Confidence in service providers critical to Open Banking adoption

The majority of consumers would prefer their main bank, as opposed to other banks or third-party providers (TPPs), to be their primary source of Open Banking services, a new pan-European study from Mobey Forum and Aite Group has revealed.

The report, entitled ‘Open Banking: Open Minds? Consumer appetites for open banking services’, draws on a survey of over 1000 consumers in Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. It highlights the opportunity for banks to create new Open Banking services and emphasises that the window during which consumers are hesitant to share account data with other banks and TPPs will close as the category quickly evolves.  

Despite Open Banking’s infancy, the study reveals that already approximately one third of consumers are either ‘very interested’ or ‘extremely interested’ in five Open Banking enabled use-cases: account information services (32%), pay by bank (33%), purchase financing (25%), product comparison (35%), and identity check (35%). 

Security and privacy, however, are cited as the main factors inhibiting adoption among those consumers expressing concerns. The report contends that banks should pay strong attention to these differentiating factors when launching Open Banking services, as competition for consumer trust increases.

The report also explores under which circumstances consumers might be willing to deprioritise trust and, instead, favour convenience and usability. When questioned over their willingness to adopt a new payment method, for example, 91% respondents indicated that they could be tempted to switch either by financial incentives or the promise of greater convenience.

Open Banking: Open Minds? Consumer appetites for open banking services provides banks and other financial services stakeholders with a market view on consumer appetites toward new Open Banking services and explores the possible roadblocks to consumer adoption.