Dave Tonge presenting during the BrightTalk webinar
Yesterday, I chaired a BrightTalk panel discussion called "Open Banking...it's banking but not as we know it" with Alan Lockhart from RBS, Nicholas Oliver from People.io and Gavin Littlejohn from FData. With our expertise spanning across different areas of the fintech industry, it was interesting to unpack what the phrase Open Banking means to us all.
Whilst it does represent a legislative mandate from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and PSD2, it also signifies a cultural shift towards 'open-ness' in an industry which hasn't seen a significant change like this in decades. It came across clearly in our discussion that businesses aren't just treating it as a compliance exercise: there is a hunger to open up data access to drive innovation and better serve customers.
The CMA believes the new regulations will increase competition, allow new entrants into the market and make banking systems more transparent. It's exciting to see traditional, challenger and start-up banks working on new ways of accessing data through their platforms.
The general consensus was that open banking will allow customers to be at the heart of their financial data. The challenge ahead though is to now create a regulated, standardised approach to APIs with all banks providing a common interface.
And it was also agreed that 'Open Banking' isn't an end destination. It represents a philosophy and a journey of continuous improvement.
–Written by Dave Tonge, CTO
The webinar is available to view if you would like to hear the full discussion: http://bit.ly/2dCEqj8
Or to continue the conversation on Twitter: @davidgtonge