Hong Kong consumers willing to give third parties access to their financial data

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is about to launch the first phase of its open API framework on January 18 as part of its “smart banking” initiatives that also include a new faster payment system and virtual banking licenses.

According to Accenture’s research, based on a survey of more than 2,000 consumers in Hong Kong, 51% of respondents said they would be willing to securely share their data with a third-party provider if doing so would get them more-personalized services or tailored offers like a better mortgage rate or higher returns on savings and deposits.

At the same, only 31% said they would not be willing to share their data. By comparison, similar surveys that Accenture conducted in Australia and the UK showed that consumers in those markets were more than twice as likely to say that they would not be willing to share their financial information with third parties (66% and 69%, respectively).

When asked what other types of organizations they would trust their data with, 16% of Hong Kongers cited retailers and large online merchants and 33% cited international and local payments companies, underscoring their openness to non-bank providers. Hong Kong consumers are also very open to using third-party providers for payments, with 38% and 26% of Hong Kongers saying they would trust online retailers and large technology companies, respectively, to initiate a payment.

Young consumers are more familiar with Open Banking and more willing to share their data than older ones, but the generational divide is even more evident when comparing consumers’ attitudes toward payments. For example, only 30% of Gen Zers and millennials said they’re not willing to initiate payments through non-bank providers, compared with more than half (55%) of baby boomers.

When asked to identify the main hurdles to embracing Open Banking, Hong Kong consumers most often cited concerns over security and privacy of their financial data, mentioned by 71% of respondents, followed by lack of trust in large tech companies and third-party providers to handle financial data (43% of consumers) and a lack of sufficient understanding of Open Banking (42%).