardworking population of SMEs – now totaling over 5m businesses – are also
benefiting from new technologies which are supporting their efforts to boost
profit, performance and productivity.
“We are also seeing
some early and exciting signs of how Open Banking is powering technologies to
help address some of society’s issues, in particular in the debt advice area.
In short, it is clear that there are signs of an emerging dynamic,
vibrant and developing ecosystem – an ecosystem which is rapidly becoming more
sophisticated and expansive in its coverage. But with the line of sight we
have into the open banking “pipeline”, this is going to considerably ramp up in
2019. Today, we have over 100 regulated entities enrolled in Open Banking with
in excess of 100 waiting to join. We expect the ecosystem to develop with
even greater momentum and pace not least as we see greater conformance with the
implementation of the Standards as well as greater innovation in the market.
All of which is
encouraging. However, our focus for 2019 is firmly fixed on an enhanced
user experience – what we have today is, for sure, a step in the right
direction but it does not yet meet the high standards of conformance and
performance we expect. However, I am confident that 2019 – post March and the
implementation of v3 of our Standards – will bring a mobile-enabled and
frictionless customer journey.”
As Open Banking
approaches its first anniversary, we take a look back at some of the highlights
of the year.
– 100 regulated
providers made up of 67 third party providers
and 33 account providers, with 17 third party
providers live with customers
13 January
– Open
Banking Standard launches
January
– Yolt and
Lloyds Bank make first successful account information transaction
– “80% of the functionality was delivered in January to approximately 80% of
the population” Imran Gulamhuseinwala
OBE > Watch
the video
March
– Version
2 of the Open Banking Standards released
April
– CYBG
launches new B money management service
May
– Open
Banking Consumer Manifesto launched
– 1
million API calls
June
– Token makes
first end to-end payment through Open Banking APIs
– “Open Banking places consumers back in control of their data – unlocking a
new world of services and opportunity” Imran Gulamhuseinwala OBE > Watch the video
August
– Open
Data Service Quality Indicators API published
September
– Version
3 of the Open Banking Standards including Customer Experience Guidelines
released
November
– AIB rolls out Open Banking in Ireland
– Iwoca makes
first business loan using Open Banking data
– 17.5
million API calls
December
– NESTA Open Up Challenge announces winners
– “Open Banking is playing its part in developing a dynamic and vibrant
economy” Imran Gulamhuseinwala OBE > Watch the video
Information correct as
at 8 January 2019. Produced by Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE).