Truist Financial Corporation has launched its first Open Banking integration, connecting to Mastercard's Open Finance platform via API.
Following this announcement, Truist Financial Corporation has introduced an API-based Open Banking platform, marking the US-based bank's first direct integration with an Open Finance network. The initial connection runs through Mastercard's Open Finance technology, giving Truist's consumer and small business clients centralised access to their financial data across a range of third-party fintech applications.
The platform allows clients to manage which applications can access their financial data and for what purpose, using tokenised connections that remove the need to share usernames or passwords. This approach aligns with broader industry efforts to move away from credential-based data sharing, which has long been considered a security risk in Open Banking environments.
Tokenised access and data control
According to the official press release, through the integration, Truist clients can authorise and revoke access to their financial data without intermediaries, and connect to fintech tools of their choice via Mastercard's API connectivity layer. The platform is positioned to support use cases including payment initiation, financial health monitoring, and access to credit products for clients with limited credit histories.
Open Banking in the US has developed more gradually than in markets such as the UK and the EU, where regulatory frameworks — namely the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) in Europe — have driven standardised API adoption since 2018. In the US, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalised its Open Banking rule under Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act in late 2024, establishing data rights for consumers and timelines for compliance across financial institutions. With this in mind, Truist's move reflects growing momentum among US banks to build compliant, direct API infrastructure ahead of those deadlines.
Mastercard's Open Finance platform operates across multiple markets and serves as a connectivity layer between financial institutions and third-party providers. By selecting Mastercard as its first integration partner, Truist gains access to an established network of fintech applications without building bilateral connections independently.
The platform is available to both retail consumers and small business clients, a segment where Open Banking adoption has historically lagged behind consumer banking. Small businesses stand to benefit from use cases such as automated cash flow visibility, simplified account aggregation, and access to alternative credit assessment tools that draw on transaction history rather than traditional credit scores.
In addition, the launch positions Truist among a growing number of US financial institutions building direct API frameworks in anticipation of wider Open Banking adoption. As the CFPB rule phases in requirements by institution size over the following years, direct integrations such as this are likely to become a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator.
