Open Banking PTBR

Ovum view Open banking is one of the most widely discussed topics in the banking industry today. With good reason too, as the changes open banking are stimulating have the potential to re-draw large parts of the competitive landscape and value chain for both retail and corporate banking. While open banking can be said to have originated in Europe, largely through the European Union's revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), regulators in many major markets have either delivered – or are in the process of developing – their own frameworks or guidelines. However, while the outcome of these processes are closely aligned, in requiring banks to expose customer account data and other banking services for use by third parties (with customer consent of course), there are also differences. In many cases, these can be traced back to the triggers for the regulatory intervention. In the case of PSD2 for example, the emphasis was broadly on creating a more level competitive field for non-banks to enter the value chain, while the UK's open banking project was triggered by a desire to stimulate competition between banks. At the same time, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Association of Banks in Singapore launched their Open Banking Playbook in 2017 with a clear focus on driving innovation. In the case of Australia, open banking forms part of a much more ambitious plan by the government to give consumers control of their data across the whole economy. The Consumer Data Right will see the energy and telecommunications sector follow banking (which made its first steps in July 2019) in enabling customers to access and share data with trusted parties.

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