Yapily has ranked 18 European countries on a 10-point scale according to the maturity of open banking in each market. The league table is based on criteria including local regulatory oversight and enforcement, digital readiness of the population, domestic payments infrastructure, bank integrations, presence of third party providers (TPPs), and API performance and standardisation.

There are now 6 million active users and Open Banking payments are growing 500% YoY, according to the latest statistics from the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE), cited by Business Leader. The UK also holds the highest number of registered third party providers in Europe, helping to boost the development of its Open Banking ecosystem.

Challenges ahead for Open Banking growth

As ecosystem continues to evolve, better collaboration between banks, governments, regulators, and TPPs at the local and EU level is needed to address a lack of standardisation and inconsistent levels of regulatory oversight and enforcement.

Yapily officials indicated the league table shows that Europe is making significant strides in Open Banking, but all parties involved must continue to build on this evolution. The industry is on the brink of ‘a financial revolution that will help to create better and more accessible financial services for everyone’. 

Whilst the ecosystem as a whole is moving in the right direction, discrepancies across EU member states could slow the rate of progress. Although the European Commission has proposed to implement an open finance framework by 2024, member states that are still behind in Open Banking could face a number of interoperability challenges, exacerbating the fragmentation that already exists, Yapily officials continued to explain.