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axway.com
Philippe Lazier from Axway, believes one strategy banks could adopt to
counter the threat of GAMFA is to experiment with more co-opetition models
(or what has been referred to as "open banking"). A co-opetition model
recognizes that industry competitors often need to work together in areas
where the market has been commoditized, and then to specialize on their
unique value propositions within that new market landscape. For many banks,
the drivers towards open banking are the ability to adhere to regulations and
to stay relevant to their customer base.
That is definitely the context with the Second Payment Services Directive
(PSD2) in Europe, and a similar environment is emerging in other regions
where national regulations are beginning to promote open banking API
standards. PSD2 enables Third Party Providers (TPPs), such as fintechs,
to initiate payment on behalf of a banks' customers and to enable them to
access account information, through APIs, where the bank customer has
given consent. In Europe, there is no competitive benefit to releasing a unique
PSD2-designed product: all banks must use the same standards to build their
PSD2 APIs. Regulations also enforce banks to make consented payments and
account information-sharing frictionless, which means they must be open
without financial barriers such as additional fees.
So Lazier argues that it is more cost-efficient for banks to all agree to
work quickly, share the same PSD2 model, and publish their APIs together
so that each can then compete on their unique differentiation, whether
that be extended API products, or by building relationships with specific
developer segments.
This is exactly the approach being taken by new open banking
platform, LUXHUB.
