Open Banking promises an exciting future. It can revolutionise financial services for Europe’s 540 million banking customers. 

The vision of providing customers more control over their data, increasing competition and driving innovation is compelling. There is a real opportunity to revolutionise Financial Services for the common good.

However, as a CTO and developer working in this space, this vision looks a long way off.

There is Plenty of Investment and Effort

Having witnessed first hand the funding and effort some banks are putting into PSD2, I am satisfied that there is a desire among many banks to create the enabling APIs, developer experiences and infrastructure to support an Open Banking future.

Indeed many banks see Open Banking as an opportunity to steal a march on less forward thinking rivals.

What is Going Wrong?

From my experience as a developer this year, countries, regulators and banks are competing rather than co-operating.

Suppliers, like vultures, are circling the chaos hoping for rich pickings.

Developers are mainly out of the loop waiting for the dust to settle to allow them to build tomorrow’s innovation.

Customer confusion and fear surrounds Open Banking and they are not yet seeing the benefits of adoption.

This silo thinking, at worse, will destroy Open Banking and at best, slow it down to a crawl.

Open Banking Is A Movement Not A Business Plan

Like Open Source, Open Banking is a movement. It is controlled by no-one and is open to everyone.

Working together for a common good is what makes Open Source work. The same rules must apply for Open Banking.

What Can Be Done?

In short, the silo thinking needs to stop.

Countries, regulators, banks, suppliers and developers all need to get onto the same page.

Everyone needs to work together to build solutions customers will love and trust. It’s that simple.

In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have setup the CMA9 to drive forward Open Banking standards and ensure all 9 large UK banks align. Thankfully developers and Fintechs haven’t been left behind and they are actively involved in the process.

This work is very promising and can act as a catalyst for the rest of Europe. However, on its own, it is yet another example of silo thinking at the country level.

European regulators and banks need to quickly utilise the learning from the UK’s CMA9 and other great examples of European cross bank collaboration. They need to nurture the positive momentum these examples create and spread the love quickly.

Playing My Part

For my part, I have setup a LinkedIn Group - Open Banking Developers Europe to help developers to connect with banks, regulators and suppliers and ensure their views are heard.