UK Finance and Accenture release report, proposing next steps for open banking

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) final Open Banking implementation roadmap is due to end in early 2021, with the banking and finance industry then required to keep the Open Banking function running. The new report sets out how the transition could be achieved and proposes that at the end of the current roadmap, the Open Banking functions are maintained and moved into a service company that is governed and funded by the banking and finance industry in an equitable way. According to MondoVisione, the goal of the next phase is to maintain what has been achieved and extend further in the future.

The report recommends that the service company board should consist of a mix of independent and industry experts with customer experience. It also suggests that the monitoring of the original CMA Order on the CMA9 remains separate from the service company, to enable the service company to adapt to future mandates subject to the promotion of competition.

Open Banking is a secure way to share financial information across multiple providers and is used in products such as account aggregation, where customers who have accounts across multiple banks can see all their account information in one place. The banking and finance industry has invested an estimated EUR 1.6 billion in infrastructure since the launch of Open Banking in 2016 by nine banks, known as the CMA91, and Payments UK, which is now part of UK Finance.